From Wallpaper* Magazine‘s facebook page on July 4, 2012:
Fancy yourself as the next W* travel intern? We’re urgently asking interested candidates to email CVs/cover letters to David at travel@wallpaper.com. Inquiries about the details of the job can be made there as well.
Wallpaper* Magazine is a design magazine that often covers Japan, so it may be a good fit for someone thinking of going into the travel industry. The headquarters are in London; distribution is international.
Institution: U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC)
Location: Washington, D.C.
Start date: August 27, 2012
Application deadline: August 1, 2012
Compensation: Unpaid. College credit is available.
The Congressional Study Groups of the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC) is seeking a highly qualified intern to provide support for FMC’s Congressional Study Groups on Germany, Turkey, Japan, and Europe—as well as the Diplomatic Advisory Council (DAC). The role of the Study Groups is to link Members of the U.S. Congress with legislators and leaders of other countries, and to provide opportunities for lawmakers from abroad to speak candidly with U.S. lawmakers about matters of mutual importance. The DAC is an informal body comprised of current Ambassadors serving in the nation’s capital. The purpose of the DAC is to encourage quality dialogue between ambassadors and current and former Members of Congress. We encourage you to browse our website to learn more.
Because the Association plans numerous high-profile events, applicants must be comfortable interacting with VIPs; be extremely motivated and responsible; and have an in-depth knowledge of internet research and MS Office programs (especially Excel and Access). Knowledge of German, Turkish or Japanese—and/or Capitol Hill and event planning experience—is a plus.
For full details and to apply, see posting on idealist.org.
University of Heidelberg, September 11-19, 2012)
DEADLINE 31 July 2012
Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’ at the University of Heidelberg, with the generous support of Japan Foundation and Toshiba International Foundation, invites students and junior researchers to submit applications for the international summer school “Reading Pre-modern Japanese Texts”, due to take place in Heidelberg, September 11th-19th, 2012. Please, consult the website for further information: http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=2305 The deadline for applications is July 31st, 2012!
SUMMER SCHOOL: “READING PRE-MODERN JAPANESE TEXTS”
September 11th-19th, 2012 Karl Jaspers Centre for Transcultural Studies, Voßstraße 2, Heidelberg, Germany
Covering the medieval and early modern periods, the summer school is designed to help the participants cope with the challenges posed by pre-modern Japanese texts, in their different genres, stylistic and linguistic varieties, and material forms. The aim is to facilitate the work with primary sources in pre-modern registers (like kanbun or sôrôbun) at the level requisite for the independent work of a junior scholar.
The programme offers a series of intensive seminar-style sessions of close reading of select texts (a downloadable reader will be provided in advance). Each session is prefaced by an introductory presentation by one of the lecturers on the assigned text and its historical and philological context. The sessions are spread over eight busy days which are divided evenly into two four-day blocks concentrating on the medieval and early-modern texts respectively.
We hope to attract an audience of advanced graduate students and postdoctoral researchers of all disciplinary backgrounds within Japanese studies. The language of the workshop is English and Japanese.
Organisers: Dr. Anna Andreeva & Dr. David Mervart
Lecturers: Prof. Kawashima Masao, Prof. Watanabe Hiroshi, Doc. Jan Sýkora, Dr. Matsumoto Ikuyo, Dr. Takayama Daiki
Hosted by: Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’ at the University of Heidelberg http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/
Sponsored by: Japan Foundation and Toshiba International Foundation
Contact: kanbunsummer@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de
Website: http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=2305
Deadline: September 1, 2012
http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/abe-fellowship/
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP), and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) announce the annual Abe Fellowship competition. The Abe Fellowship is designed to encourage international multidisciplinary research on topics of pressing global concern. The Abe Fellowship Program seeks to foster the development of a new generation of researchers who are interested in policy-relevant topics of long-range importance and who are willing to become key members of a bilateral and global research network built around such topics.
http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8616-9780824836382.aspx
Deborah Shamoon
University of Hawai’i Press
March 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3638-2; 978-0-8248-3542-2
Shojo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? Passionate Friendship answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls’ print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls’ literary magazines to the 1970s “revolution” shojo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girls’ literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies.
The author traces the development of girls’ culture in pre–World War II magazines and links it to postwar teenage girls’ comics and popular culture. Within this culture, as private and cloistered as the schools most readers attended, a discourse of girlhood arose that avoided heterosexual romance in favor of “S relationships,” passionate friendships between girls. This preference for homogeneity is echoed in the postwar genre of boys’ love manga written for girls. Both prewar S relationships and postwar boys’ love stories gave girls a protected space to develop and explore their identities and sexuality apart from the pressures of a patriarchal society. Shojo manga offered to a reading community of girls a place to share the difficulties of adolescence as well as an alternative to the image of girls purveyed by the media to boys and men.
Passionate Friendship’s close literary and visual analysis of modern Japanese girls’ culture will appeal to a wide range of readers, including scholars and students of Japanese studies, gender studies, and popular culture.
Chapters
1 The Emergence of the Shojo and the Discourse of Spiritual Love in Meiji Literature
2 Prewar Girls’ Culture (Shojo Bunka), 1910–1937
3 Narrative and Visual Aesthetics of Prewar Girls’ Magazines
4 The Formation of Postwar Shojo Manga, 1950–1969
5 The Revolution in 1970s Shojo Manga
See also the review of this book in The Japan Times.
San Diego, March 21-24, 2013
DEADLINE Aug. 2, 2012
The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is pleased to invite colleagues to submit proposals for the 2013 Annual Conference.
The Annual Conference will be held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, California, March 21-24, 2013
All proposals should be sent electronically through the AAS website.
Please make sure to review all instructions and guidelines carefully before submitting your proposals, including information regarding the new proposal submission system:
http://www.asian-studies.org/Conference/2013-Call-for-Papers.htm
The deadline for proposal submissions is Thursday, AUGUST 2, 2012.
Association for Asian Studies
825 Victors Way, Suite 310
Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA
Tel: (734) 665-2490
Fax: (734) 665-3801
http://www.asian-studies.org
Institution; Kenneth B. and Anne H.H. Pyle Center for Northeast Asian Studies Internships
Location; Washington, D.C., and Seattle, WA
Start date: July 30, 2012
Application deadline: July 27, 2012
Hours per week: 40
Compensation: Unpaid
Are you interested in international affairs and Asian studies? Would you like to be involved in programs that aim to enhance mutual understanding on issues of common concern, reduce mistrust, advance collaboration, and forge vital new networks among Northeast Asian and U.S. leaders? If so, apply for the Pyle Center Internship!
Position Description
The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) is seeking one to two unpaid, part- to full-time interns to join the Political and Security Affairs (PSA) group and work within the Kenneth B. and Anne H.H. Pyle Center for Northeast Asian Studies. Interns will focus primarily on two projects: a November conference on political leadership transitions in Northeast Asia and a delegation visit of rising Chinese leaders in business, politics, academia, and the media to the United States in December. This internship is mentored by two PSA project managers, and by project leaders in any given project.
Qualifications
Excellent written, oral, and research skills are required, as well as substantive expertise and interest in Northeast Asian cultures, politics, and contemporary U.S. foreign policy towards Northeast Asia. In addition, the intern should be a motivated self-starter who can work independently or as part of a team, pays acute attention to detail, is organized, and works well under pressure. Advanced Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or other Asian language skills are not required, but are a plus. U.S. citizenship or permanent residence status (by time of application deadline) is required.
See full posting and application details on idealist.org.
Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture, is famous for its kôgei (工芸), which can be translated as “traditional craft.” With the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, leading the way with the new exhibition Art Crafting Towards the Future (工芸未来派), it’s an exciting time to be in Kanazawa and to be part of the dialogue about the future of kôgei in Japan.
One of the artists in the exhibit is Kanazawa’s own Ohi Toshio, an 11th generation Ohi-yaki (大樋焼) potter. Ohi-san participated in TED x Seeds 2009, a series of independent TED talks hosted in Japan. The first half of the video features Ohi-san forming a chawan while scenes of Kanazawa, tea ceremony, and his workshops play on the screen; the second half is a lecture about Ohi-yaki and his philosophies about his craft.
There is an interactive transcript in basic English for those who do not speak Japanese or are unfamiliar with some of the art-related terms. Ohi-yaki is hand-made without the use of a potter’s wheel (ろくろ) and is a form of Raku ware; Ohi Toshio’s work is unique in that he travels the world, creating chawan out of clay from the American southwest, China, and Africa, and leading workshops to teach Ohi-yaki to local participants.
“TEDxSeeds – Toshio Ohi – Live performance of Japanese traditional art ‘OHI YAKI'”
Position Available: Receptionist/Librarian/Outreach
Institution: Japan Information Center, Consulate General of Japan
Location: Chicago, IL
Deadline: July 13 2012
Interviews begin July 16
Responsibilities:
Under the direct supervision of the Chief of the Japan Information Center
Receptionist tasks
-receive and greet visitors to Japan Information Center (JIC) and the JIC library and answer inquiries and telephone calls.
Librarian tasks at the JIC library
-lending service for books and electronic resources.
-monitor the selection of books and electronic resources and organize them.
-research topics of interest to JIC constituencies.
-send periodical publications of Japanese Government to concerned organizations in mail.
Outreach coordinator tasks
-schedule and organize school visits in the Mid West, especially the Chicago area, and introduce Japanese culture (Origami, Tea ceremony, Kendo, Kimono, Calligraphy etc.) to students who are from elementary to high school with demonstrations or power point presentations.
※ work with other JIC staff members who are able to give such demonstrations.
General office responsibilities including attending events organized by the JIC and other related organizations and helping other staff members’ tasks if needed.
Qualifications:
US citizen or permanent residency holder ( working permit holder)
Those majoring in Japanese studies, Japanese language, international studies or related areas will be highly desirable.
Excellent communications skills
Strong computer skills (database knowledge is preferred)
Languages:
English and Japanese are the working languages in the Japan Information Center.
Fluency in oral and written English is required. Fluency in oral and written Japanese is highly desirable.
Please submit a resume and cover letter by July 13, 2012 to:
Consulate General of Japan
Japan Information Center
Attn: Ms. Sakae Mizukami
737 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1000
Chicago, IL 60611
The interview session will be held from July 16.
If you have any inquiries, please send an email to jicsaiyo@gmail.com. We won’t accept any inquiries via phone call.
http://www.chicago.us.emb-japan.go.jp/About/news/jicjobopening.html
October 26th, 2012
Critical Frameworks of Transmission in Japan and East Asia
Transmission:
a) the mechanism by which power is constituted and mobilized;
b) the movement of concepts, materials, and bodies; c) that which constitutes the most basic interactivity between people.
This conference seeks to engage the productive sites of inquiry within processes of transmission. What does it mean for something to be transmitted? In the modern period, it is through transmission that semiotic languages of nation, empire, technology, and cosmopolitanism come into being and change. In the premodern period, transmission offers a useful lens for examining genealogies of public and private knowledge, writing and pedagogical practices, and the legitimations of dynastic authority. In both cases, we seek to investigate how identities are created and defined within a spectrum of localuniversal, civilized-barbarian, colonized-colonizer, and so on. Submissions for this conference might engage the circulation and dissemination of material goods, texts, and bodies, the building and curating of archives (private, national, spatial, alternative), and the ways that transmission as an interactive connection between people is always incomplete.
‘Transmission’ indicates the process of addressing objects of study across academic disciplines, yet transmission as a process negotiating voice requires that we think of documents and concepts that span spatial and temporal change. Recent moves in scholarship to better account for agency and subjectivity, inhabited spatiality, and divergent temporalities, all underscore the presence of transmission. In this sense, academic work depends on lineages of knowledge that are in a continuous state of historical reception and structural dissonance. Placing issues related to Japan as a point of departure, we invite current graduate students across East Asia area studies to share their work and engage with a larger ‘undisciplined’ cohort and bring your research and ideas to bear on this burgeoning investigation.
Please send paper proposals of 250 words or less to kenneth.shima@ucla.edu by July 30th, 2012. Please include a titles, your name and affiliation, and a description of your project. Presentations will be in 15-20 minutes in length and grouped in panels of 3-4.
What can I do with a B.A. in Japanese Studies? 