EASC Newsletter: January 2003 EASC Newsletter: January 2003EASC Forms New Tie with School of Journalism
As part of the undergraduate initiative underwritten by the Freeman Foundation, EASC has developed a relationship with the School of Journalism. Specifically, EASC is funding new East Asia-related course development and sponsoring visits to the School of Journalism by scholars and established journalists.
Anthony Kuhn, LA Times Beijing correspondent and the first visiting journalist to come to campus, visited Indiana University September 30 to October 8, 2002. Mr. Kuhn has lived in China for the past decade and covered a wide range of stories, dealing with everything from Tibet to economic reform, the plight of Muslims in China to the growing influence of the Internet, Falun Gong to international summits. He has worked for several media outlets, with his reports appearing in publications such as U.S. News and World Report and the Far Eastern Economic Review. In addition to his work as a print journalist, he also regularly contributes stories to National Public Radio.
While at Indiana University, Mr. Kuhn visited classes in the Schools of Business and Journalism, guest-lectured in Professor Soek-fang Sim's course "Media, Nation and Identity in Asia and the West" and was the keynote speaker for a roundtable discussion, "Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press in Authoritarian States," which was presented by the Indiana University East Asian Studies Center, School of Journalism, School of Law, International Law Society, REEI, the Center for the Study of Global Change, and the Center for the Study Democracy.
Jeff Wasserstrom, the Director of the East
Asian Studies Center, thought Kuhn's visit was a great success. "The
collaboration between EASC and the School of Journalism has gotten off to
a great start with Anthony Kuhn's visit," Wasserstrom explains. "His
visit accomplished everything we had hoped that the program with the Journalism
School would accomplish. Not only did his talks to journalism students go
over extremely well, but he also made thoughtful and effective presentations
to an array of other groups, ranging from retirees to grade school kids.
No matter what the venue, his talks always combined -- as we hoped they
would -- interesting insights on current events in China and anecdotes drawn
from his own personal experiences."
This spring another journalist will spend
time on the Bloomington campus. Because Kuhn has been involved mainly with
print media and radio, coordinators would like the next visiting journalist
in the series to be someone involved in television. Wasserstrom states,
"We have invited a very fine CNN reporter to come in March, and she
has tentatively agreed to do so, but there is always the chance that crises
in the region will prevent her from being able to come at that time."
Check the EASC website for more information about future visiting journalists.
The second part of the collaboration between EASC and the School of Journalism centers on development of courses that will have more East Asian content. With the support of EASC, journalism professor Steve Raymer is taking time to redesign his J414 "International News Gathering Systems" course to include 40 percent East Asia-related content. The course, which is taught every semester, will be offered in its new form in either the Spring or Fall of 2004. Raymer states, "J414 covers the organization, problems, issues, etc. of the global news media. Every instructor draws upon his or her background as a scholar -- or in my case as a journalist -- for a theme and case studies. I draw heavily upon Russia, where I worked as the National Geographic correspondent for five and a half years, and Asia, where I worked much of my professional life." Recently, he has felt the need to look more at East Asia when developing his thoughts for this course. He explains, "All three of the major media models are presented in Asia -- Western-democratic, authoritarian, and developmental. So Asia, especially East Asia, is fertile ground for case studies. Moreover, the Chinese news media is evolving rapidly from a Communist model, which we only teach today as a historic relic, into a hybrid that incorporates ideas from all three basic models -- Western-democratic, authoritarian, and developmental. So again, China illustrates many important points that I cover in the class. Beyond this, however, I think we have to deal with China's numbers, its growing influence -- political and economic -- and its potential to provide an alternative media model for other Asian nations."
Professor Raymer has extensive experience in Asia. Of the 30-plus stories he did as a National Geographic staff photographer between 1972 and 1995, at least half took him to Asia. Since leaving National Geographic to join the IU faculty, he has done books about Vietnam (Land of the Ascending Dragon: Rediscovering Vietnam, 1997) and Islam in SE Asia (Living Faith: Inside the Muslim World of Southeast Asia, 2001.) He has been a frequent lecturer at universities in SE Asia for the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. State Department, and he has done a number of freelance photo assignments in recent years in Asia for Time magazine, The Washington Post, GEO, and others. Because he has worked in every country of Asia except China, he is looking forward to using EASC support to make study in China a reality.
While Professor Raymer has included China in this course consistently in the past he is planning to focus more on China. "China already accounts for at least 25 percent of the course when you include case studies. In my case, what I know about the Chinese media I have learned from experts or books. I have no first-hand experience outside of dozens of working trips to Hong Kong. So the East Asian Studies Center is helping me obtain better first-hand knowledge of the Chinese news media while I am in China in the summer and fall on sabbatical.
J414 draws students from the School of Journalism, Russian and East European Institute, SPEA, and the Kelley School of Business. It is considered a "research elective," but there is an emphasis on studying how things are, how they got to be the way they are, and what we can expect in the future. "Since most I.U. students have a limited understanding of Asia, its history, various cultures, impact on the world economy, etc…, one of my goals is that students come to grips with how important Asia, especially China, will be during their careers in the mass media."
Both of these programs will contribute greatly to the understanding of East Asia and its import to world news media.
Japanese Rare Books in the Library of Congress
Sumie Jones, Professor of EALC, Comparative Literature, and Film Studies and Adjunct Professor of Communication and Culture announces the completion of a long-awaited catalogue, Japanese Rare Books in the Library of Congress, which will be published on February 28, 2003, by Yagi Book Store Co. Ltd. The catalogue is the result of a four-year, collaborative project by Jones, Kenji Watanabe (Rikkyo University), Osamu Kigoshi (Kanazawa University), Natsuo Ichiko (Ochanomizu University), Takashi Ibi (Seikei University), Kazuaki Komine (Rikkyo University), and Taizo Sawai (Aichi University). Over 4800 items were catalogued for this 600-page volume. A panel featuring this project, "Collecting Books, Accumulating Knowledge: Early Japanese Books and Manuscripts in the Library of Congress," will be presented at the upcoming meeting of the Association for Asian Studies which will be held in New York in March 2003. The panel will consist of papers on materials the team found in the Library of Congress.
EASC EVENTS
EASC Explores New Outreach Opportunities
EASC continues to grow and to expand its outreach programming. This spring, several new programs will get underway.
TEACHING ABOUT EAST ASIA THROUGH MUSIC
Following in the footsteps of EASC's successful summer Teaching
East Asian Literature in the High School Workshop, EASC is in the
beginning stages of planning a three-day workshop on East Asian music.
This workshop, which will target elementary school music teachers, is
expected to take place in summer 2003. Information and resources about
East Asian music appropriate for public schools is not readily available,
resulting in no instruction, or perhaps worse, misinformation, being taught.
The goal of this experience is for teachers to begin to understand the
basics of the musics of China, Japan and Korea, hear quality examples,
learn to identify resources for the classroom, have hands-on experience
with some East Asian instruments, and meet with other teachers who have
incorporated or are interested in teaching, East Asian music in their
classrooms. Tentative plans also include a concert of music from all three
cultures which will be open to the public.
DISTANCE LEARNING
The East Asian Studies Center at Indiana University began teaching two
pilot distance learning classes to Tell City in January 2003. These classes
are supported by a grant from the Freeman Foundation as well as contributions
from the recipient community. One course is a 15-week beginning Japanese
language class for high school students. The class, which meets twice a
week, is taught by Junko Dosaka, doctoral student in education who is certified
to teach Japanese in Indiana. Nine Tell City high school students are participating
in this credit class. The second class is a community enrichment Japanese
culture class which meets once a week for seven weeks. The class covers
various topics such as family, religion, art, and etiquette in Japan. This
class will be taught by EASC staff member, Susan Furukawa. Both of these
classes are geared toward a community which has a Japanese company in the
town and would like to increase its knowledge about Japan and its culture.
"The people of Tell City are really excited about these classes, so
the project has been a lot of fun to work on. We are looking forward to
using the model we have created for Tell City in other communities throughout
the state of Indiana," said Susan. This unique outreach program is
realized with the support of Vision Athena, which is part of Ameritech's
non-profit Corporation for Educational Communications.
CHINA FILM WEEKEND
In conjunction with China Century Entertainment, EASC will participate
in The NY Times Arts and Leisure Weekend from March 7 - 9, 2003. EASC will
screen three fascinating contemporary Chinese films. We hope you can join
us for one or all of the films.
March 7, 7pm, Woodburn Hall, Room 101, Indiana
University, Bloomington -- Postmen in the Mountains
March 8, 3 pm, Woodburn Hall, Room 101, Indiana University, Bloomington
-- Mulan
March 9, 7 pm, Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 122 S. Walnut St., Bloomington --
Silk Road
For more information call 1-800-441-EASC
Welcome EASC Faculty Hires!
A portion of the money from the Freeman Undergraduate
Initiative will be used to hire new faculty in the Schools of Education
and Business and the College of Arts and Sciences. While the search for
an East Asianist continues in the School of Business, EASC is proud to
announce two new hires.
Heidi Ross (Ph.D. Education, University of Michigan) comes to I.U. Bloomington from Colgate University, where she was an Assistant Professor in Educational Sciences, 1987 - 2002. Her research interests focus on education in East Asia, Chinese secondary schools, gender and education and the formation of social capital. She has lived in both Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, and spent a year teaching at Indiana University from 1986 to 1987. She has published two books: China Learns English (Yale University Press, 1993) and The Ethnographic Eye: Interpretive Studies of Education in China which she co-edited with Judith Liu and Donald Kelly (Garland Publishing, 1999). During the 2003-2004 academic year, she will teach one section of H340: Education & American Culture (a course required for most teacher education students), into which she plans to incorporate some perspectives on East Asian education. She will also teach H551: Comparative Education II (Issues in Comparative Education).
Ethan Michelson has been selected as the newest addition to the Sociology and East Asian Languages and Cultures departments. Michelson is a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Chicago whose research focuses on using the case of law and legal professionalization in China to inform theories of state-society relations, political transitions, social movements, and collective action. Specifically, he has been looking at the profession of law in China and how it has failed to promote fundamental social and political change. His book Lawyer Bao: Law and Morality in Contemporary China (Berkeley: University of California Press) is forthcoming. Jeff Wasserstrom, Director of the East Asian Studies Center, talks about the selection process, "Ethan Michelson is a scholar who, despite just recently finishing his doctorate, has already compiled an impressive publication record and has enormous potential. We had an excellent pool of candidates for our East Asia/Social Science search -- close to 150 applicants from five or six different disciplines -- and all of the departments involved were very supportive of the undertaking. In the end, it was extremely difficult to come up with a short list, as there were at least a dozen applicants who had both impressive records and would have added new dimensions to our programs. It was a tough choice, but the final decision definitely feels like a very good one."
Next year, Ethan will be teaching two courses
with East Asian content: "Contemporary Chinese Society" and
"Work and Occupations."
East Asian Film Series Spring Schedule Set
The films for the spring East Asian Film Series,
sponsored by the East Asian Studies Center, bring together a mixture of
films from Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Japan, and
Korea in a diverse spring line-up. This semester's films focus on branching
out into film styles that depart from the traditional understanding of the
motion picture. A Wind Named Amnesia is a classic anime film
from the early nineties that exposes us to an apocalyptic vision of the
future. Joint Security Area is a film focusing on the tension that
remains between North and South Korea. Constantly challenging political
standards in the South, this film was a huge success among South Korean
audiences who were eager to see the division in a new light. Finally, The
City of Lost Souls is the most accessible of the films of Takashi Miike,
who is known throughout Japan and the world for his controversial films
about hidden aspects of Japanese culture.
The film series schedule is as follows:
January 25: Rouge. Hong Kong, 1987, Dir. Stanley Kwan. **This
film will be shown in Jordan Hall A100, all other films will take place
in Woodburn Hall 101.
February 1: Take Care of My Cat. Korea, 2001, Dir. Jae-Eun Jeong.
February 15: A Wind Named Amnesia. Japan, 1993, Dir. Kazuo Yamazaki.
February 22: Breaking the Silence. China, 1999, Dir. Sun Zhou.
March 8: City of Lost Souls Japan, 2000, Dir. Takashi Miike.
April 5: Joint Security Area. Korea, 2000, Dir. Chan-Wook Park
April 19: The Puppetmaster. Taiwan,
1993, Dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou.
All films are shown on Saturday evening at 7:30pm in Woodburn Hall 101, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. They are free and open to the public, but are not intended for a young audience. A brief analytical introduction given by a film studies student from the Department of Communication and Culture will precede each film. For questions regarding the Fall 2002 Film Series, contact Jeff Payne at jespayne@indiana.edu.
Spring 2003 East Asian Colloquium Series
After a successful Fall Colloquium Series, EASC is proud to present the spring schedule. The spring series began on January 24th with Ruth Rogaski, a historian from Princeton University, who gave a thought-provoking lecture titled "Bruce Lee and the Evil Japanese Doctor: Medicine and Constructions of Chinese Nationalism." The following week, I.U. Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture, Soek-fang Sim, will give a talk entitled, "Not the End of History: Asian Values and the Re-amalgamation of Authoritarianism with Late-Capitalism." Visiting scholar to the Political Science Department, Jinsong Jiang, will speak on February 14th about "China's National People's Congress: How Its Deputies View Their Mandate." In March, Indiana University alum Anne Soon Choi, who currently teaches at DePauw University, will present part of her dissertation in her lecture "The Unofficial Ambassadors: The Sindo Haksaeng (Newly Arrived Students) and the Korean Independence Movement, 1919-1941." Jay Rubin, Harvard University, will speak about famous modern Japanese author Haruki Murakami on April 4th in a lecture titled "How NOT to Write a Book on Haruki Murakami." The final lecture of the year will be given by Jan Nattier, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor of EALC. The title of her lecture is "'Three Disasters and Four Opportunities': On Interpreting Early Chinese Buddhist Translations." As always, you can learn more about upcoming lectures and listen to past ones on the EASC website at: http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/eaq/.
By Indiana University Faculty (and Friends)
Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, ed.
(Routledge, 2003)
In his new book, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Associate Professor of History and Director of the East Asian Studies Center at Indiana University, shows why he is considered an expert on twentieth century Chinese History. Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches, which Wasserstrom edited, exposes readers to a revisionist approach to twentieth century Chinese history.
The book covers various periods of the twentieth century, including the Republican Period, the Chinese Revolution, Cultural Revolution, and the Post-Reform Era. The contributors to this book look at diverse issues, ranging from feminism in the communist regime to the language used by Red Guards and rebel workers in the Cultural Revolution. This collection of works provides new insight into how China's focus on the average person, whether that be a worker, a journalist, or a member of the Red Guard in order to function during those periods in history.
Wasserstrom faced a difficult task when developing
this interdisciplinary approach to the study of China in the twentieth century.
This work relies on methods and theories used in anthropology, sociology, political
science, history, and other disciplines. Few books by authors incorporate disciplines
outside what is familiar, but Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches
does just that. Wasserstrom ends the work by asking what the future of China
is now that it has the legacy of the Communist and Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen
Square, and market reform. Equally interesting for someone new to the study
of China or for the experienced Sinologist, Twentieth-Century China: New
Approaches is a new flavor in China Studies. Reviewed by Jeff Payne.
Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan
E. Taylor Atkins
(Duke University Press, 2001)
Taylor Atkins, Assistant Professor of History at Northern Illinois University, and a Colloquium series speaker last fall, is the author of Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan. Although Atkins is a historian, this book is not simply a history of jazz in Japan, but also a very readable record of the social and cultural implications of the introduction of this musical form into Japan. Beginning with the first jazz performances and recordings imported into Japan, the book chronicles the history and culture of jazz through the beginning of the 21st century. It covers not only the activities of both Japanese and foreign jazz artists in Japan but also includes discussion on the use of Japanese musical traits and instruments in this art form. The extensive bibliography and discography are of use to jazz aficionados as well as academics.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this book is Atkins' willingness to tackle the question of authenticity. Is jazz more authentic if it is performed by African-American musicians rather than Japanese or even white artists? Is the social and cultural suffering of a group pertinent to their ability to play authentic jazz? Can Japanese musical traits and instruments be incorporated into jazz to create a uniquely "Japanese" and yet "authentic" jazz? Have the Japanese preferred certain types of jazz over others because of their perception that those types are more "authentic"? How has the media influenced jazz consumption in Japan? What are the consequences of their authenticity judgments? These are all questions which impinge on the history of jazz in Japan, and Atkins has rightly considered them in this volume.
The history of the import of jazz into Japan,
the opening of jazz cafes, and the various types of performance venues and the
people associated with all of these is relevant not only to historians but also
anthropologists and others concerned with social institutions in Japan. Blue
Nippon is a good resource for all of them. Reviewed by Anne Prescott.
PROFILES
Popular media has changed Soek-Fang Sim's life. Sim, who is teaching at Indiana University for a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture, explains, "One day I saw a headline in a Chinese newspaper in Singapore that really puzzled me. It said, 'The Party has won the people's minds, but not their hearts.'" The more she thought about this headline and what it meant, the more she began to experience a shift in how she viewed democracy, media and political ideology. At the time, Sim was working as a civil servant at the Ministry of Information in Singapore, a job she took right out of college. She had always known that she did not want to work for a private company, and since she had been quite active in student leadership as an undergraduate, she thought that the government job would be a good match. Her job was to aid the Singaporean government in what she terms "psychological defense," teaching people to have hope in the party and in the future of the nation in an attempt to reinforce soft-authoritarianism. While she found the work to be distasteful, she was intrigued by the way that the government strove to win the hearts of the people and make them more patriotic.
The Swire-Cathay Pacific Inter-Asia Ph.D. scholarship that she received in 1996 enabled her to think about this issue in an academic setting. Living and studying in the United Kingdom allowed her to see a different model of government first-hand and to think about this problem from a different perspective. After completing her Ph.D. in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London, with a dissertation titled, "Asian Values and Asian Democracy: the Legitimization of State Authority and the De-legitimization of Dissent in Citizen Discourse in Singapore in the Late 1990's," Sim moved to the United States and began to teach U.S. students about media and government.
"One of the most pervasive illusions that many American have is that the West is democratic and the rest of the world isn't," she said when asked to explain the biggest challenges she faces when teaching students in the U.S. "I grew up watching a government that was popular but authoritative and realized that things are not always black and white. I've seen many different kinds of governments work, but the U.S. media doesn't talk about successful socialism."
She challenges students to be critical of their own country, telling them, "It's easy to criticize other countries, but have you been truly critical of your own?" Students commonly respond by saying that there is nothing to criticize about democracy. "They don't understand that democracy is an ideal state that hasn't been attained yet. I try to get them to think about how the United States can be more democratic, but in their minds, the United States is the best model." Discussion of true democracy often leads to discussion of the media for Sim who thinks that popular media challenges our independence by only showing us a small part of any given story. "The media isn't transparent," she explains, "and in effect it takes away our freedom." Sim is driven by a desire to be an advocate of democracy, especially in Asia. For her, the best way to do that is to teach students that they can impact democracy in the world by improving the democracy they have here.
In the fall, she taught Nationalism and
National Identity in Asia and the West. This semester, she is teaching,
"Media, Market and Democracy. Eventually Soek-Fang Sim would like
to combine her interests and research into a multi-volume set called the
Art of Government.
Finding a New Voice
It took her awhile, but Yanling Gong has found her voice. As a student growing up in China, Yanling, who is a Visiting Scholar and Fulbright Fellow at Indiana University this year, was shy and spoke so softly that her voice would not even carry to the person at the desk next to hers.
One of three daughters, she saw gender inequality first-hand. "My mother was looked down upon because she only had girls," she explained, "and any boy, no matter how bad his grades, had hope of getting a better job than even the smartest girl." Yanling always knew that she was lucky, though, because her parents provided her with the same educational resources they would have given a son.
In high school she was a very good student, with the potential, even, to go to Beijing University. But the events at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 changed everything. Beijing University decreased the number of students it would accept, and Yanling decided to go to Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) instead. She laughs, "At that time the only information available about universities was a special newspaper issue about college enrollment. It was four small pages and listed the name of the university, the departments and how many students were enrolled, so I couldn't make a very 'informed' decision." As an undergraduate, she studied English for library and information science. She was selected to go to Hawaii to study for her M.A. degree, but fate took another turn when the program was cancelled suddenly. Instead of going to Hawaii, she stayed at Beijing Foreign Studies University and finished her M.A.
The timing could not have been better. Yanling began her M.A. studies in 1993, just two years before the Fourth World Women's Conference, which was held in Beijing. In preparation for this conference women who were interested in gender issues and planning to participate in the conference gathered for workshops and seminars. Yanling became a member of the China-Canada Young Women's Project (CCYWP), which was started by a law student at Beijing University and a political science student at the University of British Columbia. At the first meeting she attended, everyone was expected to introduce herself to the other members in the group. It took Yanling three tries to speak loud enough to be heard by everyone sitting in the circle around her. "It was the first time that the people around me didn't let me get by without being heard. They would not move on until my voice was heard." Soon Yanling found herself being challenged to speak in public, both to the women in the CCYWP as well as to people who came to hear lectures she was asked to give. As the women discussed their concerns about gender in China and the world, Yanling began to find her voice intellectually as well. She became the keynote speaker for the forum, "Young Women in China" at the Women's Conference.
Since 1996, Yanling has been teaching English at Beijing Foreign Studies University. "Being a teacher gives me a platform from which to challenge students to think about various issues including gender," explains Yanling. While in her case, studying English and foreign culture opened the door to many new opportunities and challenged her to view the world around her from a different perspective, she acknowledges that sometimes the issues she discusses in class are viewed as "foreign" and therefore somehow less relevant or important.
She continues in her efforts both inside
and outside the classroom. She has recently done work translating books
from English into Chinese for the Gender Resources Group. In many cases,
she not only translates the books, but she also adds China-specific examples
which will help readers better identify with issues discussed in them.
She has worked on A Guide to Gender-Analysis Framework and Global
Change, Local Action: Rights for Women and Girls, books which will
allow other Chinese women to have the knowledge and resources with which
to think about issues of gender on their own. Developing gender awareness
is a volunteer activity she does on top of her work as a teacher at BFSU
and as a teacher in the Intensive English Training Program, a special
four-month program for vice-ministers from 13 Ministries in China, supervised
by Vice-premier Li Lanqing and the Ministry of Education in China. "Sometimes
trying to develop gender awareness can be frustrating because the funding
only lasts a short time, and most people believe that China is already
equal in terms of gender. When I remember that this is a lifelong process,
though, I can find the patience to persevere."
During the year that she is at Indiana University, Yanling is taking gender-related courses and studying how university students in the United States think and talk about issues of gender. "I want compare U.S. students' and Chinese students' views on issues of gender. I think that looking at the development of gender awareness in the U.S. will give me a better understanding of how it will develop in China."
Andra Alvis (EALC) finished a book project
this summer, provisionally entitled Domestic Objects: Family and Fantasy
in the Autobiographical Texts of Yasuoka Shôtarô. On December
7, she gave a paper for the Midwest Japan Seminar at the College of DuPage,
Downers Grove, IL on the topic: "Nyû Hâfu as Other in
Uchida Shungiku's Me o tojite daite."
Eugene Eoyang (CMLT & EALC) recently
published "Bada Shanren: Traditional Iconoclast and Riddler of the Past,"
in Recent Perspectives on European Romanticism, volume 158 of Mellen
Studies in Literature/Romantic Reassessment, published by The Edward Mellen
Press, 2002, pp.169-191. He also published, "'When I find myself, what
will I find, and who did the looking?': Intercultural Perspectives on the Self,"
in: The 'I' of the Beholder: A Prolegomena to the Intercultural Study of
the Self (Brigham Young University Press, 2002), pp. 55-73. He participated
as an outside consultant in a two-day seminar "Literature and Literary
History in Global Contexts: A Comparative Project" sponsored by the Swedish
Research Council and held at University of Stockholm on December 16th and 17th.
Sumie Jones (CMLT & EALC) received a Trustees Teaching Award for 2001-02. She and Thomas Keirstead were jointly awarded EASC's Professional Development grant to design a course on Management and Japanese Popular Culture in the LAMP program. An EALC version is expected to grow out of this course. She acted as one of the co-editors of Beikoku Gikai Toshokan Nihon Kotenseki Mokuroku (Japanese Rare Books in the Library of Congress), to be published by Yagi Shoten, Tokyo, February 2003. On February 25, 2002, Sumie gave a lecture, "Ghosts and Monsters in Edo Arts," as part of series of lectures for Japan House, Foster-Harper. In April, together with Timon Screech of the University of London, she presented a colloquium lecture at Indiana University (Sponsored by History of Art, Comparative Literature, Communication and Culture, EALC, and EASC). The title of the lecture was "Consuming Male Love: Readership, Spectatorship, and the Market of Male Homoerotic Literature and Arts in Early Modern Japan." Sumie spoke on "To Whom Male Love Manuals Spoke?" and Screech on, "Uses and Abuses of Actor Portraits." Also in April, Jones organized "Border-Crossings: Gender and Sexuality in the Arts," at Indiana University,(Sponsored by Communication and Culture, Comparative Literature, EALC, English, Gender Studies, and Kinsey Institute). On July 17, 2002, she was a commentator for the symposium on "Environment and Japanese Culture," Rikkyo University, Tokyo. See the Spotlight section of the newsletter to learn about another project that Sumie has recently completed.
Heejoon Kang (BUS) delivered a lecture, "cointegration:
theory and application," at Seoul National University on November 28, as
an invited speaker of the year, sponsored by the Seoul Journal of Economics.
Gregory Kasza (EALC & Politics) has recently published several articles related to his ongoing project, Japanese Politics in Comparative Perspective. They are: "Japan's Kakushin Right in Comparative Perspective," in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, ed., Fascism Outside Europe; "The Illusion of Welfare 'Regimes," Journal of Social Policy (April 2002), and "War and Welfare Policy in Japan," Journal of Asian Studies (May 2002).
Scott Kennedy's (EALC), "The Price of Competition: Pricing Policies and the Struggle to Define China's Economic System," China Journal, No. 49 will be published this month. He also edited China Cross Talk: The American Debate Over China Policy Since Normalization, A Reader (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), an anthology of the American debate over China policy since 1978.
Yoshihisa Kitagawa (Linguistics) presented
a paper entitled "Default prosody explains the neglected syntactic analyses
in Japanese" (co-authored with Janet Dean Fodor) at the Twelfth Japanese/Korean
Linguistics Conference in NYC on November 2, 2002.
Jan Nattier (REL & EALC) gave a talk "Laity and Monastic Buddhists in Early Mahayana Texts: Chinese Evidence for the Institutional Matrix of the Mahayana in India," at the Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum, October 2002. She presented "How to Do Things with Translations: Methodological Remarks on Working with Early Chinese Buddhist Texts," at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting (Buddhism Section), Toronto, November 2002. In December, she was in Bangkok presenting "A Lexicon of the Buddhist Translation Vocabulary of Zhi Qian: A Preliminary Report," at the International Association of Buddhist Studies meeting. Professor Nattier has been awarded an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Fellowship for 2003-2004, to work on the lexicon of Zhi Qian's translation vocabulary
Richard Rubinger (EALC) has been invited
by the University of Paris to give a series of three lectures there in May,
2003. His chapter on Meiji education will be part of the revised edition of
Sources of Japanese Tradition, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary when it
comes out in 2003.
Natsuko Tsujimura (EALC & Linguistics)
presented a paper entitled "Event Cancellation and Telicity" at the
12th Japanese/Korean Linguistic Conference held at the City University of New
York on November 1-3. She was invited by Professor Daniel Dinnsen of Linguistics
and Professor Judith Gierut of Speech and Hearing Science to give a talk on
her acquisition research as a part of their NIDCD Learnability Project at the
Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Indiana University on December 9.
The title of her talk was "How Do Children Approach Unconventional Words?:
A Case of Japanese Mimetics." She has begun to work with linguistics graduate
student, Sahoko Ichikawa, on a pedagogy project to develop drill materials for
the Japanese program. This project has been generously funded by EASC.
Jeff Wasserstrom (History & EALC) has recently written commentaries
for the newsletters of the American Historical Association and the Association
for Asian Studies. His "Teaching 'Globalization' Against the Grain"
appeared in the September 2002 issue of the AHA's Perspectives, while the viewpoint
essay in the December 2002 issue of the AAS Newsletter will be his "Would
Tocqueville Get Tenure?" An essay on "Recent Chinese Protests through
the Prism of Tiananmen" also came out in the January 2003 issue of the
Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. In November, Jeff took
a short trip to Hong Kong and Nanjing, delivering a lecture in the latter city
at the Hopkins Center, on the topics of "City Myths and Social Cleavages
in Old and New Shanghai."
Yasuko Ito Watt (EALC) used the ISS Active Learning Grant she received and, with the help of four Assistant Instructors, created crossword puzzles for learning kanji characters. Together with Junko Dosaka, Miyuki Fukai, Hideki Hamada and Michiko Oya, Watt gave a presentation about the process and problems of the project at the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association held in Indianapolis on November 9, 2002. She presented a paper, “What is the Impact of Experience in Japan?” with Professors Akiko Kakutani (Earlham College), and Noriko Iwasaki (UC Davis/University College London) at the 36th Annual Meeting of ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) in Salt Lake City, Utah, November 22-24, 2002. She also presented a paper, “Language Teaching through the Lens of Literary Criticism,” at the 118th Annual Convention of MLA (Modern Language Association) , New York City, December 27-30, 2002. She presented this paper with Stephen Yandel, English Department at Indiana University.
George Wilson will be teaching two courses
as Visiting Professor of History at the University of Kentucky in Spring 2003.
He will also be Visiting Fellow of the Asia Center at UK (directed by Kristin
Stapleton, EASC Research Associate). The two courses are a sophomore survey,
"East Asia Since 1800," and a senior seminar on the topic "The
A-Bomb and Japan in World War II."
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Benjamin Downy received a Kenneth Yasuda Award in EALC.
Todd Munson gave a talk entitled "The
Strange Case of Fisher v. Rickerby: Press, Scandal, and Satire in Treaty Port
Japan" on November 18, 2002 as part of the Institute of Asian Cultural
Studies' "Asian Forum" series, held at International Christian University
in Tokyo. Additionally, he published two short articles in the Encyclopedia
of Modern Asia (Edited by David Levinson), published by Scribners in November
of 2002.
Joanne Quimby passed her preliminary examinations
for a double Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Japanese Literature (EALC)
in December 2002.
Harue Tsutsumi's latest play, Ningen subete
Soseki no jitensha (Human Life is Like Soseki on His Bicycle) premiered
in Tokyo in November, 2002.
ALUMNI
Paul Manfredi, Assistant Professor of Chinese
in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Pacific Lutheran University,
announces the birth of his daughter Lucia Wei Manfredi ("luqi" in
Chinese) who was born Dec. 5, 2002 at 8:40 pm.