Japan
Professor Fabian Drixler, Department of History, Yale University, delivers a public lecture at the Yale University Art Gallery, titled Globalization Comes to Japan: Curiosity and Suspicion in Age of the Columbian Exchange and the Counter-Reformation. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Japan’s Global Baroque, 1550–1650. Reception to follow. Asian Art Galleries and the Japan’s Global Baroque: 1550-1650 exhibition will remain open until 8:30 P.M. Workshop information is available here...
The Nanban moment in Japan’s sixteenth century and its global implications at the threshold of the early modern In the latter half of the sixteenth century an extraordinarily multi-faceted and imaginative visual and material culture emerged in Japan in the wake of an acute escalation in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and English political and mercantile interaction. An important category of this culture is typically named “Nanban” (a name for foreigners coming across Japan’s southern seas, and specifically the Iberians). With this workshop we begin a...
Shisha no sho (The Book of the Dead), completed in 1943 by Orikuchi Shinobu, is a modern Japanese classic that has inspired many adaptations, including an animated film and a manga. Inspired by the ancient Egyptian tale of Isis and Osiris, the novel is a sweeping, gothic tale about a strange affair between an inquisitive noblewoman and a ghost in the eighth century. Not only is the story unforgettable, the book is also a remarkable artifact, produced in the midst of the fervent nationalism and intense censorship of World War II. In this talk, Angles will untangle the novel’s complex history,...
Hidejiro Honjoh, an acclaimed young Shamisen (Japanese traditional three-stringed lute) artist, is coming to the United States as a cultural envoy for 2018 appointed by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese Government. He will play both traditional and contemporary Japanese music with his fellow Akihito Obama who is also a rising young artist of Shakuhachi (Japanese traditional vertical bamboo flute). This event is free of charge and no reservation required.
Directed by Raman Hui, 118 mins Dream Sky Entertainment et al., China DCP, Subtitled in English Despite its unorthodox visual effects, which blend live-action martial artists together with digitally rendered creatures from the “monster realm,” Monster Hunt swiftly became the highest-grossing film in China during the year of its release. Before relocating to China to direct this fantastical action-comedy, Hong Kong native Raman Hui served as supervising animator and co-director on a number of projects at DreamWorks, including the Shrek series. Nearly 70% of Monster Hunt had to be reshot after...
The Ainu are a people that formerly lived on Hokkaidō, northern Honshū, the Kuriles and the southern part of Sakhalin. Nowadays, they are mainly living on Hokkaidō. From the 17th century on, the Ainu had strong trade relations with Japan, causing them to be dependent on the trading goods offered by Japanese merchants. With the beginning of the Meiji era (1868-1912), the Japanese government made great efforts to establish Hokkaidō and the Kuriles as part of the Japanese Empire. The Ainu in those areas were treated as Japanese citizens, and they were forced to abandon their traditional culture...
Japanese society in the early modern period is remarkable for having produced tremendous amounts of documents, which allow researchers today to reconstruct the configuration of local society in both urban and rural areas. In this workshop, Takashi Tsukada (Osaka City University) will explain how historians in Japan are making use of these voluminous materials and how they write history from the bottom-up. This workshop, whose working languages are Japanese and English, is part of a joint project with Osaka City University, titled “Marginal Social Groups’ Experiences of Modernity,” sponsored...
The ominous implications of disasters—fires, floods, earthquakes—are clear in the literature of Japan’s medieval period: they portend unrest in the realm, suggest the corruption of the powerful, and underscore the futility of human ambition. When the shogun’s capital of Edo was devastated by fire in 1657, and the imperial capital of Kyoto was shaken by a destructive earthquake in 1662, a little more than a half-century into the rule of the Tokugawa shoguns, the question of how the nascent world of print fiction would treat these two events was therefore a charged one. This talk examines...
There are more prison chaplains in the Japanese correctional system than there are in American prisons–despite the fact that Japan has only a fraction of the U.S. prison population. Why does Japan have so many prison chaplains and what do they do? Based on over two years of fieldwork with Japanese prison chaplains from Buddhist, Shinto, and other sects, Lyons argues that the prison chaplaincy has developed as one face of religious work for the public benefit. The chaplaincy is charged with offering a depoliticized form of religious education tailored to the goals of the host institution...
This presentation is mainly conducted in Japanese. In the management of the castle town, the distinctive urban form of early modern Japan, not only samurai bureaucrats but also townspeople officials played an important role in town administration. However, compared with research on townspeople officials in Edo, Kyoto and Osaka, there is more room for discussion about the social importance of townspeople officials in regional castle towns. In this presentation, using records from the lower townspeople officials, or kumigashira, who were primarily responsible for the administration of the...
Although overseas travel was off limits to Japanese themselves from the 1630s through the 1860s, thousands of Chinese ships sailed into Nagasaki Harbor during that time, bringing the bounty of the continent to an eager, captive audience: silks and satins, sugar, ginseng and other medicines, minerals, animal products—and books. Much attention has been given to a few prominent works of Chinese fiction that became widely familiar to the Japanese public in the early modern period. Yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered about the broader reception history. What portion of books imported...
One Sky is an attempt to deliver a message that we live under and share one sky no matter how different our individual beliefs may be or what political borders have been created. Musicians of Korea, Japan, China, Iran and the USA will collaborate to create a new piece in pursuit of world peace. The performance will be followed by a Q&A dialogue between audience and performers about their musical experiences. One Sky is organized by the Wesleyan University Music Department, the College of East Asian Studies, and Yale University Council on East Asia Studies. Supported by the Allbritton...
The Council is pleased to present the 5th Stanley Weinstein Dissertation Prize Lecture. Though a part of the popular pilgrimage temple Zenkōji, and the recipient of shogunal largesse and local taxes, by the middle of the eighteenth century, Daihongan convent was having difficulty paying for its operating costs. On top of this, irregular expenses, such as travel and maintenance to convent buildings exceeded the convent’s ability to pay using ordinary means. For these reasons, they began to turn extraordinary means to cover these expenses and remain a viable institution. I discuss these...
Directed & Written by Satoshi Kon (Sony Pictures Classics, 2006, 90 min., 35mm) Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a genius scientist by day, and a kick-ass dream warrior named PAPRIKA by night. In this psychedelic sci-fi adventure, it will take the skills of both women to save the world… In the near future, a revolutionary new psychotherapy treatment called PT has been invented. Through a device called the “DC Mini” it is able to act as a “dream detective” to enter into people’s dreams and explore their unconscious thoughts. Before the government can pass a bill authorizing the use of such...
In 1936, writer of shōjo and romance fiction, often depicting same-sex love, Yoshiya Nobuko was asked to adapt the 1923 novel Stella Dallas into the Japanese language with a Japanese setting. The famous sound film of the movie staring Barbara Stanwyck had not yet been released, but based on the success of the 1925 silent film in Japan, Yoshiya’s translation was commissioned with an eye to making a movie. In 1937 A Mother’s Song (Haha no kyoku) directed by Yamamoto Satsuo and starring Hara Setsuko and Iriye Takako was released and is considered formative of the a new genre of “mother films” (...
This event features two brief talks on the relation of art and politics in Tokyo during 1968, featuring speakers Yuriko Furuhata (McGill University) and William Marotti (UCLA).
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo (Tokyo Movie Shinsha, 1988, 125 min., 35mm) Clandestine army activities threaten the war torn city of Neo-Tokyo when a mysterious being with powerful psychic abilities escapes his prison and inadvertently draws a violent motorcycle gang into a heinous web of experimentation. As a result, a biker with a twisted mind embarks on a path of war, seeking revenge against a society what once called him weak. 5:00 PM - Reception (Room 108, Whitney Humanities Center) 6:30 PM - Film Screening (Auditorium, Whitney Humanities Center) Introduction by Jason Douglass, Series...
After WWII, Japan aspired to become a full-fledged player in the international system principally conceived and run by the United States. The 1941 Roosevelt Four Freedoms Speech is reflected in the 1945 UN Charter as well as in the 1947 Japanese Constitution. Since than, Japan has pursued, and thrived in, this world order, enhancing and somewhat shifting its role. Seventy years hence, Japan adheres to the basic values of human rights, democracy, free economy and rule of law. Today when liberalism as the ultimate answer to solve global questions is under certain skepticism, the lecturer...
A challenging study offering a new perspective on classical Japanese poems and how they interact with and are part of material culture This generously illustrated volume offers a fresh perspective on classical Japanese poetry (waka), including many poems treated here for the first time in a Western-language publication. Edward Kamens examines these poems both as they relate to material things and as things in and of themselves, exploring their intimate connections to artifacts and works of visual art, sacred and secular alike, and investigating the unique rhetorical messages and powers...
Interested participants should register using this form. 17:00 – 17:10 Opening Remarks by Tuntex Emeritus Professor Koichi Hamada, Yale University 17:10 – 17:55 Keynote Speech “Economic Relationships among Japan, Asia and U.S.A.” by Mr. Atsushi Yamakoshi, Executive Director of Keidanren USA, Washington DC 17:55 – 19:00 Q&A and Discussion “Future Collaboration in Asia-Pacific region” 19:00 – 20:00 Mingle Party (Pizza and soft drinks will be served) Atsushi Yamakoshi is the...
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