Japan
We would like to host a spring afternoon with Japanese tea, flowers, and calligraphy in appreciation of the support provided by Yale and the community in response to the current disaster in Japan. Please come join with your family and friends on the afternoon of Friday, April 22 to enjoy a taste of Japanese spring! There will be talks on Japanese tea, tea utensils, teahouses and tea gardens, followed by a demonstration of a tea ceremony presented by a teacher from one of the most traditional styles of Japanese tea (Omotesenke). Japanese tea and dessert will be served. There will also be a...
The Face of Another (Tanin no kao) Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara (1966)FORMS OF INDEPENDENCE Although it remains less well known than its European counterparts, the new Japanese cinema that emerged in the 1960s was as diverse, complex, and ambiguous as any in the world. This series highlights the work of two contemporary directors with very different backgrounds and artistic itineraries who worked ardently to make films that were as formally adventurous as they were thematically dense. For More Information...
Blood Splattered at Takadanobaba (Chikemuri Takadanobaba) Directed by Ito Daisuke (1929, 6 minutes) The Adventurer Directed by Charlie Chaplin (1917, 20 minutes) Starring: Charlie Chaplin Serpent (Orochi) Directed by Buntaro Futagawa (1925, 75 minutes) Starring: Tsumasaburo Bando, Misao Seki, Utako Tamaki Shown with English subtitles and a music soundtrack An informal Q&A session will follow the performance The term “benshi” refers to a live performer who provides dramatic narration and commentary, and lends his or her voice to characters during silent film screenings. Benshi were an...
This presentation will offer an image of Japanese sustainable urbanism, based on the experience of preservation and revitalization of the Japanese historic port town of Tomo, which has been wavering between accepting and refusing the proposed public landfill and bridge building project since 1983.
In this presentation, I analyze a recent Japanese phenomenon, what is called the net idols: young women who produce their own websites featuring personal photos and diaries. Many net idols earn an income from maintaining these websites, thus I understand them as new labor subjectivities that have evolved in late 1990s Japan in response to the deregulation of labor markets and unprecedented developments in new information technologies. Mastering cute looks and embracing cute behavior are key to the popularity of net idols. While the culture of cute has drawn considerable scholarly attention in...
Mr. Furumoto has spent several years covering Japan’s Defense Agency, now the Minsitry of Defense. Until he was recently appointed to the Washington Bureau, Mr. Furumoto was witnessing Japan’s domestic political transformation as a correspondent in Mainichi’s politics section, with a closer look at the LDP’s Mori faction. Mr. Furumoto will bring new insights into the revision of Japan’s defense policy under the new DPJ administration.
Is an apocryphon a spurious work to be excised from the canon, or is it a valuable text that sheds light on the historical development of doctrine? Is a woman barred from being “a vessel of the Dharma” due to physical impurity, or is she “the mother of all buddhas of the three times?” With a focus on Heian-period Japan, this project examines the rhetorical strategies, conceptual contexts, and ritual applications of a newly identified Buddhist apocryphon, _The Sutra on Women’s Transformation and Buddhahood.
Free and open to the public. Audiences are invited to engage in an interactive studio session with featured artist Yoko Higashino. Capacity is limited to 30 and spots will be available first-come, first-served. For More Information http://www.yalerep.org/noboundaries/0910/mess.html
Professor Jackson will consider the work of Baby-Q in relation to broader choreographic trends in Japanese dance since the advent of Butoh in the 1960s. How should we understand the work of Japanese dance in the 21st century, particularly with regard to the range of postures and political investments it displays? What are the stakes of Japanese dance today? And finally: How might Baby-Q’s embodied engagement with the technological debris and stimuli of the current moment extend or interrupt the critiques of capitalist values advanced by Butoh’s politics of movement? Reginald Jackson is an...
Nanking Even in the Darkest Times, There is Light Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, 2007, 89 minutes, DVD This film draws on eyewitness accounts and documentary footage to tell the story of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing in 1937. It reveals not only how traumatic that invasion was for Chinese people, but also points to why the Nanjing Massacre has remained a focal point in the memory of war across East Asia. The screening will be followed by comments and discussion session with the audience. For More Information http://...
March 25 - 27, 2010 | 8PMRun Time: Approx 45 minutes, followed by a talk back with the artists“Fascinating. A vision of apocalyptic darkness penetrated by a pop sensibility.” Asahi Newspaper Piercing lasers, flashing LEDs, and a pulsing techno beat illuminate choreographer and performer Yoko Higashino’s exploration of gender and transformation in a world of constant loss and confusion. Japanese multimedia performance group Baby-Q draws on the talents of dancers, actors, musicians, and visual artists. Baby-Q’s director and choreographer, Yoko Higashino, performs her solo shows at galleries,...
Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (Muri shinjû: Nihon no natsu)Directed by Nagisa Oshima (1967, 98min)FORMS OF INDEPENDENCE Although it remains less well known than its European counterparts, the new Japanese cinema that emerged in the 1960s was as diverse, complex, and ambiguous as any in the world. This series highlights the work of two contemporary directors with very different backgrounds and artistic itineraries who worked ardently to make films that were as formally adventurous as they were thematically dense. For More Information...
The lecture will be delivered in Japanese. “日本中世の宗教と演劇『志度寺延喜』と能『海人』を通して”
In the summer of 2009 –for the first time in its post-war history– Japan experienced a heated election in which two opposing parties competed for control of the government. The lower house election toppled the ruling Liberal Democratic Party from its longtime grip of power. Just four years prior, the ruling coalition of the LDP and the New Komeito won a landslide victory in an election that was mostly about Prime Minister Koizumi’s proposed reform of the postal service. Forming a strong majority government, the proposed structural reforms were seen as rock-solid. After the resignation of...
Award-winning filmmaker Soda Kazuhiro’s latest film MENTAL is his second feature-length documentary. It portrays the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, weaving portraits of patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers in his signature “observational” style. The film breaks a major taboo against discussing mental illness in Japanese society, and captures candidly the lives of people coping with suicidal tendencies, poverty, shame, apprehension, and fear of society.Soda Kazuhiro was born and raised in Japan and has lived in New York since 1993. His first...
Japanese Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) succeeded in implementing many neoliberal projects such as expenditure cut, deregulation, and especially, postal services privatization, most of which had been thought to be unrealistic before Koizumi. What made it possible for Koizumi to accomplish these reforms? What made him a “strong” prime minister? This paper examines why and how Prime Minister’s leadership was reinforced, comparing the Koizumi administration with the Abe administration (2006-7) where neoliberal reforms were also high on the agenda but not so successful as under ...
More than six decades after the end of World War II, China is finally coming to terms with the devastating effects of the war against Japan on its society and culture. During the war, ideas of nationhood and citizenship were fundamentally challenged and rethought in the wake of mass population flight, physical destruction, and countless deaths. This talk will use wartime materials from Chinese archives of the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government to argue that modern ideas of state and citizenship in China were profoundly shaped by the experience of war, and that the effects of those ideas...
Empire of Passion (Ai no borei) Directed by Nagisa Oshima (1978, 105min)FORMS OF INDEPENDENCEAlthough it remains less well-known than its European counterparts, the new Japanese cinema that emerged in the 1960s was as diverse, complex, and ambiguous as any in the world. This series highlights the work of two contemporary directors with very different backgrounds and artistic itineraries who worked ardently to make films that were as formally adventurous as they were thematically dense.
In the wake of massive protests in Okinawa after three U.S. servicemen raped a twelve-year-old girl in 1995, the Pentagon agreed to close a Marine air base located in the middle of a city. But there was a catch. The Japanese government would have to build a replacement in Okinawa. This small island prefecture, comprising 0.6% of the nation’s land area and less than 1% of its population, already bears 75% of the total U.S. military presence in Japan. Some 25,000 U.S. troops and 20,000 of their dependents currently reside on bases that occupy 15% of the prefecture where serious crimes, deadly...
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