Transregional
In 2006 and 2007 a parliamentary commission initiated by the South Korean government made public two lists totaling just over 200 Koreans deemed guilty of collaboration under Japanese rule (1910-1945). The commission was motivated by the task of putting to rest what one recent publication described as Korea’s “original sin”: the assistance that Koreans offered their Japanese occupiers at a time when their country faced its biggest challenge in historical memory. Failure to reconcile the collaboration issue, this publication continued, threatened Korea’s “utter survival.” Missing from such...
It has been over three decades since the onset of contemporary migration from China to Japan. Chinese immigrants have been the largest foreign resident community in Japan since 2007. Over one third of resident Chinese are either naturalized citizens or permanent residents. However, the Chinese in Japan generally do not consider themselves “immigrants.” A sense of non-belonging is prevalent in immigrants’ discourses and practices. The Chinese immigrant media circulates an identity label – “New Overseas Chinese”. In practice, Chinese immigrants prefer permanent residency over naturalization,...
The Six Dynasties poet Tao Yuanming is today remembered as a paradigmatic recluse, a man fond of drinking and simple agrarian pleasures, but also one who eschewed public service to maintain his personal integrity and to fulfill his loyalty to the declining Jin dynasty. Recent work by Tian Xiaofei, Wendy Swartz, and others has shed light on the ways in which this image came to be constructed, recuperating alternative visions of the canonical figure. Yet Tao Yuanming loomed large in the broader East Asian literary context as well, where he was subject to similarly multifarious readings and...
Panelists will discuss the new leadership in China, Japan and South Korea. What impact will these new leaders have across East Asia in 2013, and how will it affect the United State and its relationship within the region?
Interested in becoming an East Asian Studies Major or an East Asian Languages & Literatures Major? COME TO AN INFORMAL GATHERING WITH Koichi Shinohara, DUS East Asian Studies Edward Kamens, DUS East Asian Languages & Literatures LEARN MORE ABOUT East Asia Course Offerings, Programs and Study Abroad Opportunities and MORE!
Nikki Floyd is a postdoctoral fellow at Williams College in the Department of Asian Studies. She has long been interested in Japan-Korea relations, particularly during the colonial period. She has taught courses that examine modern Japanese and Korean literature in comparative perspective, and her dissertation, entitled “Bridging the Colonial Divide: Japanese-Korean Solidarity in the International Proletarian Literature Movement,” explores the solidarity relationship between left-wing writer-activists in the 1920s and 1930s. Floyd’s remarks will focus on the costs and benefits of...
Qu You’s (1347-1433) “Peony Lantern,” one of the most popular Chinese ghost stories in early modern East Asia, begins with an encounter of a ghost woman and a young scholar in Ningbo in 1360. Dr. Jōo’s paper aims to contextualize this renowned tale within the micro-regional history of Yin County, Ningbo, and examine the literary and socio-political discourse of uncanny women in the area. Through investigating the historical setting of the Huxin Temple in Ningbo and the legendary Buddhist sisters who patronized the monastery, Dr. Jōo discusses how “The Peony Lantern” gained a strong...
At the same time in 1940 that Japanese representatives of the Government Railways of Korea, an integral part of the Government General of Korea, were endeavoring to promote tourism, officials in the same colonial bureaucracy were strengthening assimilation policies designed to Japanize Koreans. But why would a Japanese tourist from the mother country want to visit Korea if it had been rendered into no more than a replica of Japan? Tourism and assimilation are concepts that do not necessarily go together. This lecture examines how individuals endeavoring to promote tourism represented an...
Consider that country whose economy is “galloping ahead,” or that country which is “galloping into view,” or that country which seems about to “walk all over us”: China. Its economy has indeed been growing fast–about 9.4 percent per annum on average over the past three decades (but no better than South Korea and Taiwan from 1965 to 1997). Casually perusing newspapers and magazines tells us China is newly “in view” (but where was it before unviewed?). Book after book now suggests that China is emerging, rising, overcoming the U.S., “putting it in the shade;” it’s likely to be the superpower of...
6:00 PM Panel Discussion: “Navigating Troubled Waters: U.S.-China Relations and Security in East Asia” Roy Kamphausen - Senior Associate for Political and Security Affairs, National Bureau of Asian Research Pierre Landry - Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University Yasuhiro Matsuda - Visiting Fellow, Todai-Yale Initiative Jun Saito - Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University Moderated by Jessica Weiss - Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University 8:00 PM National Speaker Webcast: “Issues in U.S.-China Relations” Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. - U.S....
Come Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University Spring Festival Reception! For More Information 20110208ceaspringfestival.jpg
The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University (CEAS), with generous support from a United States Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center Grant, is pleased to present a day-long workshop for educators which will examine both the historical and cultural context of Korea’s international experience in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the important role the Korean Peninsula plays in contemporary global affairs. Participants will engage in both content sessions and pedagogy discussions on the use of maps, films and other resources in the classroom. The...
The Kubo community, home to about 80 people, was established by Japanese settlers early last century in the Brazilian forest. Since then it has remained an almost self-sufficient Japanese Brazilian commune. People farm in the day and practice modern ballet at night—an activity for which they have attained national fame and notoriety. In this presentation I will examine their dance performances as a manifestation of their cultural politics, ethnic capital, and ideology.Since its foundation, Kubo has been based on the philosophy of Nōhon-shugi, which teaches that an understanding of nature, can...
Five decades after the adoption of the (revised) US-Japan Security Treaty, two decades after the end of the Cold War, and amidst the present collapse of US-supported regimes across West Asia/North Africa, East Asia seems stable. But is it? Japan is no Egypt. And yet in East Asia, the relationship between the world’s No 1 and No 2 (till yesterday) powers remains rooted in the war, defeat, and occupation of nearly seven decades ago, reinforced by the structures of Cold War. The “master-servant” quality of the relationship that I wrote about in 2007 (Client State - Japan in the American Embrace...
As the capitol of the most powerful nation on Earth, Washington D.C. is a city dominated by wealth and political influence, but when you move past the Beltway and haunts dominated by the Federal Government and those who serve it, a very different town emerges. The significant majority of Washington D.C.’s permanent residents are African-American and Latino, a large number are gay, and poverty, drug abuse, and inadequate housing are all issues the city has struggled with for years. Since the early 1980s, D.C. has also dealt with another crisis, AIDS – at least three percent of the city’s...
The abrupt end to the long tenure of the LDP government in Japan reminded observers of East Asian international relations of the possible tensions between electoral outcomes and long-standing foreign policy commitments. The DPJ’s 2009 electoral commitment to relocating the Futenma Air Station – a deviation from the 2006 bilateral agreement - epitomizes such tension. While the DPJ tried to attract electoral support in Okinawa and cement non-LDP parties’ electoral pacts, the Hatoyama administration faced almost non-existent room for diplomatic bargaining and eventually encountered an erosion of...
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.
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://...
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.
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