Japan
Japanese literature and art from the 1920s through the 1940s. The avant-garde and mass culture; popular genre fiction; the advent of new media technologies and techniques; effects of Japanese imperialism, militarism, and fascism on cultural production; experimental writers and artists and their resistance to, or complicity with, the state.
The holdings of the Yale Univerity Library include numerous collections of invaluable pre-modern Japanese documents, including many, such as the “Kyoto Komonjo” collection, which make it possible to delve deep into the history of Tokugawa period (1600–1868) Japan. In the last two years, moreover, the Council on East Asian Studies has been able to acquire a variety of fascinating new collections of Tokugawa period documents to augment the library’s existing holdings. As a result, students at Yale now have the opportunty to use unpublished primary sources to study various aspects of Tokugawa...
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This class introduces students to 13 important puzzles about contemporary Japanese politics, domestic policy, and foreign policy, discusses various ways in which scholars have attempted to solve these puzzles, and suggests pathways for future research. Together, we seek to explain public policy outcomes across a wide range of topics, including constitutional revision, defense, economic growth, energy, gender, immigration, income inequality, population aging, territorial disputes, and trade. In the process, we learn (1) the important actors in Japanese politics (e.g., voters, politicians,...
Where and when are the origins of Japanese culture? In this seminar we will examine the archaeology of the Japanese archipelago from the introduction of paddy rice agriculture through the end of the 8th century with an eye toward this question. Examining excavated materials and early textual accounts, we will confront myths—both ancient and modern—of Japanese origins, and interrogate the framing of these time periods. Students will explore the interplay between event and process; and between local developments and outside influence through topics including the arrival of immigrant populations...
2024 Yale University Korean Language and Studies Student Research Symposium Five-Minute Thesis (5MT) Presentations Please view a full program here Moderator & MC: Angela McClean Postdoctoral Associate in East Asian Studies Lecturer in Sociology Symposium Program Organizer: Angela Lee-Smith
With the cataclysm of death, what happens to those remaining fragments of a life, which appear disposable to others but become the mourner’s heart-breaking distillations of both loss and trace? While a fading practice today, handwritten letters in medieval Japan were the primary form of communication between long-separated lovers, parents unlikely to reunite with their children, and distant friends, artists, and poets. In this rich epistolary culture, letters – reused, recycled, and reframed – figured prominently in Buddhist memorial rituals. With the death of a loved one, family members...
About Nails and Eyes: A young girl loses her mother, and her father blindly invites his secret lover into the family home to care for her. Obsessively trying to curate a pristine life, this new interloper remains indifferent to the girl, who seems to record her every move – and she realizes only too late all that she has failed to see. With masterful narrative control, Nails and Eyes—appearing in English for the first time—builds to a conclusion of disturbing power. Paired with two additional stories of unsettled minds and creeping tension, it introduces a daring new voice in Japanese...
After the arrival of the “Black Ships” in 1853/54, the Tokugawa shogunate lifted its longstanding ban on the construction of ocean-going vessels and encouraged the domestic construction of western-style sailing and steam ships. Modern ships were needed not just for defense and the assertion of prestige, but also to improve trade and communications. This talk looks at the implications of Ezochi colonization for Japanese shipbuilding and navigation through the lens of the domain-operated schooner Ōnomaru and other similar ships. It discusses how the Ōnomaru became a “flagship” of reform, a...
The global movement of people that occurred in the aftermath of the Second World War is often evoked today. It’s used as a benchmark against which the scale and scope of the current global refugee crisis is measured. However, histories of this ‘global’ post-1945 crisis of displaced people have mainly focused on Europe, especially the aftermath of the Holocaust. This was a global war, but historical work on its aftermath for those displaced by fighting, genocidal regimes, and wartime mobilization is far less global in scope. Unlike in Europe after 1945, where, as historian Tony Judt writes, “...
What does it mean to narrate a queer feminist ethical praxis of “encounter” and diaspora bridging disciplines, languages, and politics that rarely meet in academic writing or activisms? My new research interweaves readings of Japanese fiction with Hong Kong, Sinophone studies, and queer women of color feminisms. In doing so, I question assumptions about the positionality of our readers, present and future, asking what Japanese literary studies might look like if we write for “Sinophone” queer/feminist readers, or queer/feminist of color readers. For example, I explore the significance of...
The intersection of art, science, and diplomacy at Kyoto and Nagasaki in the time of Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch cultural and mercantile interaction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with attention to the entangled political relations linking the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Philip II of Spain, Jesuit missionaries such as Alessandro Valignano, and the Christian daimyō of Kyushu and the Inland Sea. Focus on Japanese castle architecture, nanban screens, world maps, arte sacra, and tea ceremony practices as related to the importation of European arte sacra, prints and...
This course combines the methods of history with those of linguistics and translation studies to promote an innovative interdisciplinary analysis of the processes of cultural (mis)communication and (mis)translation among communities across the Iberian Empires and Royal Patronages between 1500 and 1700. This course has three main objectives: 1) mapping the emergence of multilingual communities in early modernity involving cultures and languages that were previously unknown in Europe; (2) drawing up a comprehensive typological catalogue of overlooked, dispersed metalinguistic and multilingual...
In this graduate seminar, we explore cultural representations of non-normative sexualities and gender variance produced in East Asia and its diaspora and survey the scholarly field that is broadly referred to as “queer East Asian studies.” The materials in this course include primary sources such as poetry, fiction, narrative and documentary films, as well as critical writings on LGBTQ history, culture, and activism in Japan, Korea, and the Sinophone world.
This course explores the role of memory as a social, cultural, and political force in contemporary society. How societies remember difficult pasts has become a contested site for negotiating the present. Through the lens of memory, we examine complex roles that our relationships to difficult pasts play in navigating issues we face today. The course explores the politics of memory that takes place in the realm of popular culture and public space. It asks such questions as: How do you represent difficult and contested pasts? What does it mean to enable long-silenced victims’ voices to be heard...
Please enter through Trumbull College entrance at 241 Elm St. Open to the public. Seating is limited, first come first serve. This spring, we are delighted to welcome 桂三輝 (Katsura Sunshine), a Canadian rakugo performer. The event will begin with a brief lecture on rakugo, followed by stories that explore his experience in rakugo, the differences between Japanese and English languages and cultures in English and Japanese, and Q&A session. Don’t miss this opportunity to immerse yourself in the delightful world of rakugo! This event is open to the public and space is limited. Born in...
This introductory course explores the art of India, China, Japan, and Korea from prehistory to the present. We consider major works and monuments from all four regions. Themes include the representation of nature and the body, the intersection of art with spirituality and politics, and everything from elite to consumer culture. All students welcome, including those who have no previous experience with either art history or the study of Asian art. This class makes frequent visits to Yale University Art Gallery.
Directed by Wen Hui and Eiko Otake Edited by Yiru Chen, Wen Hui, and Eiko Otake 2023, 73min This is a story of friendship between two independent female artists and their body memories each willingly carry. In January 2020, New York based, interdisciplinary performing artist Eiko Otake arrived in Beijing to visit Wen Hui, a Chinese choreographer and filmmaker. Eight years apart, Eiko grew up in postwar Japan and Wen during the Cultural Revolution. They planned to visit each other for a month to converse and collaborate. The surge of COVID-19 abruptly cut off Eiko’s visit and the...
Fiefs on the Northern Frontier: Japanese Domains and the Colonization of Ezochi in the Bakumatsu Era
In 1855, after Perry’s and Putyatin’s visits, the Tokugawa shogunate confiscated almost all of Ezochi (Hokkaido and surrounding islands) from Matsumae domain’s oversight and began to govern the territory directly. Yet, domain rulers became deeply involved with northern colonization and defense during that era. Some were mobilized by the shogunate for coastal defense, while others volunteered to govern and develop land and fisheries. This talk outlines shifts in shogunal policy regarding domain rule in Ezochi, and then introduces the examples of Ōno, Awa Katsuyama, and Saga domains to...
Sponsored by The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International Area Studies at Yale, Council on East Asian Studies, Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Council on South Asia Studies.
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