The Twentieth Asian Studies Conference Japan (ASCJ)
July 2–3, 2016, International Christian University (ICU), Tokyo
SATURDAY, JULY 2
SATURDAY MORNING SESSIONS: 10:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.

Session 1: Room 204
Publishing about Asia in Academic Journals and Book Series (Roundtable)
Organizer/Chair: Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Sophia University
The presidential session on “Publishing about East Asia” means to give practical advice how to get abook manuscript or journal article accepted. Journal and book editors/publishers will briefly
introduce their journal/series, and then open the floor for what we hope to be a lively Q&A session.
1) David Howell, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
2) Inge Klompmakers, Brill
3) Jennifer Munger, Journal of Asian Studies
4) Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Monumenta Nipponica
Session 2: Room 252
Straddling Cultures: Sinophone Communities in Contemporary East Asia
Organizer/Chair: Ngu Ik Tien, University of Malaya
Straddling cultures has been a common experience not only to the ethnic Chinese of Southeast
Asia but also to the Sinophone communities residing in the East Asian region outside of Mainland
China. The intersection of cultures has caused feelings of anxiety and displacement, but it also
encourages cultural innovation in the adaptation process. As for the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia,
the interplay among culture, ethnicity and nationality has constantly shaped their identity and way ofparticipation in national society. For instance, they have to answer the assumptive question posed by
local politicians even the academia whether their ethnicity and cultural identification would reduce
their nationality. Meanwhile, the rise of China as a global power has spawned mixed feelings among
Sinophone communities in both Southeast and Northeast Asian societies towards China. In recent
years, terms such as Sinophone (huayu yuxi) and Chinese people (huaren) are gaining popularity
among Chinese overseas communities and scholars in indicating a specific type of belonging that

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base on cultural institution rather than location (China-centric). Among them, some express theirview of nonequivalent between Chinese culture and ethnicity and envision a creolized Chinese
community as a sub-ethnic category. This panel attempts to present the complexity of cultural
identification of Sinophone groups in the contemporary East Asia by outlining how our study
subjects counter the conventional categorization and assessment of culture, ethnicity and nationality.
It addresses the questions of language, heritage, organizational life and so forth in the contemporary
national politics and global society.
1) Dai Ning, Tokyo Metropolitan University
Language Shift and Private Language Planning in Intermarried Families in Japan
In Japan the number of people who marry interracially or inter-ethnically is increasing, butchanges to bilingual education must occur for Japan to become a multicultural society. Intermarriage
is not a reliable indicator of the maturity of multiculturalism. Foreign residents who haveintermarriage in Japan do not have the rights of Japanese, such as those of voting, social welfare,education, and so on. This fact alone makes Japan far from multicultural. One of the aspects missingin the critiques of multiculturalism in Japan has to do with bilingual education in the family bydomestic activities or life. Children of intermarried couples have at least two cultural heritages so it isimportant to teach children two languages are spoken by both of their parents. However, in countries
such as Japan, there may be a dominant language which is used by government, schools, and thecommunity. With this in mind, parents who speak an additional language, especially intermarried
couples may face a dilemma: How to try to raise their children bilingual? Harrison and Piete (1980)
point out that in bilingual families language choice is determined by the mothers. The mother’s
choice is in turn determined by socioeconomic considerations, etc. This paper is an elaboration of
language choice and ultimately language shift and maintenance in a Japanese-Chinese family. The
methodology employed is one of observation and in-depth interviews.
2) Ngu Ik Tien, University of Malaya
Forging Tools for Cross-Cultural Communication: Ethnic Minority Activism in the Capital City of
Malaysia
Southeast Asia has been praised for its cultural diversity but not so much for its approaches andskills of managing cultural differences. It has also been described as a region where civilizations meetand merge, but also as a ground for civilizational clash and rival given the numerous communal
conflicts occurred over last decades. This paper aims to examine the role of several Chinese-speaking
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groups in Kuala Lumpur in fostering cross-cultural communication among different ethno-linguistic
groups. The actors are placed against a sociopolitical background of Malaysia where the national
language has yet become a common language among citizens, the official religion Islam intertwinedwith ethnicity, divided citizenship of bumiputera (indigenous) and non-bumiputera, and a multistream national education system serving ethnicized aspirations. Instead of portraying vernacular
cultural groups and institutions as hurdles to cross-cultural communication, as some scholarly
literature have offered, this paper focuses on their cross-cultural efforts in bridging different
communities. It examines their discourse on cultural pluralism, approaches and tools employed for
attaining their goals, resources in terms of personnel, material and networking available to them, andthe responses of other social segments towards their endeavor. The paper contends that ethnic cultural
minorities in Malaysia share similar desires for national integration as that of the civic nationalists.
However, because of their resistance towards the assimilation model exemplified by Sino-Thai andMestizo in the Philippines, and the cultural suppression model in Indonesia, they have developed amiddle way approach – cultural pluralism, hoping for a soft landing in integration process.
3) Chai Siaw Ling, University of Malaya
The Complexity of Identity: Sarawak Chinese Literature in Malaysian Chinese Literature
Sarawak, a state of East Malaysia, is different from the Peninsular Malaysia in term of its
demography. In Sarawak, Ibans comprise one third of the total population, followed by ethnic
Chinese, and Malays the third largest group. However, the Malays account for over half of the
population in the Peninsula and are legally defined as Muslim. The current public discourse suggeststhat ethnic-relations is relatively more harmonious in Sarawak than that in the Peninsula. In Sarawak,
the interaction between Iban and Chinese has been a popular subject for local Chinese writers
whereas the Malay-Chinese relationship has not drawn much enthusiasm of the Peninsula-based
writers This paper thus contends that the distinctive social context of Sarawak has left a mark on theidentity of Chinese in Sarawak, which has distinguished them from the Peninsular writers. This paper
examines the relationship between “locality” and “Chineseness” and how they relate “nationality”. It
argues that the complexity of identity has caused the feelings of anxiety among Sarawakian writers
and compelled them to embark on a reflection process. This paper invokes the concept of“Sinophone”, developed by David Wang and Shu-mei Shih, to analyze the elements of “counterhegemony” and “decentralized” in Sarawak Chinese literature and associate them with Chinese
identities.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Seah Cheng Ta, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Voices of Hong Kong and Singapore Sinophone Communities: A Study of Novels by Liu Yichang
and Yeng Pway Ngon
Different Voices within a society played an essential role in the characterization andconstruction of the Sinophone Communities. Hong Kong writer Liu Yicang’s “Drunkard” (1918–)
and Singapore Writer Yeng Pway Ngon’s (1947–) “A man like me”, sculpted the role of a Drunkard
and a Chinese school graduate respectively in their novels, both directed to the issue ofmarginalization in the society. Liu Yicang’s modernism work emphasized immensely on the usage of
local color writing to re-present Hong Kong Sinophone communities. As the protagonist of“Drunkard” states, “I may not enjoy an empty world, I just detest the hideous reality”. The Drunkard
represent the lower income individuals, indulging oneself in a world of alcohol, seeking a route toachieve temporary relief from the real pressurized Hong Kong world. On the other hand, Singapore
Sinophone literature focused more on ethnic and language related issues. The decline in Chinese
Culture and Language in Singapore is a common topic in the Singapore Chinese communities andliterature. The fear on the loss of “ancestral culture and language” increases, with English language
becomes the prominent language in Singapore after 1970s. For instance, Yeng Pway Ngon’s “A man
like me”, writes a Chinese school graduate, who finds himself marginalized from his homeland after
westernized culture that penetrates Singapore.
Discussant: Yow Cheun Hoe, Nanyang Technological University

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Session 3: Room 351
Reproduction and Appropriation in the Japanese Visual Arts
Organizer: Shalmit Bejarano, Hebrew University
Chair: Hiromitsu Kobayashi, Sophia University
Chinese artifacts were traded and exchanged throughout pre-modern East Asia; their aesthetic
appeal and prestige carried on by the Chinese hegemony in the region. This aura of power was further
appropriated by Korean and Japanese elites who collected and displayed imported paintings as part ofa larger scheme to enhance their legitimacy and grandeur as righteous rulers. Taking a transcultural
perspective, this panel discusses how the visual culture of China and the identities of “Chinese”
themes and artifacts underwent constant changes after their transmittance to Korea and Japan, andhow their appropriation interacted with distinctive regional artistic and social settings. This topic also
encompasses the social life of things, emphasizing the process of “reception” throughout time,
including the complexity of cultural changes, recontextualizing symbols and images as the process ofreception, modification, and refusal of social and artistic practice. Three case studies will be provided
to investigate the complexity of the appropriation of Chinese objects and visual materials in Korea
and Japan. Investigating diverse encounters and modes of interaction, these studies explore howvisual culture was diffused, emulated, or contested in different time periods for self-fashioning,enhancing legitimacy and authority, for the celebration of contemporary events, or to comment oncurrent social and political issues.
1) Jungeun Lee, University of Pittsburg
Displaying Authority: Ashikaga Shogun’s Chinese Collections and Their Formal Display
The Ashikaga shoguns were avid patrons of the arts, known especially for their collections ofChinese objects (paintings, ceramics, bronzes), which they displayed both for their own enjoyment
and during visits of eminent guests to their palaces. They also commissioned detailed illustrated
manuscripts that inventoried the collections, described arrangements featured in their palaces, andgave instructions for their proper display. This paper will examine the changing roles and meaningsof elaborate formal displays during the late fourteenth through sixteenth century by focusing on theperformative aspects of the formal displays of the Ashikaga collections. I will first discusssociopolitical meaning of formal displays for the Ashikaga, focusing on the special significance theyheld for the sixth Ashikaga shogun, Yoshinori (1394–1441; r. 1429–1441) during the visit of Emperor
Go-Hanazono (1419–1471; r. 1428–1464). I will also analyze the shift from the use of Chinese
objects as a means to consolidate the Ashikaga legitimacy to its gradually becoming a commodity
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with the decline of the Muromachi rulership, thereby exploring two layers of appropriations ofChinese objects in premodern Japan.
2) Yoonjung Seo, Freie Universitat
Chinese Images for Commemorative Painting in the Late Joseon Dynasty: a Transcultural
Approach to Joseon Art and Visual Culture
This paper examines the emergence of Chinese figural motifs and old tales as subjects ofcommemorative paintings in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and analyzes how
the symbolic, imaginary space shaped by a Chinese mythic past evokes that once-current events ofJoseon Koreans, pays homage to their memorable moments, and mediates between the past andpresent within a cohesive artistic program. I surmise that a certain type of themes, the mode ofrepresentation, formats and styles were favored for this genre, which came into ever greater demandwith the increasing desire of patrons to commemorate culminating moments of their lives in a
metaphorical way by appropriating transcultural visual idioms and motifs, primarily deriving from
China. My study thus takes into consideration multiple aspects of the production and appreciation ofcommemorative painting, addressing socio-political significance in this bureaucratic society, thecross-referencing of word and image embedded in colophons, poems, and paintings, and the role ofroyal patronage in the spread of Chinese-related themes through late Joseon society. Two importantsource of impetus behind the prevalent Sinophile penchant in the visual culture of this period —domestic and foreign vectors, will be investigated. The first is King Sukchong’s patronage of art andpredilection for Chinese images and artifacts as a means to propagate his political reforms andlegitimize his sovereignty; the second is the transregional circulation of artistic concepts, forms andimages through books, prints and other types of reproductions, as well as trade in Chinese artifacts
and commodities in early eighteenth-century East Asia.
3) Dylan McGee, Nagoya University
Mapping the Book Trade in Early Modern Nagoya (1794–1854)
With the establishment of its own independent publishers guild in Kansei 4 (1794), Nagoya
became the first castle town in Japan to secure the rights to produce and retail books―and only the
fourth market after Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo to do so. By the turn of the century, its downtown
commercial district had become home to a bustling book trade, with over forty small-scale
booksellers operating in the niches of a market dominated by the publishing houses of Eirakuya
Tōshiro and Fugetsudō; Magosuke. It was also in this environment that an extensive rental book
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market took shape, presided over by the Daisō, the largest commercial lending library in all of Japan.
Relying on data gathered from early modern diaries, commonplace books, extant shop records, andthe front matter to dozens of printed books, this study presents a chronology of all documented
booksellers and lending libraries that operated in Nagoya between 1794 and 1854 and maps theirlocations in the downtown commercial district. Moreover, this study considers the Nagoya market
within a broader, regional context, situated vis-à-vis critical supply chains and labor sources thatmade large-scale book production possible. The aim is to propose a new model for understanding thedevelopment of print markets in castle towns, as distinct from the three major urban markets.
Accordingly, this study will also include comparative research into the markets of Matsumoto andKanazawa, highlighting filiations in scale, structure, and modes of production.
Discussant: Hiromitsu Kobayashi, Sophia University

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Session 4: Room 251
Modernization, Media and Culture: The Life Experiences of Colonial Subjects under JapaneseControl
Organizer/Chair: Hsiu-hui Sun, National Chengchi University
Both Chinese and Taiwanese societies in the early twentieth century were influenced by theinvading foreign powers including the Empire of Japan. Taiwanese and Manchurians experienced
rapid transitions in both material and non-material aspects because of the multiple convergences ofurbanism, modernism, consumerism and industrialism under Japanese control. This panel aims todescribe and analyze how contents of the mass media and relevant historical materials construct thelife experiences of colonial subjects under Japanese control. Taking Taiwanese intellectuals in 1930s
for examples, they lived in a multi-spatial and temporal context including the colonial society, theworld of modern civilization, and the imperial hegemony. All these cast a great impact on the daily
life practices, and moreover, the formation of cultural identities and values. Based on the content
analysis of advertisements, newspapers and publications released during the colonial period, all thepanelists will illustrate life experiences of the colonized people via media representations so as toreveal and discuss the cultural, social and political struggles in colonies under Japanese control.
1) Sumei Wang, National Chengchi University
Mass Media and the Modern Girl in 1930s Colonial Taiwan
Women’s roles in family and societies changed significantly after the First World War. Since
the 1920s, debates over ‘new women’ and ‘modern girls’ had often drawn huge attention on Japan’s
print media. In the 1930s, the changes in women’s social status became more apparent in Japanesecolonies. Situated at the newspaper series ‘Inviolable Destiny,’ written by Lin Hui Kun, and othermaterials, this paper aims to explore how women were represented by mass media in the 1930s
Taipei. In addition, the paper also intends to investigate how media technologies were used in these
women’s everyday lives and the possible consequences of these interactions. Taiwanese women in
the inter-war period faced conflicts between new values and old traditions, which largely influenced
their choices of marriages and careers. Lin’s series story was firstly appeared in Taiwan Sinminpo (台湾新民報) in 1933 and later published as a novel. In the story, a young man Li studied in Kyoto
University refused an arranged marriage and determinedly pursued his own free love. Female
characters, Shiuhui, Fongyin, Sizuko, were depicted as ‘Modern Girl,’ ‘Good Wife, Wise Mother,’and ‘New Woman’ correspondingly in the story. By probing into the narrations, I aim to discover thecomplicated relationships among gender, consumption and modernity; in particular, the moral
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conflicts and ambivalent desires toward material cultures in the1930s colonial Taiwan.
2) Pei-ching Hsin, National Chengchi University
Enlightenment or Entertainment Through the Eyes: Exhibitions and Department Stores in
Taiwanese Literature during the Japanese Colonial Period
This paper focuses on how the establishment of commercial centers and department storeschanged the natural landscape of Yancheng district, imported new concept of consumption, andtherefore shaped the modern lifestyle of Taiwanese under Japanese control. Yancheng is part of thecurrent Kaohsiung city in Taiwan. For centuries, following the rulers’ policies, the geographic
landscape and industrial patterns in Yancheng changed over time. In the Qing dynasty, it was a
coastal wetland where people made their living from the salt fields and fishponds. During theJapanese colonial period, the Taiwan Governor-General started a reclamation project to build aharbor, and nearly all salt fields disappeared in 1914 (the third year of the Taisho Era). Urban
planning transformed the reclaimed land into checkerboard-like districts filled with a large number of
new buildings. Based on the land use zoning regulations, Yancheng was categorized as “commercial
district,” and the first commercial center and department store in Kaohsiung State were established in
Yancheng during that time. Ginza (echoing the name of Ginza in Tokyo), the street style consecutive
commercial center, was established in 1937 (the twelfth year of the Showa Era), and the Yoshii
department store was established by Chohei Yoshii in 1941 (the sixteenth year of the Showa Era).
Shopping for imported goods in Ginza, and taking the elevator (so-called flow cage) in Yoshii Departbecame the most modern leisure activities at that time. Space allocation and glass windows in thedepartment store were different from the traditional grocery stores and vendors in Taiwan. Use
strategies of categorization and demonstration to sell the products became a new marketing concept.
Seemingly, the new culture of consumption emerged in Yancheng in the 1930s, but did the modern
lifestyles imported from Japan completely changed the traditional lives of Taiwanese people? Apartfrom collecting records of the commercial centers, department stores, and street landscape, tracking
everyday life practices of the Yancheng residents would help us to retell the history of people’s lives
during the colonial period in Taiwan.

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3) Hsiu-hui Sun & I-fen Chen, National Chengchi University
Constructing the Concepts of “Happiness”: A Comparative Analysis of the Seasoning Product“Ajinomoto” in Taiwan Jih Jih Shin Pao and Sheng Jin Shih Pao
For both Chinese and Taiwanese societies in the early twentieth century, the advertisement was
introduced and imported by the invading foreign powers. Taking Taiwan and Northeast China(Manchuria) during the Japanese occupation period as examples, their mass media and advertisingbusinesses were controlled by the colonialists from the early stage. The colonial regime, the businessassociations that were organized by obedient businessmen and the government-funded newspapers
such as the Taiwan Jih Jih Shin Pao (台湾日日新報 Taiwan Daily News) and Sheng Jin Shih Pao(盛京時報 Sheng-Jin Daily) played important roles in influencing the development of print
advertisements in both places. Advertising is a vital tool for promoting concepts or selling products;
its visual representations and chosen signs are closely related to the social, political, economic andcultural structures. Therefore, appropriating analytical frameworks of semiotics, the present research
will conduct a comparative study of how the advertisements of seasoning products “Ajinomoto”(味の素) in both Taiwan and Manchuria under Japanese control construct the concepts of “happiness.”
We will observe the gradually emerged concepts of “happiness” that were relevant to the value
system and ideology of the colonizers embedded in print advertisements.
4) Eve Chiu, The Foundation for Excellent Journalism Award in Taiwan
Inspecting “Taiwanese Vernacular Text” Debates during the 1930s in Colonized Taiwan from theMagazine Nan-Yin
The first-generation intellectuals of colonized Taiwan had experienced a significant growth innumbers during 1930’s and they were ambitious for aiming to bring social as well as politicalenlightenments by improving the literacy level of Taiwanese. According to these intellectuals,
Taiwanese were governed by Japan politically but not culturally. Therefore, they attempted to create
the “Taiwanese vernacular text” which could pronounced Taiwanese (台灣話) properly by various
ways including Roman alphabetic writing and refining Chinese Vernacular text by adding phonetic
symbols beside the words. The present study aims to analyze “Nan-Yin” (南音) magazine, firstpublished in 1932, and also an important medium used by Taiwanese intellectuals to advocate the
new literature of Taiwan. “Nan-Yin” magazine provided an important field for intellectual
discussions about cultural awakenings and consciousness-raisings in colonial Taiwan.
Discussant: Chiung-wen Hsu, National Chengchi University
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Session 5: Room 253
Environmental Aftermath: Industrial Technology Transfers in Post WW2 Northeast Asia
Organizer/Chair: M. William Steele, International Christian University
Unexpectedly, five years after 1945, former enemies were transformed into allies. In Northeast
Asia, Japan and the United States came to be allied against China and Russia, and Korea was divided
into two mutually hostile halves. It was within this Cold War framework that reconstruction began.
The United States assisted Japan and South Korea, whereas the Soviet Union helped the People’s
Republic and North Korea. Aid often took the form of technology transfers to rebuild industries andinfrastructures for growth. Colonial era technocratic expertise helped to fuel post-colonial
development. This panel will examine the resulting environmental consequences of such exchanges.
M. William Steele looks at the rebirth the cement industry in postwar Japan, depending ontechnology from the United States, but also on expertise gained in prewar Manchuria. Robert
Winstanley-Chesters examines North Korea’s mineral extraction and mining development and its
relationship with the Soviet Union as well as considering the socio-cultural aspects of North Korea’s
reconstruction project and the infrastructure that accompanied it. Finally, Joseph Andrew Seeley
focuses on the environmental and economic consequences of massive aquacultural development in
the Yalu River border between China and North Korea, begun in the 1930s as a colonial project
alongside the construction of the Sup’ung Dam and further developed by State-led programs
designed to feed hungry populations in the postwar years. Our attempt will be to find linkages inthese postwar development narratives in Northeast Asia, so fraught with memories of conflicts past,
opportunities in the present and fears of environmental catastrophe.
1) M. William Steele, International Christian University
Constructing the Construction State: The Postwar Revival of the Cement Industry in JapanAs the war in the Pacific drew to a close, air raids destroyed Tokyo, Yokohama, and nearly allother major cities. Reconstruction began in earnest in the late 1940s with onset of the Cold War
serving as a major stimulus for Japanese economic recovery. In addition to new ferro-concretebuildings, bridges and roads, cement was necessary for river and coastline repair, tetrapods,
embankments and dams. Although Japanese cement production declined dramatically during the war
years, revival of the cement industry was initially slow. It was only after the so-called “reverse
course” years, 1948–49, that the Allied Occupation began to make comprehensive plans to rebuild
the Japanese economy and undertake basic reconstruction of a country in ruins. In 1948, controls on
the production of basic industries, coal, iron, steel, and concrete were lifted; cement production began
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to rise dramatically thereafter. By 1956, Japan produced 13,737,594 tons of cement, double that ofthe prewar peak in 1939. This paper narrates the rebirth of the Japanese cement and limestone mining
industries in the period between 1945 and 1956. It examines the contribution of the Cold War, and the
Korean War in particular, in reviving a cement industry that Japan once boasted to be “of the highest
rank of all cement produced in the world.” The paper also questions the cement industry’s role in therebirth of Japan as a “construction state.”
2) Robert Winstanley-Chesters, Australian National University/University of Leeds
Narratives of Mineralogical Collaboration: North Korean and Soviet Mineralogical Development
1945–1950 in the Captured Documents Collection
Recent geological prospecting by North Korea’s developmental agencies in partnership with
Australian companies has been framed as an engagement with the ultimate opaque resource frontier.
This paper seeks to challenge/reframe this notion of opacity through continued analysis of acollection of geological and development-focused documentation sourced from the Record Group242, of the United States National Archives. This material obtained by US Army document gatherers
during Pyongyang’s occupation in late 1950 provides an extraordinary window into thedevelopmental possibilities conceptualized by North Korea and partners during the brief period from
Liberation to the outbreak of the Korean War. Building upon developmental imperatives of theGovernment General of Chosen and the legacy of mineralogical colonialism throughout the Korean
Peninsula, this paper encounters within the collection a landscape of institutional optimism in thefield. Pyongyang, technicians from the Soviet Union and elsewhere where not only tasked withharnessing North Korea’s geological capacity, but the creation of a new developmental and social
terrain. Analysis of blueprints from the collection reveal in detail new facilities, communities andinfrastructure in outline. Previous work on this collection by the author has sought to project forward
this infrastructure’s productive capacity and connect with current analysis of the Yongju deposit.
However this neglects the contemporary “lived reality” of the spaces and places of Soviet and North
Korea mineralogical interaction, as both nations sought, as evidenced by this collection, aconfiguration of both nation and society which served the interests of an internationally minded“socialist modern.”

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3) Joseph Andrew Seeley, Stanford University
Japanese Colonial Aquaculture and the Environmental Legacies of Sup’ung Dam Construction
on the Yalu River
Between 1937–1940, Japanese colonial engineers displaced approximately seventy thousand
Chinese and Korean farmers along the Yalu River to make way for a massive new hydroelectric
project: the Sup’ung Dam, second largest in the world at the time of its completion. Colonial officials
later brought new tenants to the now-submerged spaces farmers formerly occupied. These weremillions of fish, whose scaly bodies were intended to fill the caloric needs of a growing Japanese
empire in what was called the “world’s number one fish hatchery.” Construction of the Sup’ung dam
led to a fundamental transformation of the Yalu’s river ecology and a reassessment of its piscatorial
possibilities. The Sup’ung dam negatively impacted the Yalu’s pre-existing freshwater fisheries. Yet it
also brought an unprecedented amount of official and scientific attention to the river’s underwater
resources. Wartime exigencies drove Japanese colonial regimes in Korea and Manchukuo, previously
divided over fishing rights, to cooperate on aquacultural development of the Sup’ung reservoir
fishery. Japan’s defeat in the Second World War ultimately interrupted these plans. The fish planted
there by colonial authorities, however, continued to feed hungry populations into the post-colonial
era and set a precedent for profitable fisheries development that occurred in the reservoir after 1959.
Postwar regimes in China and North Korea disavowed the legacies of Japanese colonialism, but theyshared a logic of development that valued the aquacultural potential of the Sup’ung reservoir over theriver’s native fisheries.
Discussant: Bruce Batten, J. F. Oberlin University

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Session 6: Room 203
Trans-Pacific Overtures: Japan-U.S. Exchanges and Collaborations of the 1950s and 1960s
Organizer: Alisa Freedman, University of Oregon
Chair: Mary Knighton, Aoyama Gakuin University
This panel considers cultural exchange and collaboration between Japan and the United Statesin the 1950s and 1960s by individuals who created new views of literature, academics, and music
through experiencing life abroad. Be it the American men who came to Japan in jobs related to the
U.S. military or the Japanese men and women who traveled to the United States through government
grants, these sojourners were as affected by their national home as by the foreign country theyencountered. They approached life abroad with wonder and openness to possibilities. They lived
within a nexus of change, when the United States was rising in international stature and Japan
reemerging in a different form on the international scene. Whether acknowledged or not, their roles
were highly political. Kendall Heitzman analyzes how Japanese authors sent to the United States
were influenced both by the literary climate they left behind and the new places that inspired theirwriting. Richi Sakakibara explores how translators like Edward Seidensticker made Japanese
literature available to American readers but downplayed or suppressed politics in their representationof Japan. Alisa Freedman discusses how a generation of Japanese women who studied abroad at U.S.
universities helped establish the American postwar field of Japanese studies and pioneered careers inmale-dominated fields. Jayson Chun reexamines the career of music producer Johnny Kitagawa as acase study of the “Pop Pacific,” a framework of cultural hybridity. Discussant Mary Knighton will
invite audience engagement with the legacy of these Cold War endeavors.
1) Kendall Heitzman, University of Iowa
We’ll See It All: Japanese Writers Abroad in the 1950s
Over the course of the 1950s, a number of prominent Japanese writers made their way to theUnited States on Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation grants. In many ways, the various Americas
they found were a function of what they went looking for: a sexually liberated Greenwich Village, abucolic rural Ohio campus, a Southern city seething with racial tensions. At the same time, their stays
in the United States inevitably took place at the intersection of a host of social cross-currents that had
as much to do with the Japan they left behind them: interpersonal rivalries, postwar tensions, and a
growing awareness of the ways they felt Japanese culture lagged—and led—the rest of the world in
the years before its so-called reemergence on the global scene. Among the key travel writings of theperiod, we will look at Shōno Junzō’s Ganbia taizaiki (A Record of My Stay in Gambier, 1959), Oda
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Makoto’s Nandemo mite yarō (I’ll See It All, 1961), and Yasuoka Shōtarō’s Amerika kanjō ryokō (ASentimental Journey to the United States, 1962).
2) Richi Sakakibara, Waseda University
The Politics of “Cultural Exchange”: Representations of Japan under the Cold War Scheme
After seven years of U.S. occupation, Japan allegedly achieved independence and re-joined theinternational community in 1952. In effect, Japan entered into the Cold War regime, becoming avaluable ally to the United States. This shift in status meant that the image of Japan held during the
Occupation period needed to be re-formulated—from the image of a “student” learning democracy
from the United States to that of a partner on equal footing. This paper focuses on this repositioningof Japan in the 1950s by looking at the 1954 Atlantic Monthly supplement entitled Perspective ofJapan. As the subtitle, “Gateway to Japan,” clearly demonstrates, it was meant to serve as a
guidebook for American readers, introducing a new Japan through an emphasis on Japanese culture.
The supplement contains articles on Japanese architecture, fine arts, theater, religion, and popular
entertainment, as well as translations of literary works by Ihara Saikaku, Dazai Osamu, Hasegawa
Nyozekan, Eguchi Kan, Tanizaki Junichirō, and Kawabata Yasunari. Modern Japanese literature wasgiven prominence, but any political significance was downplayed—if not suppressed entirely. I willinquire into the political implications of these apolitical representations of the “new Japan.” Inparticular, I will explore Edward Seidensticker’s role not only as translator of Kawabata’s Izu Dancer
and Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows but also as the expositor of “mysterious” Japanese culture within
the Cold War scheme. I will also argue that the U.S. position vis-à-vis Europe significantly affected
the way Japan was represented within this cultural politics.
3) Alisa Freedman, University of Oregon
The Forgotten Story of Japanese Women Who Studied in the United States, 1949–1966
One thousand Japanese students studied at American universities with the help of GARIOA(Government Account for Relief in Occupied Areas, 1949 through 1951) and Fulbright (establishedin 1952) fellowships between 1949 and 1966; this group included seventy-four women. These young
scholars who experienced the hardships of World War II in Japan were among the first people totravel abroad after. They epitomized the belief in education to improve international relations. Theycame after the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans and after women received the right to vote inJapan. At a time when the housewife was being solidified as a middle-class ideal, many of these
women became professors, university chancellors, authors, and translators who shaped the American
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field of Japanese studies and Japanese field of American studies. Others became leaders in medicine,journalism, athletics, and other historically male-dominated professions. Yet their names have been
omitted from histories of women and travel and from accounts of the formation of academic
disciplines and jobs. Drawing upon personal interviews, memoirs, and university and institutional
records, I will examine how exchange students formed a bridge between the United States and Japanin the Cold War era and were forgotten but major force in women’s advancement. I will overview theexperiences of representative women to show how study abroad shapes national images andindividual life courses.
4) Jayson Chun, University of Hawai‘i-West O’ahu
The “Pop Pacific”: The Growth of Transnational Popular Culture in 1950s and 1960s Japan
Beginning with the debut album of his first group Johnnys in 1964, Johnny Kitagawa (born1931), the brains behind Johnny & Associates, one of Japan’s top talent management agencies, hasproduced 232 chart-topping singles from forty acts, the most by any individual in history. And
unknown to most Japanese fans, he is an American. In a manner similar to how Paul Gilroy (1993)
has looked at the “Black Atlantic,” where Africans and Americans interacted to create a hybrid
culture we identify as “African-American” culture, I examine the “Pop Pacific,” a space oftransnational cultural construction of “Japanese popular music.” In the 1950s and 1960s, thisinvolved transpacific exchanges mediated through Japantowns in the United States, American
military bases in Japan, and the growing interplay between television and the Japanese musicindustry. A study of the “Pop Pacific” will reveal the hidden transnational and hybrid aspects ofJapanese popular music, or J-pop, as recent Japanese music since the 1990s is known today. I will
focus on the transnational links between Japan and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s andshow through the U.S-Japan music connection that much of Japanese popular music was part of alarger global web of world music, and so labels of national origin like “Japanese” or “American” hide
the true nature of transnational web of popular music.
Discussant: Mary Knighton, Aoyama Gakuin University

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Session 7: Room 352
After Digital Humanities: Urban Cartographies of Modern Japan
Organizer/Chair: Christophe Thouny, The University of Tokyo
Recent works in digital humanities have renewed our approach to literary texts and in particular
our understanding of the relation among narrative, visuality and cartography. Some scholars haveclaimed that the use of database and Geographical Positioning Systems have radically altered ourexperience of place and thus opened new possibilities for reading literary texts. However in many
ways the conceptual basis of digital humanities relies on an understanding of place experience and aknowledge of place informed by the very experience of disorientation that has defined urban
modernity since at least the 19th century. In engaging with this urban situation, the challenge ofurban writing has also always been its resistance to a capture of urban experiences into a national
territory and a global space of commodity circulation. In this panel, we propose then to return toliterary texts of Japanese modernity and discuss them in terms of cartographic practices that open
urban experiences to a movement of affects. Christophe Thouny will discuss the multiple
cartographies of urban space at work in Nagai Kafû’s Hiyorigeta and Sumida-gawa. Sarah Frederick
and Sayumi Takahashi Harb will then respectively analyze affective cartographies of Kyoto in
Natsume Sōseki and tanka’s shifting uses of famous places by modern female poets. In conclusion,
Earl Jackson will propose an original reading of Abe Kōbō’s The Box Man and A Ruined Map interms of recent discussions of social control in media and urban studies.
1) Christophe Thouny, The University of Tokyo
Cartographies of Modernity in Nagai Kafū’s Hiyorigeta and Sumida-gawaThis presentation attempts to answer to the recent appropriation of literary cartographic
practices in Digital Humanities, and argue for a strategic use of narrative in order to avoid the captureof urban cartographies into closed functional spaces. Recent cartographic projects such as Todd
Presner’s Hypercities claim to solve the modern aporia of the synchronicity of non-synchronicity bymaking visible the historical layers of urban places and in this process recall the lost voices of theurban everyday. Yet what is the synchronicity of the digital, and of the map? The juxtaposition of
cartographic layers to explore the historicality of urban places is nothing new in itself, as shows theongoing vogue of publications proposing a tour of Tokyo through maps of Heisei, Meiji and Edo.
Returning to the Meiji era, I discuss in particular how Nagai Kafū’s collection of urban essays
Hiyorigeta already played on the layering of urban temporalities through the use of maps of Edo andMeiji Tokyo yet with a radically different sense of mediation and urban experience. Kafū’s
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cartographic practice of Meiji Tokyo was grounded in the historical mediation of land and land-use
from early-modern to modern Japan. And this historical relation between the map and the territory
allowed Kafū’s cartographic practice of Tokyo to generate in a spatial narrative of growing-up amodern urban subject. In conclusion, I discuss Kafū’s use of pre-modern meisho in Sumida-gawa toargue that it is the perspectival movement and tension between historical mappings and a historicalland, rather than their integration into a uniform code, that generates urban narratives in resistance tothe logic of national and economic circulation.
2) Sarah Frederick, Boston University
Departed Cartographies: Natsume Sōseki Maps His Arrival in Post-Shiki Kyoto
This paper considers Natsume Sōseki’s spatial analysis of Kyoto in his first essay for the Asahi
Newspaper, “Kyo ni tsukeru yu” (Arriving in Kyoto One Evening, 1907). His essay depicts one paththrough Kyoto in 1907, overlaid with a second route traveled earlier with Masaoka Shiki, now
deceased. While seeming to engage in traditional travel writing modes, naming famous places andattaching a poem at the end to memorialize his visit and his loss, the essay finds uncanny rather than
comforting the apparent permanence of the spaces of Kyoto, and is equally disturbed by the speed of
his arrival from Tokyo by train. The paper considers his essay from the perspective of cartographicaltheories with particular attention to the relationship between image and text elements and thepotential for depicting or eliciting affect through maps. How might we think about Sōseki’s attention
to the relationship between poetry and pictures as explored in Kusamakura in terms of his mappingof Kyoto? How does he employ senses not usually included in cartography (the taste of a piece of
citrus or the coldness of using a certain type of futon) to develop and problematize standard
imaginings of the layout of the city? What is the essay’s sense of the relationship between history
and the mapping of modern spaces? Finally, while Sōseki’s essay suggests potential for digital
humanities mapping, it also produces its own methods for mapping that problematize digital
cartographic practices.
3) Sayumi Takahashi Harb, Independent Scholar
Expanding Kyoto’s Gendered Geographies: Meiji Modernity and the Rise of “Urban” Utamakura
The self-conscious shift from the discursively contained world of classical courtly waka
towards innovations in tanka featuring unorthodox topics and vernacular diction comprised one of
the hallmarks of “modern” Japanese poetry in the Meiji period. What happened to the classical topoi
of utamakura, and how did the geography of place names rich in poetic associations shift into more
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urbanized mappings? How did the changing, modernizing landscape of Kyoto (not to mention thepolitical traumas of the process of modernization itself) affect the poetic resonances of specific places
within the capital and its environs and generate “new” urban utamakura such as those seen in tanka
by Yosano Akiko (1878–1942)? How did the physically re-location/displacement of the emperor to
Edo/Tokyo alter the tenor of the space of Kyoto in waka, a poetic form that had long been legitimatedpolitically and aesthetically by imperial courtly patronage and participation? What kind ofpressure(s) did the impinging presence of foreign powers and their cultures during the Meiji
Restoration put on the cultural map of traditional poetry? One clue lies in the work of relatively
marginalized Kyoto poets who straddled the Bakumatsu period into the Meiji such as Otagaki
Rengetsu (1791–1875) and Zaisho Atsuko (1825–1900). I will be exploring how women poets inparticular played with established conventions of classical utamakura for their own ends, and will
make a case for mapping a gendered cartography of the 31-syllable form more generally.
4) Earl Jackson, National Chiao Tung University
Terminal Reader: Catastrophic Urban Literacy in Abe Kōbō
For the Naturalist novelists the Meiji city was the laboratory that sustained and enabled theexperiment of modern Japanese life. The post-Meiji urban landscape stimulated revolutions inaesthetic response from Masaoki Shiki to the Shinkankaku-Ha. But World War II transformed the city
into death traps and catastrophic, toxic ruins. Furthermore, the end of the war caused Japanese bornin the former empire to “return” to a homeland they had never seen, among them Abe Kōbō. Abe’s
alienation from the promise of modernity and his adaptation to the contradictions of urban rationality
inform his presciently postmodern panache. Taking as principle texts the novels The Box Man and
The Ruined Map, this essay will consider how Abe’s narrator in the former reads the city between thelines where the excluded live in a separate tragic logic that eventually claims anyone who accepts its
coherence, and how the latter –anti-detective novel undoes the subject who seeks the kinds ofanswers that mysteries used to promise. The critical approach will draw on Abe’s own essays as wellas the “classical” theories of the city offered by Maeda Ai and Kitano Keisuke’s contemporary
theories of social control.
Discussant : Anne McKnight, Shirayuri College

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Session 8: Room 314
Individual Papers 1: East Asian Law, Politics, and Religion
Chair: Alex Vesey, Meiji Gakuin University
1) Wu Guo, Allegheny College“Cowshed”: The Extra-Judicial Disciplinary Penalty during the Chinese Cultural Revolution
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), millions of innocent Chinese were jailed
in the informal, make-shift detention sites known as “cowshed,” or niupeng. What does the
emergence of the niupeng imply legally and culturally? Who founded and managed these cowsheds?
What happened inside the cowsheds, and how the inmates spend the time there? Was this form of
extra-legal confinement endorsed by the Chinese Party-State? Combining multiple primary sources
and sociological theories about prison and contentious politics, this paper delineates the origins anddevelopment of the cowshed, its various founders at different stages of the Cultural Revolution, andprovided a typology for the cowsheds based on the founders and purpose. The paper argues that
although PRC’s socialist legality explicitly opposed any unauthorized imprisonment, and Mao
Zedong never endorsed the phenomenon, the Maoist radical revolutionary ideology implicitly
encouraged execution of revolutionary justice without intermediaries, i.e. the Dictatorship by the
Masses. This internal contradiction, rather than the breakdown the system, gave a free hand to onofficial arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment, when the institutionalized judiciary system was delegitimized. During this self-contradictory process of institutional innovation, new political actors
emerged as self-styled judges and police, such as the Red Guards, the worker-masses, and Army
Representatives, etc. The space of cowshed itself demonstrates the feature of being arbitrary,contingent, and on-site. Finally, it is notable that extra-judiciary imprisonment or the reincarnation of
the cowshed is being used in today’s China.
2) Cynthia Daugherty, Seinan Gakuin University
Elizabeth Vining and Christianity in the Imperial House: Advancing Common Goals of Occupierand Occupied in Early Post-War Japan
This presentation focuses on Elizabeth Vining, an American Quaker who was employed as tutor
to the crown prince (current Emperor Akihito) from 1946–1950. In particular, the presentation
examines Vining’s work in connection with instrumental uses of Christianity during the period of theAmerican occupation of Japan. On the American side, General MacArthur’s goals included
protecting the Showa Emperor and achieving conversions of the Japanese, including members of theimperial family, despite the official US policy of separation of religion and state. The Japanese side
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made tactical use of intimations of interest and possible conversions in the imperial house as a way tohelp protect the Showa Emperor from prosecution. The presentation first reviews the context ofChristianity in the imperial house before considering expectations on the Japanese and Americansides for Vining’s work. Vining’s own goals are then examined in tandem with how she waspresented in the Japanese and American press. Although she was open about her commitment to the
Quaker non-proselytizing stance, she was still widely regarded as a sign that conversions would takeplace. For both MacArthur and Japanese officials, association of the emperor with Christianity wasseen as a means of creating a public persona defined by innocence, pacifism and enlightenedthinking. Vining’s story illustrates how occupier and occupied could collaborate in advancing
common goals that were not officially articulated.
3) Kim Sunil, Kyung Hee University:
Violent Entrepreneurs Turned Nationalist Instruments: The Evolution of Non-State Political
Coercion in South Korea
Political violence is known to be an indispensable element in the state-building process, whichis completed with the attainment of state-based supremacy in coercion. After the completion of thisprocess, however, a variety of private actors continue to exercise political violence for various
reasons. This study chronicles the evolution of political violence in South Korea from the state’s
explicit mobilization of street gangsters to suppress political opponents at the early stage of statebuilding, the collaboration with organized criminal organizations for developmental projects, and tothe manipulation of quasi-governmental organizations after democratization in the late 1980s. This
study challenges the conventional view that systemic political violence disappears as the state’s
coercive capacity increases. It also confutes the popular understanding that political violence is no
more than the state’s direct, illegal manipulation of physical forces in society. Instead, we argue thatpolitical violence has evolved through the state-nonstate cooperation in the market for force
according to the changing socio-political environment as well as the impending tasks of the state. We
specifically look into the ways in which political development, i.e., democratization, has produced
new demands for, and constraints on, political violence and in which the post-authoritarian regimes
have responded to them by selectively controlling incidents and subjects of physical contentions. This
study will chronologically analyze major incidents of political violence since the establishment of the
Republic of Korea from communist suppression by harnessed political gangsters, riot-police inprivate uniforms, service companies, to pro-government rightist groups.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Silja Keva, University of Turku
The National Diet of Japan and Parliamentary Diplomacy: Japan’s Participation in the AsiaEurope Parliamentary Dialogue
This paper analyses Japan’s participation in the Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership(ASEP), a biennial meeting of Asian and European parliamentary delegations held in the sidelines of
the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Traditionally the Diet of Japan has had relatively limited role inthe country’s foreign policy process, which is largely administered by MOFA and more recently also
by the Prime Minister’s Office, yet both Houses of the Diet actively engage in different forms ofinternational parliamentary diplomacy. The ASEP meetings have for the past 20 years provided aplace for Japanese legislators to engage with Asian and European colleagues in a multilateral setting
and a chance to address difficult issues such as human rights, role of media and world trade all ofwhich have both regional and global importance for Japan. This paper explores Japan’s role,
motivations and contribution in the ASEP cooperation from 1996 to the present day. How has theDiet of Japan with its traditionally limited foreign policy role used this channel to shape theinternational agenda? How has Japan interacted both with its regional Asian neighbors and with theEuropean partners in ASEP which is the only venue for interregional dialogue between Asian andEuropean parliaments? This research sheds light on the rather unknown international activities of theDiet of Japan and analyses the value of international parliamentary dialogue to Japan and its foreign
policy process.
5) Franziska Schultz, University of Tübingen
Economic Effects of Political Shocks to Sino-Japanese Relations in Annual Reports of the JapanChina Economic Association
Although Japan and China normalized their diplomatic relationship in 1972, it has experienced
considerable political tensions over the last four decades: the textbook debate, the Senkaku Islands
Dispute and Japanese Prime Ministers visiting Yasukuni Shrine. This conflict potential has
manifested itself in recurring political shocks, i.e. sudden political (or politicized) domestic events
temporarily causing relations to deteriorate followed by demonstrations and extensive media
coverage. However, both countries continuously maintained strong economic ties and theirrelationship has been characterized as “politically cold, economically hot”, suggesting political andeconomic relations do not influence each other. Nonetheless, shocks in 2005, 2010 and 2012 caused
spillovers onto economic relations. Do spillovers play a role for Japanese actors doing business with
China? This paper argues these events have led to a stronger awareness of economic consequences
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from the first spillover in 2005. To support this claim, it will focus on a qualitative content analysis ofannual reports from 1980 to 2014 by the Japan-China Economic Association as exemplary actor andprimary point of contact for Japanese firms in China since 1972. Though JCEA emphasizes positive
relations and rarely mentions anti-Japanese activities, this analysis according to Frueh (2010) shows
spillovers increasingly play a role aftershocks occurred and in subsequent years from 2005. It will besupported by theoretical findings from an International Relations perspective by Katz (2013), Vekasi(2014) and sources by JETRO and Daiwa Institute of Research (DIR).

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LUNCH BREAK 12:00 P.M. - 1:15 P.M.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS I: 1:15 P.M. - 3:15 P.M.
Session 9: Room 204
Fracturing of Traditional Diplomatic and Trade Relations in 16th–17th Century Japan
Organizer/Chair: Csaba Olah, International Christian University
During the Muromachi period Japan maintained diplomatic and trade relations with three
foreign countries until the middle of the sixteenth century – Chosŏn Korea, Ming China and the
Ryukyu Kingdom. In the middle of the sixteenth century, however, Japanese faced new challenges
after the arrival of the Europeans. Japan had no experience in diplomatic communication withcountries outside of East Asia and it was not prepared for establishing diplomatic relations with
European countries. In dealing with the Europeans Japan lacked a common language such as kanbun
in East Asia and the traditional view of Japanese foreign relations complicated the situation. The
collapse of the Muromachi shogunate, civil war and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate
after the second half of the sixteenth century also heavily influenced the later transformation of
diplomacy and trade. This panel will examine how the collapse of official diplomacy with China inthe middle of the sixteenth century and the arrival of the Europeans influenced Japan’s “traditional”
diplomatic thought and trading practices after the mid-sixteenth century. Two of the papers will
examine changing patterns of Japanese trade and diplomacy with other countries, focusing on Japan’s
attitude toward foreign ships in the sixteenth—seventeenth century. The papers will investigate how
new actors began to participate in diplomacy and trade and how, unlike the age where traditional
tributary trade was based on diplomatic relations, trade was no longer necessarily based on
diplomacy. The other two papers will offer case studies, one that focuses on the role of the Shimazu
family and its relationship with Ryukyu, looking at its role in reopening the diplomatic discussions
with Ming China, and the other that focuses on the Japanese slave trade based on Portuguese laws
concerning slavery that finally ended in the 17th century.
1) Igawa Kenji, Seijo University
Some Examples of Trade Tradition in the Sixteenth Century JapanThe middle of the sixteenth century was a turning point in the interregional relations centering
on Japan. Needless to say, it was the time of the well-known wakō-activities. Further, around thistime official contact between Japan and Ming China was terminated after the last Japanese tribute24

ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
envoys returned to Japan in 1550. Although the “King of Japan” had nominally continued to dispatch
his envoys to the King of Korea, it was substantially carried out by the Sō family of Tsushima island.
Outside Japan maritime ban system had been held around this period in Choseon Korea, Ryūkyū
Kingdom, as well as in the Ming China which had great influence on the relationship with othercountries. This maritime ban system, especially that of the Chinese empire legally meant that leaving
the country was prohibited for costal inhabitants. At the same time, historical sources also prove thatthe entry to the empire was also strictly controlled. In this context the Ryūkyū Kingdom is also often
mentioned as an “ocean state” with extensive trade relations as Ryūkyū had frequently sent ships toChina, Japan, Korea and other Southeast Asian regions. However, on the other hand it did rigidly
prohibit emigration of Ryukyuan people and also restricted the entry of foreign trade ships; a factwhich is overlooked in previous research. Thus, this paper aims at focusing on the maritime bansystem of Ryūkyū and that of Korea as first. Now, if we look at Japan, we can see that it did notestablish this kind of ban-system. There is no example whether a similar system existed in Japan, but
we know from the sources that no one from those seventeen ships that arrived from outside of Japanin the first half of the sixteenth century was banned for of this reason. What was the reason for that?
As another core question I would like to examine the situation in the sixteenth century Japan as well.
2) Okamoto Makoto, The University of Tokyo
Transformation of Diplomacy and Trade in Japan during the 16th–17th century
This paper deals with the question of the differences that can be seen between Japanesediplomacy and trade with Ming China (which was interrupted with the last Japanese official tributary
ship that sailed to China in 1547) and Japanese diplomacy and trade with the Spanish colony in thePhilippines at the end of the sixteenth century or with the South East Asian countries in the first halfof the seventeenth century, looking at the Japanese side of these relations. One answer is that sending
diplomatic missions to Ming China was a prerequisite for maintaining relations and trade took place
as an accompanying activity; while in the case of trade with the Spanish or the South East Asian
countries sending trading ships without diplomatic duties was the basic premise and diplomacy took
place as a supplementary activity. The difference can be clearly seen in the composition of theleading members of the missions. In the case of missions to Ming China learned Zen monks wereinvariably appointed as the chief- and vice-ambassadors of diplomatic missions and merchants went
with them to China only as accompanying members. In the case of trade with the Spanish in thePhilippines merchants were the leading figures of the missions and merchants were always appointed
as leaders of these missions even if an official diplomatic document was sent by the Japanese
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sovereign. The reason for this change that in the case of diplomacy with the Ming a relationshipbased on diplomatic protocol was essential because Ming foreign policy only allowed official tribute
missions from foreign countries to enter China, while in the case of trade with the Spanish in thePhilippines protocol was no longer very important. But the ambiguity between the former and latter
practices sometimes caused confusion in diplomatic interactions.
3) Maria Grazia Petrucci, University of British Columbia
Back to the Past: Piracy and Diplomacy in Relations between Japan and Ryukyu
The argument advanced in this presentation challenges the research of previous scholars
dealing with the competition for maritime routes and the Ashikaga shoguns’ tributary trade policies,
such as Hashimoto Yū, who has focused on the specifics of the tribute trade, and Niina Kazuhito,
who has dealt with the Shimazu’s competition and piracy in the early sixteenth century, as well as
Kurushima Satoru, who has downplayed the role of the Shimazu. Here I do demonstrate how
Satsuma’s sixteenth century connection to the Kingdom of Ryukyu made it possible for the
Tokugawa in the early seventeenth century to deal diplomatically indirectly with Ming China. Hence,
the Kingdom of Ryukyu not only presented itself as a possible way to deal with China by proxy but
also had established a precedent of diplomatic contacts in the early sixteenth century, and this was themain reason for Tokugawa to annex Ryukyu in first place: to reconnect with Ming China from a safe
diplomatic distance. However, these precedents were also based on competition for maritime routes
between pirates on the payroll of the central government or its cliques and the corsairs of the newly
emerging power holders of southern Japan, namely the daimyō at Kyushu. Japanese pirates took
advantage of the competition for maritime routes to Ryukyu to gain status as mediators between thecenter and the peripheries and to shift the commercial focus from Ryukyu to Tsushima once Japan
became the locus for the exchange of weaponry for silver.
4) Lucio de Sousa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Japanese Slavery and the Iberian Legislation
This paper aims to analyze the impact that Japanese slavery had on the Iberian legislation
produced between 1567 and 1606. This research will be divided in three parts. Initially we will study
the first Council of Goa (1567), the abolition of Japanese slavery in Portugal and the second
Provincial Council of Goa (1575). In the second part of this research, we will analyze the antiChristian edict of 1587, the condemnation of slavery in Japan by Claudio Acquaviva and the
publication of excommunication against the Portuguese slave traders by the Bishop Pedro Martins.
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We will close the second part of this paper with a presentation of the first actions to eradicate theJapanese slave trade in Macau, Melaka, Goa and Lisbon. In the third a part of our research we will
analyze the law against the Japanese slave trade in Goa and the negative repercussions among thewealthy Portuguese merchants. This work will be finalized with an analysis of the collapse ofJapanese slave trade in Japan.
Discussant: Csaba Olah, International Christian University

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Session 10: Room 351
Shifting Boundaries, Ambiguous Identities: State and Non-State Actors in Waste Management
and Recycling in East Asia
Organizer: Rebecca Tompkins, Leiden University
Chair: Katarzyna Cwiertka, Leiden University“Waste” is a complicated concept, and its meanings shift across time, cultures, and places. For
some, waste is dirty, repulsive, unwanted; for others it is an economic, political, or ideologicalopportunity. These disparate meanings can spur complex interactions among various groups andindividuals involved in waste management and recycling. These actors – which can include the state,businesses, religious organizations, women’s groups, and gangs, among others – have their own
motivations, identities, and interests, and their relations can range from cooperation and collaboration
to hostile conflict or coercion. This panel will explore interactions between various actors involved
with waste and recycling, focusing on the ways these relations shifted or challenged boundaries,
identities, and discourses. Tompkins examines the 1930s Tokyo “garbage movement,” in which awomen’s suffrage group collaborated successfully with city authorities, using garbage as a means toachieve their political goals. Pak explores the case of Seoul’s Nanji landfill, operated from 1978 to
1993, where various informal actors participated in making the landfill manageable and developed
new meanings, distinctions, and usages of waste, troubling boundaries between formal and informal,
legal and illegal. Liebman demonstrates how waste and the people who live off of this waste make aparticularly unruly pairing in Kunming, China, challenging state and entrepreneurial schemes whichseek to order and govern the urban environment. Dung discusses the case of the Taiwanese Buddhist
organization Tzuchi, which has established an independent recycling system since the 1990s,
integrating global environmentalism with local religious traditions in its economic performance ofrecycling.
1) Rebecca Tompkins, Leiden University“Our Mission as Women:” Cooperation between Women’s Groups and City Authorities in the
Garbage Campaign of Prewar Tokyo
In 1933, the Tokyo Women’s League to Purify City Politics, a women’s activist group whose
core members were leaders of the country’s nascent women’s suffrage movement, initiated a farreaching campaign to combat the city’s “garbage problem.” The newly constructed waste incineration
facilities in the Fukagawa area of downtown Tokyo were generating massive clouds of noxious
smoke, which experts believed was caused by high water content. The Women’s League embraced
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the issue, organizing a lecture series about correct household waste separation and treatment,
distributing thousands of fliers, assisting in the city’s contest for a “cleaning slogan,” and evenproducing a movie about the garbage problem at the behest of city authorities. Drawing on archival
sources, this paper analyzes the interactions of the women’s activist group, city authorities, and otheractors involved in the Tokyo garbage movement of the 1930s. It focuses on the ways in which theTokyo Women’s League leveraged garbage as a municipal problem into a social movement as aconscious political strategy, employing and transforming discourses about women to promote theirgoal of elevating the status of women in public life. For the city, collaboration with the women’sgroup in the garbage movement not only helped to resolve the underlying problem by increasing
citizens’ awareness (and, hopefully, actual practice) of correct waste separation, it also deflectedpublic attention away from the city’s responsibility for the lingering smoke problem in Fukagawa.
This case highlights the myriad ways “waste” can be employed as a political and discursive tool.
2) Hyojin Pak, Leiden University
Managing the Disorderly: Formal and Informal Actors in Making Seoul’s Nanji Landfill, 1978–
1993
The Nanji landfill, intended as a temporary local dump site, gradually became Seoul’s principal
landfill from 1978 to 1993, exceeding its planned operation period and creating two garbage
mountains 90 meters above sea level. The landfill’s original plan, temporary as it was, could notprepare it for the future; – the country’s ever-rising economic development, changes in styles ofconsumption/discarding, and in patterns of waste generation and the actual composition of Korean
waste. In the absence of any regulatory framework and financial, technical, and human resources
necessary for its operation, the landfill attracted various types of informal actors, developing newmeanings, distinctions, and usages of waste. Drawing on government-produced documents andinterviews with landfill employees, this paper explores the inner workings of the Nanji landfill. It
examines how the landfill was expanded without preparation; how the absence of any timely plan
resulted in unanticipated consequences for both its management and workers; and how the workers
learned to live and work with these consequences, making the landfill manageable in the midst ofdisorder and complexity. Focusing on the interaction between the city employees and gangs involvedin organized violence participating in the day-to-day landfill operation, the paper uncovers troublingboundaries between formal and informal, legal and illegal, shaping the landfill a lawless zone – aspace of exception that created a new order of its own. In doing so, the paper aims to understandlocally shared meanings and practices of waste and landfill operation in the absence of more formal
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environmental waste management.
3) Adam Liebman, University of California, Davis
Controlling Waste in Kunming, China: Struggles to Order and Govern the Urban Environment
In Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province, government bureaus have been
struggling to address the city’s “garbage problem” for decades. Today the problem has been
ostensibly solved through publicity campaigns, investments in sanitation and infrastructure, and theconstruction of five garbage incineration plants. Yet, an artisanal scrap trade thrives in Kunming
despite the city’s negative stance on such unregulated, “polluting”, and “zangluancha” (dirty/messy/bad) economic activities. A private entrepreneur who draws heavily on environmentalist rhetoric has
also worked with the government in his decade-long attempt to reform, regulate, and monopolize
urban recycling—an attempt which has mostly failed. Thus, collecting and selling scrap continues toprovide livelihoods for a large group of “garbage pickers” and supplements the incomes of sanitation,
janitorial, and other low-income workers. Their gleanings are sold to an estimated 24,000 rural
migrants who make a living in Kunming informally trading scrap. Although these traders are often
the target of government fines and harassment, they have persisted in carving out spaces in the city
for plying their trade. In this paper I show how Kunming’s waste and the people who live off of thiswaste have coalesced into a particularly unruly pairing which is uncooperative with state andentrepreneurial schemes. Therefore, although the individuals involved in scrap trading are mostly
motivated by the exchange value potentials of scrap, collectively their everyday practices challenge
the local state’s and private entrepreneurs’ abilities to order and govern the urban environment, and tocontrol the waste produced by the city.
Discussant: Tomoko Okayama, Taisho University

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Session 11: Room 253“Queer” Lines: Genders and Sexualities in Institutions and at Play in Japan (Part I)
Organizer/Chair: SPF Dale, Hitotsubashi University
Scholars of gender and sexuality studies have done impressive research theorizing gender andsexual identities in Japan, especially in recent years. Yet, much of the scholarship written in English
on gender and sexual minorities in Japan (and elsewhere) have privileged gay and lesbian identities(and to a certain extent, transgender), emphasized the heterosexual-homosexual binary, and framed
sexuality in antinormative terms and binary structures, sometimes at the expense of bi, non-binary,and other bodies and sexual identities that do not conform to expectations inscribed by the institutionof the heteronormative family. We propose a twin panel that seeks to explore and challenge thenotions of what constitute “queer” bodies, selves, and practices, where we locate queer in a web of
plural, excessive, and overlapping sexual and gender-variant desires, practices, and subjectivities(Sedgwick 1994; McLelland, Suganuma & Welker 2007). The first panel examines how social andmedical institutions function to regulate and (re)inscribe “male” and “female” and masculinity andfemininity as a way to question and rethink these binaries. Our second panel explores how cultural
media, texts and sites, such as cafes, music, manga and anime, grant spaces to play with gender,
sexual, and social norms as alternative ways of reconfiguring binaries but also push beyond them.
This twin panel is concerned with new approaches to studies on Japanese genders and sexualities. It
takes stock of new directions in queer scholarship, such as studies of alternative genders andsexualities, which are constantly being shaped by transnational flows of ideas, methods, and people.
1) SPF Dale, Hitotsubashi University
On Medical Terms: Gender Identity Disorder and the Recognition of Non-Binary Gender
Identities
Queer activists as well as scholars have long criticized the pathologization and medicalizationof transgender and queer bodies, arguing that such acts enforce and make use of a restrictive notionof what is “normal” and forces such bodies to be considered “abnormal” in order to be sociallyrecognized. Gender Identity Disorder (GID; sei dō itsu sei shō gai) was legally recognized as a
medical condition in Japan in 2003. The recognition of GID radically changed understandings ofgender in Japan, and especially understandings of transgender identities. Although in the past GID
was a diagnosis given to individuals who desired to transition specifically from female to male ormale to female, more recently it has also been given to individuals who do not necessarily desire totransition to an institutionally recognized gender (i.e. female or male), including individuals who
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identify as x-gender or other non-binary genders. This presentation examines the influence that GID
has had on how non-binary identities are perceived as well as experienced in Japan. Making use ofinterviews with individuals who identify as x-gender who have undergone diagnosis for GID (or who
express a desire to do so), I argue that although GID encourages understanding transgender as a
medical condition, for some individuals this understanding was crucial in forging their identity and incoming out to others around them. GID as such acts as a two-edged sword – one which enables social
recognition, but only on very specific terms.
2) Minata Hara, Japan Sexual Minorities Network for Social Inclusion
Is Gender an “Identity” for All, or Just an Orientation?: Rethinking “Gender Identities” in Japanthrough Phone Counseling
As an X-gender social activist, I have been a part of a one-stop 24-hour phone counselingservice run by state subsidy since 2012. I am in charge of the “sexual minorities line,” which receives
any calls related to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. Our line is accessible
toll-free nation-wide, and gets about 1000 calls daily, with a pickup rate of 10%. In the past three anda half years, we have responded to over 120,000 calls. While there are many notable points thatshould be analyzed, one characteristic trend is the prevalence of gender-fluid callers. One out of
every four callers profess to feel a certain degree of gender fluidity and talks about it both in phone
conversations and face-to-face interviews. This is encouraged by the fact that callers are not asked to
identify whether they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Neither are they asked whether they
are homosexual or heterosexual. Rather, phone counselors carefully listen to each caller without
assuming or categorizing what they are or who they should be. Given this context, I find that theword “gender identity,” frequently referred to in international human rights advocacy as SOGI andtranslated as “seijinin,” sounds too rigid and does not adequately describe what they feel or who theyare. Rather, I find that “gender orientation” better describes the state of mind or being of many of ourcallers who are gender-fluid and face problems due to their non-conformity with the rigidly“gendered” culture.

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3) Yuen Shu Min, University of Melbourne
Drinking and Partying…Or Something More? Negotiations of Belonging in the Contemporary
FTM Scene in Japan
In the last twenty years, Japanese transgender people have acquired increased visibility inmainstream Japanese society. Notwithstanding that, understandings of Female-to-Male (FTM)
transpeople continue to remain hazy among the Japanese public, and largely unaccounted for in both
Japanese and Anglophone academia. This paper therefore seeks to account for one aspect of FTM
cultural life, and explore how the production and consumption of this cultural life allows us to see theworkings of FTM people’s negotiations with the state apparatuses. I draw on my fieldwork in what I
call the “FTM scene”—a loose network of FTM individuals and organizations, institutions such as
bars, clubs and restaurants, events and gatherings such as drinking parties and club nights, as well as
FTM media and businesses—and demonstrate how the FTM scene not only plays an important rolein fostering a sense of community among its participants, but also enables the negotiation of FTM
people’s civic inclusion and autonomy. While consumption certainly lies at the center of scene
activities—and indeed, the participants’ ability to participate is contingent on their spending power—
I use the case of the drinking party to urge us to think beyond the binary of consumption asnecessarily depoliticizing, versus consumption as necessarily leading to minority sexual rights.

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4) Mark McLelland, University of Wollongong
Takahashi Tetsu and the Struggle for Freedom of Sexual Expression in Early Postwar JapanOne of the first acts of the Occupation administration was to revoke the powers of the Japanesepolice to pre-censor print material. This led to a rapid escalation of stories and reports in the popularpress that would previously have been banned as lascivious or obscene (waisetsu). A recurrent themein this literature is that of ryōki or ‘curiosity hunting’ for tales of strange and unusual sexual
behaviour. Of particular interest is the emergence of the ‘sadistic woman’, the ‘male-dresser’, and the‘Lesbos lover’ – new female personality types who expressed female agency at the expense of theirmale analogues, the ‘masochist man’, the ‘female-dresser’ and the ‘Sodomite’. This paper reads theearly postwar fascination with these accounts of ‘perverse’ sexualities in the context of challenges tothe militarist sex and gender system brought about by Japan’s defeat and the new postwar legal
environment validating women’s social and political agency. It is argued that the popular discourse
endorsing ‘curiosity seeking’ in sexual matters modifies some recent accounts that stress theconservative nature of sex and gender roles endorsed by the Japanese authorities during the
Occupation era and shortly after.
Discussant: Sabine Frühstück, University of California, Santa Barbara

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
Session 12: Room 203
Theorizing the Other in Urban Spaces of Play in Tokyo
Organizer/Chair: Jamie Coates, Waseda University
Urban public spaces are generally assumed to be more accessible and democratic than theirprivate counterparts. This is particularly the case for spaces of play in Tokyo, where the ludic andconvivial aspects of consumption, games and performance are associated with freedom and sanctuaryfrom wider urban pressures (Greve 2011). While significant attention has been paid to thehermeneutics of play in the Japanese Context (cf. Hendry and Raveri 2002), the spatial qualities ofplay are often treated in ways that elide its diversity. Play takes on heterotopic forms within Tokyo’s
urban spaces, forming multiple, often conflicting publics. This panel explores how focusing on playand space allows us to understand processes of exclusion and inclusion within Tokyo. Historically,
spaces of play, such as Edo’s Yoshiwara and the black markets of Shōwa Japan, have served toemplace the Other within Tokyo. This process continues today, taking on increasingly pluralistic
forms that map onto a diverse range of spaces. The dialectics of inclusion and exclusion as well as
imaginaries surrounding non-normative subjectivities proliferate within these contexts, whether
migrant spaces of play, spaces for music subcultures, or gendered and sexualised spaces of play. At
the same time, the heterotopic nature of these spaces also enables people to foster non-normative
practices, spaces and convivialities. Within this panel, we will explore these themes in relation to
spaces where women explore their sexuality, Chinese migrant spaces, Visual Kei music performancesand conflicts over space within the Kabukichō.
1) Jamie Coates, Waseda University
Playing in Ikebukuro: Negotiating Exclusion in Chinese Migrant Spaces of Play
From its inception, Ikebukuro has served as a space of play for the non-normative in Tokyo.
From surrealist artist groups in the 1930s to the black markets of postwar Japan, it has been perceived
as dangerous and deviant, but this perception also feeds what is seen as appealing about Ikebukuro to
many. Since the 1990s Ikebukuro’s image has continued to grow within popular youth cultures andmedia, re-inscribing Ikebukuro’s image of deviance to the point where it is now seen as exciting at
fashionable. However, the formation of this image has also served as a mode of exclusion within
Ikebukuro. Since the 1990s Ikebukuro’s Chinese population has grown exponentially on the
Northwestern side of the station. This has resulted in some 200 Chinese owned businesses, and an
unsuccessful proposal to call the northern quarter of Ikebukuro “Tokyo Chinatown” in 2008.
Focusing on a Chinese-run bar and music venue that has recently grown in popularity, this paper
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explores how a focus on play in Ikebukuro is useful in understanding migrant experiences. The bar
features: Gogo dancers, fetish circus acts, live music performances of various genres, Halloween andChristmas celebrations, as well as serving as a space for Chinese festivals and celebrations. The bar
acts as a “sanctuary” (Greve 2011) where “cosmopolitanism with Chinese characteristics” (Rofel2007) intersects with various forms of play and performance found within Tokyo. At the same time, italso serves as a site of exclusion due to its experimental nature. In this sense, this paper shows how
modes of play among Chinese migrants form heterotopia that simultaneously act as “sanctuaries” andsites of exclusion.
2) Toru Takeoka, Hitotsubashi University
Performative Othering and the Possibility of Inclusion: The Case of Tokyo’s Kabukichō Red Light
District
Within the metropolis, spaces of play are often posited as inclusive spaces: as a kind of
sanctuary (Greve 2011), a place for healing (Hendry 1995), and a place where one can findthemselves (Park 1915). However, how do we fit red light districts into this perspective? Sex work,and the spaces that facilitate it, have been under intense dispute in terms of whether sex work is
exploitative of women. However, less attention has been paid to red light districts as a space, where amultitude of practices occur. Despite the prevalence and popularity of red light district as spaces ofplay in Japan, there is little sociological research on these spaces. More importantly, those who workin these areas are stigmatized. This presentation explores the possibility of inclusion in Tokyo’s most
famous red light district, the “Kabukichō.” My paper is based on fieldwork in sex industry clubs andstreet spaces, as well as interviews with various kinds of people, such as hostesses, hosts, streetadvertisers and recruiters (both work for sex industry), local landowners, local government officers
and police. My research has traced the conflict between a middle class coalition of landowners andpeople involved with the sex industry. The conflict has resulted in discourses of othering directed
towards sex industry workers, as well as campaigns intended to redefine what modes of play are
acceptable within the Kabukichō.
3) Mira Lequin Malick, Waseda University
Things that Cultivate in the Dark: Tropes, Templates and Gendered Prosumption
In Japan, the physical spaces in which fans actively participate, perform and patron have been
portrayed as spaces of play where the fan experience of enjoyment is largely contingent on being able
to achieve a sense of ittaikan (shared togetherness), one which is fostered partly by means
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ASCJ 2016 Abstractsof routinized and structured forms of audience participation. Such organized bodily practices areenjoyable for the sense of familiarity they produce (Galbraith 2013, Inoue 2015, Kelly 2004)
And subsequently are compounded over time through a mastery of subject and context. In fandoms
where the visible audience is dominated by a particular gender, the manner in which the minority
participates is often obscured, along with other acts of spontaneity and variations of participation.
Similarly, research on Visual Kei has tended to place emphasis on the most visible aspects of its
consumption: fashion, female fans and furitsuke (choreographed movements) (McLeod 2013, Seibt
2014), thus contributing to homologies that link aesthetic orientations to the ‘feminized’ as well as tothe construction of archetype fan-consumers. This paper highlights the presence of a variety ofgendered forms of prosumption in fan practices that come to the fore at live-houses in Tokyo andattempts to reveal how archetypes, alternatives and urban norms intersect to form templates onto
which fans negotiate, display and contest ideas about gender, sociality and consumption.
4) Alexandra Hambleton, Bunkyo Gakuin University
The Buzz of Liberation: Sex Toys, Desire, and Feminist Potential in Contemporary JapanThe opening of two “vibrators bars” in central Tokyo in 2012 and 2013 heralded a major shift
in how female pleasure is viewed in Japan today. Billed as spaces for customers to view the latest sex
toys while discussing their sexual desires, fantasies, and problems, the women-only bars attracted awide range of clientele seeking information and affirmation about masturbation and pleasure. This
paper draws upon two years of ethnographic research conducted with female-friendly sex shops, sex
toy manufacturers, and vibrator bars to examine spaces for exploring female sexuality and sexpositive feminism in Japan today. Vibrators have traditionally been designed and manufactured bymen for men to use on women. Consequently, women’s marginalized sexuality was positioned as“other” in mainstream sexual commodity markets. However, in recent years, Japan’s sex toy market
has expanded to include imported and domestically manufactured products made with female
customers in mind. These products are sold in female-friendly vibrator bars and specialty sex shops
which provide rare spaces of play for women to explore their sexuality in a sex-positive environment.
However, these spaces are not without their problems. Rather than indicating a greater social
acceptance of female sexual pleasure, sex toy marketing to women is an example of the increasing
commodification of female desire (Arthurs 2004). Similarly, the provision of women-only specialist
bars and shops contributes to the demarcation of female sexuality as something “other,” external tothe (male-dominated) mainstream (Gordon 1992). Nevertheless, female-friendly sex shops and37

ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
vibrator bars are also places in which some women find their subjectivity and celebrate a sense of
sexual power and agency.
Discussant: Akiko Takeyama, University of Kansas

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
Session 13: Room 252
Minorities/Minority Languages in Asia
Organizer/Chair: Christian W. Spang, Daitō Bunka University
This panel, chaired by a German professor based in Japan, brings together graduate students
from Burma (Myanmar), China, Nepal and Russia. The suggested discussant is Professor Kimura,
who has roots in Japan as well as in Germany, specializing in Esperanto as well as in the Sorbian
language, a little known Slavic minority language spoken in the region south-west of Berlin. The
overall aim of this panel is to discuss questions of minority languages in Asia. Burma, China, Nepal
as well as Russia are far from being homogeneous nations. While Burma and Nepal are obviously
much smaller than the other two states, with roughly 30 and 60 million inhabitants each, they are still
more populous than most people assume. Like China and Russia, they are divided into many different
ethnic groups with their related native languages or dialects. Shrestha Suraj will present his analysisof recent (multilingual) educational reforms in Nepal and the effect they had on the education ofminority students. Nang Seng Hong is going to present the case of the Shang language and its latest
revival in politically instable Burma. Igor Tarakanov, who is scheduled to conduct research in Japannext year, will present the case of a little known Yiddish enclave in the Russian Far East. Finally,
Zhang Yongsheng is going to talk about questions of dialect and minority languages, presenting thecase of the Khorchin dialect of the Mongolian language.
1) Suraj Shrestha, Daitō Bunka University
Minority Language Policy and Practice in Nepal
Looking back at the educational history of Nepal, the exclusion of local minority languages in
education began after the opening of schools on a large scale following the downfall of the Ranaoligarchy in 1950. The National Education Planning Commission (est. 1956), which was formed by
the first democratic government, made various recommendations for the educational system in Nepal
but failed to address the challenges of multilingual education (MLE). However, in 2007, the Nepali
government’s Department of Education eventually launched a MLE program in various schools,
getting technical assistance from the Finnish government in this endeavor. So far, no comprehensive
studies have been conducted to show the results of the implementation of this MLE program. It istherefore the aim of this current study to explore and analyze the realities of multilingual education in
Nepali schools. This paper is going to highlight the current conditions and recent trends in the
education of minority students. It portrays the way how MLE practice is implemented in schools
across Nepal. For this, a specific set of tools will be prepared to gather the information from teachers,
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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
children’s parents or guardians and school management. In addition, some policy makers andeducation experts will be contacted and local data collected.
2) Nang Seng Hong, Independent Scholar CANCELLED
On Shan Language Revival in Burma
The Shan people, the second biggest ethnic group in Burma, seek full autonomy to manage
their affairs. Many minority groups in Burma have been involved in a long-running struggle with thecentral government located in Naypyidaw. The country was commonly called Union of Burma, aname taken from the Burmese ethnic group. It is now officially called Myanmar, a name chosen by
the military regime. This is not recognized by many Shan and other minority groups on the groundsof ethnic unfairness. Though armed struggle is not yet completely at an end, negotiations between the
Shan liberation forces and the Burmese government have led to important changes. This paper will
first discuss past difficulties the Shan people faced in the use of their language and then report about
recent developments. Now, traditional media, like newspapers as well as the internet offer newopportunities for the broader use and revitalization of the Shan language. These positive trends arecomplicated by the existence of numerous local dialects and the less than ideal conditions still facedby the Shan people under the current political system in Burma.
3) Igor Tarakanov, Daitō Bunka University
On the State of Yiddish Preservation in the Russian Far East
Yiddish has been subject to a long decline over the course of the last century. Nevertheless, itenjoys an official status in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (with its center at Birobidzhan), an
autonomous territory in the Russian Far East, which shares a border with Heilongjiang province innortheastern China. It was established by Stalin in 1934 to provide Yiddish-speaking Jewish citizens
with a place where they could preserve their cultural heritage. By 1948 the Jewish population was
about 30,000. By 2010, however, out of a total population of 176,558, only 1,628 people claimed tohave Jewish roots and less than 100 of these called themselves speakers of Yiddish. Depending on
one's viewpoint, though, Yiddish can be seen as undergoing a revival or as being in the process of
becoming extinct. A discussion will be made of points used to support each of these views. Thereexists a strong opinion among foreign researchers, and also among Russian native researchers that
Stalin’s experiment, the Birobidzhan Project, failed. But we should not forget that the Jewish
Autonomous Region was founded two decades before state of Israel and has preserved Yiddish andJewish culture ever since. Jews still live there, trying to fully continue practicing their traditions. This
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place also saved many of their forefather’s lives from the Holocaust; even though many others fell
victim to Stalin’s Great Purge. In the end, unlike other places contemplated for Jewish resettlement
over the years, like Uganda or Alaska or Japan, Birobidzhan should not be written off as an idea
without proper realization.
4) Zhang Yongsheng, Daitō Bunka University
Standard Mongolian Language and the Khorchin Dialect in Inner Mongolia
Mongolian language as a member of the Mongolic language family is used in the Republic of
Mongolia and in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang in China. Barag Ayalag, Horchin Ayalag, Tsahar
Ayalag, Bairan Ayalag, Tumed Ayalag, Alasha Ayalag, and Ordos Ayalag represent different spoken
variants of this language, though, with regard to Inner Mongolia, only one written form of thelanguage exists. The standard pronunciation of Mongolian Language in Inner Mongolia wasoriginally created for radio and television broadcasts and is based on the Chahar dialect located incentral Inner Mongolia. Thus, we have a very different situation from the Republic of Mongolia,
where the standard pronunciation is based on the Khalkha dialect and where far greater efforts havebeen made to standardize the spoken language than in Inner Mongolia. The Khorchin dialect is avariety of Mongolian spoken in the east of Inner Mongolia, namely in Hinggan League, in the north,
north-east and east of Hinggan and in all but the south of the Tongliao region. There were 2.08
million Khorchin Mongols in Inner Mongolia of China in 2000, so the Khorchin dialect may wellhave more than one million speakers, making it the largest dialect of Inner Mongolia. Nevertheless, it
was not chosen as the basis for creating the spoken standard now used for official purposes.
Discussion will center on the reasons for this and also on differences between the Khorchin Ayalag
and the standard language used for official purposes.
Discussant: Cezar Constantinescu, Sophia University

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Session 14: Room 316
Yōji Yamada: A Filmmaker Between the Studios and the Post-Studio Eras of Japanese Cinema
Organizer/Chair: Jose A. Montaño Muñoz, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Yōji Yamada is one of the most veteran filmmakers in Japan. His career started in 1954, when
he graduated from Tokyo University and was selected to join Shōchiku, one of the five major
companies that dominated the studio era in Japanese cinema. He trained there working along withsome of the most prominent figures of the era, until he became himself a well-respected director in
the studios. Since then, the studio system collapsed and the whole industry suffered a radical processof transformation. In this convulse circumstances, the director has managed to maintain his status as afilmmaker and keeps working until today, at his 84 years. Yamada is a living memory of those olddays, as well as a reminder of the profound changes that Japanese cinema has undergone. Throughout
his films, mostly centered in the everyday life of common people, one can explore the changes ofJapanese society during those decades, while the turns his career have taken are potentially useful toreveal central aspects of the transformation process and the current state of the film industry in Japan.
1) Francisco Javier López Rodríguez, Nagoya University
Depictions of Parenthood in Yōji Yamada’s Family-Themed Films.
During his long career Yamada Yōji has directed several films dealing with the topic of thefamily. Generally considered as the basic social unit, the cinematic family can be seen as a symbolic
microcosm shaped by specific cultural values. This presentation aims to study the portrayal ofpaternity, maternity and relationships between parents and children in Yamada’s work taking into
consideration several aspects such as gender roles, generation gaps and narrative constructions. Usinga methodological approach that combines qualitative analysis of the discourse, narratologicalcharacter studies and concepts from Japanese Studies and Sociology, the main objective is toestablish in which ways Yamada’s depiction of family roles and relationships have evolved over time.
The corpus of films that will be analyzed is composed by Kazoku (家族, 1970), A Distant Cry From
Spring (遙かなる山の呼び声, 1980), My Sons (息子, 1991), Kabei: Our Mother (母べえ, 2008),
Otōto (おとうと, 2010), and Tokyo Family (東京家族, 2013).

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts2) Kenta Kato, Waseda University
Yōji Yamada Remakes: Representation of Something Older
Yōji Yamada is noted for his humanist films in which hard-working people from the working
class are suffering from the disquieting situation of society in post-war Japan. As a longtime
filmmaker in the Shochiku studio, Yamada has been faithful to Ofuna-cho, a cinematic doctrine of
Shochiku that focuses on working class characters from a humanistic standpoint. Unlike other
Shochiku New Wave filmmakers from the same generation who distorted and rebelled against thisfilmmaking doctrine, Yamada has not been rebellious to this style of filmmaking. What is notablefrom his filmography is the repeated production of similar kinds of pictures, namely serialized films
that result in spectators being absorbed into the system or those that just ignore the existence of thesystem. What the humanist films actually present is cynicism towards humanity, with theirideological message that an individual is impotent to change the social situation and must be resigned
to accepting the given conditions. By analyzing two films most critical of the working conditions of
the countryside as it succumbs to capitalism, Kazoku (Where Spring Comes Late, 1970) and Furusato(Home from the Sea, 1972), this presentation will examine how Yamada’s disregard of theindividual’s potential reinforces the system and the films fail to serve as the social criticism that
Yamada intends them to be.
3) Jose A. Montaño Muñoz, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
The Twilight of an Era of Filmmaking: Yōji Yamada and Jidaigeki.
At the beginning of the present Century, Yamada directed three films that represented asignificant turn in his career. With The Twilight Samurai (たそがれ清兵衛 Tasogare Seibei, 2002),
The Hidden Blade (隠し剣鬼の爪 Kakushi ken: Oni no tsume, 2004) and Love and Honor (武士の一分 Bushi no ichibun, 2006), Yamada made an incursion into filming period dramas depicting thenational past. Significantly, the stories told in those films were set in a transitional moment, when theold world of the samurai was fading out following the socio-political decadence of the systemestablished by the Tokugawa shogunate. This presentation aims to underline the importance of thistrilogy in Yamada’s career at interpreting those films as a testimonial of another transitional momentin the present day, regarding both Japanese society and its cinema industry.
Discussant: Karen Severns, Waseda University

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Session 15: Room
Individual Papers 2: Contemporary East Asian Literature
Chair: Jenine Heaton, Kansai University
1) Li-ping Chen, University of Southern California
Searching for (Alter)native Soil: Eikan Kyu and the Politics of Homecoming in Postcolonial
Displacement
This paper discusses the discourse of “native soil” in postcolonial diaspora through an
examination of Eikan Kyu’s literary and commentary works. Born and raised in colonial Taiwan, Kyu
received education in the metropole where his critical attitude toward Japanese imperialism
eventually resulted in his involvement with the overseas Taiwan Independence Movement. After the
retrocession of the island to the Kuomintang-controlled Republic of China in 1945, politicaldissidents were systematically silenced and some like Kyu living in exile to continue their
independentist effort. Reconfiguring his political vision into literary articulation, Kyu published inJapan several novels that address the authoritarian and Sinocentric governance of the island. Awarded
the prestigious Naoki Literary Prize, his Hong Kong (1955) brings to the surface the bloodily
repressed “February 28 Incident,” an island-wide rioting that remained a taboo topic under martial
law in Taiwan. Kyu’s attempts to narrativize his home island, however, are complicated by his
postcolonial dislocation in Japan where he began to re-calibrate his nativist vision of "home." As he
struggled as a Taiwanese in postwar Japan, Kyu started to emphasize his cultural affiliation with andancestral background of China. This strategic “homecoming” enables him to utilize his cultural
capital in commenting on the increasing interaction between China and Japan. Kyu and his works
demonstrate how a (self-)exiled writer responds to postcolonial predicament while searching for(alter)native soil to thrive. In the context of China’s changing labour and social protection systems,
this study is the first to use a nationally representative panel dataset from 2004 to 2011 to examine
the causal effects of having a labour contract on a series of individual outcomes (i.e. wage, access topublic health insurance, hours worked and happiness). Utilizing the implementation of the 2008 new
Labour Contract Law as a natural experiment, the fixed effect difference-in-differences estimators
suggest that having a labour contract has positive causal effect on workers’ wages and access tohealth insurance, but not on hours worked. Having a labour contract does not have a significant
impact on happiness, indicating employment security might not play a significant role in worker’s
utility function. The results also suggest that it is important to account for the unobserved individual
and regional characteristics in the estimation.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
2) Hiroaki Matsusaka, University of Michigan
Colonial Borderlands in Japanese Proletarian Literature: Maedakō Hiroichirō’s Novels on Korea
and Contested Representations of Hwajŏn
In recent years, scholars have examined Japanese writers’ relationships with colonial Korea,
analyzing materials by Nakanishi Inosuke (Watanabe 2003), Kōtoku Shūsui (Ko 2010), and Hosoi
Hajime (Suh 2013). However, works on Korea by Maedakō Hiroichirō (1888–1957) are largely
overlooked. Born in Sendai, Maedakō moved to the U.S. as a migrant worker in 1907 and began his
career as a socialist author. After going back to Japan in 1920, he became a leading writer ofproletarian literature, producing widely read novels and essays on U.S. society. His six-month trip to
Chinese cities beginning in October 1928 inspired him to write on culture and working life in China.
While having never been to Korea, he then published a serialized novel titled Chōsen (K. Chosŏn;Korea) in 1931, as well as Kaden (K. hwajŏn; slash-and-burn farming), a revised version of Chōsen,in 1938. The story centers on a few Korean families that, under extreme economic hardship, migrated
from Northern Korea to Manchuria to the Soviet Union for survival, engaging in hwajŏn. In my
paper, I will analyze Maedakō’s texts to examine the complicated relationship between colonial
Korea and Japanese socialists. I will also interpret the texts in the broader context of colonialism,
capitalism, and mass culture in the colonial empire, including different discourses of hwajŏn,diasporic lives on Korea-China borderlands, and intersecting gender and ethnic relations in the livesof the underclass. My paper will explore how Maedakō’s works provide us with new perspectives tointerwar Japanese and Korean history.
3) Wu Xiaofang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
A Quest for East-West Religious Dialogue: On Helen M. Hayes’s Abridged Translation of Xiyouji(1930)
Xiyouji, a 16th-century Chinese novel, was partially translated into English under the title The
Buddhist Pilgrim’s Progress in 1930 by Helen M. Hayes, who published it as part of the successful“Wisdom of the East” series edited by L. A. Cranmer-Bying. This translation occupies a key position
in promoting the popularization of the fiction in the English-speaking world as it appears between
Timothy Richard’s missionary rendering (1913) and Arthur Waley’s widely acclaimed edition (1942).
However, it has received very little attention from translation studies scholars, and nothing is known
about the translator or the circumstance under which the translation was produced. By using firsthand archival materials, this paper attempts to reconstruct the personal life of the translator and toargue that her translation is of important value in exemplifying a dialogue and synthesis of Eastern
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and Western religions – Chinese Buddhism, Shin Buddhism and Christianity.
4) Makiko Mori, Auburn University
Does Money Kill Culture?: Money Matters in the Early-Republican Popular Fiction Industry
Studies on modern Chinese literature have conventionally dismissed an import of money,
considering money and money-driven capitalist economy culturally vulgar, morally suspicious, andideologically disagreeable. However, a formation of China’s modern literary theories and practices is
inseparable from a growing influx and prevalence of colonial and capitalist money. This paper
examines China’s early Republican popular fiction industry, in which money became one of the
preoccupying leitmotifs of printed texts that were marketed at and communicated with an emerging
body of wage-earning workers and student readership. Through a case study of The Story World(Xiaoshuo shijie), the then leading popular fiction magazine by the Commercial Press, this paper
shows the nuanced and critical ways in which the magazine explored the cultural significance ofmoney in the new era. Using a selection of short stories, cartoons, advertisement images, and readers’columns published in the magazine, the paper first illustrates the concrete terms in which these texts
portrayed the new money as the fundamental condition of quintessentially modern endeavors, namely
to attain individual autonomy and remake individual identity. Next it demonstrates how these texts
underline the complications of money economy that both enabled and restricted the new condition ofChinese reality. In the conclusion, the paper questions the contemporaneous May Fourth descriptionof The Story World as a crude and crass magazine that sacrificed culture for the new money, andoffers a brief synopsis of the cultural significance of money in a discussion of modern Chinese
literature at large.
5) Nicholas Lambrecht, University of Chicago
Returnee Postmemory: The Emergence of Second-Generation Japanese Repatriation Literature
Victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have passed on their harrowing
experiences to their descendants in tangible and organized ways that have been compared to thepostmemory evident in families of Holocaust victims. However, the conceptual framework ofpostmemory has not commonly been used to examine the contemporaneous transmission of traumatic
memories of repatriation to the descendants of those who fled to Japan from Japanese-controlled
territories at the end of the Second World War. Suitable application of research on postmemory to
second-generation narratives of repatriation may lead to a more nuanced model of postmemory that isable to better incorporate the circumstances not just of clear victims, but also of subjects who
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occupied morally ambiguous positions as representatives of an invading, imperial power. At the sametime, the emerging academic discourse on Japanese repatriation literature has frequently excluded
writers who did not personally experience postwar repatriation. This paper argues that incorporating
the postmemory-inflected “repatriation literature” written by second-generation Japanese returnees
into analyses of the genre is essential to showing the enduring postwar significance of repatriation—
an event that has often been rendered invisible by geopolitical realities and societal taboos, but which
has always remained engrained in the structure of postwar Japan and its literature. In particular, it
does so by exploring the contrasting narrative perspectives and strategies employed in the
postmemorial “repatriation literature” of writers like Naoki Prize-winning author and poet Nakanishi
Rei (1938–) and Akutagawa Prize-winning author Tsujihara Noboru (1945–).

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Session 16: Room 251
Individual Papers 3: Japanese and Chinese War Memory
Chair: Karl Friday, Saitama University
1) Han Jung-Sun, Korea University
Making of Dark Heritage in Contemporary Japan
This presentation examines the surge of war memories attached to places in Japan during the
1990s and onwards to look at the process and the nature of recent war remembrance and to identify
agents of such remembering in civil society. I will examine 1) the competition and negotiation
between state and society in determining the “legitimate” attributes of “cultural property” (bunkazai)
by tracing the legal development of “modernization heritage”; and 2) the various civic movements toincorporate vernacular memories of the Asia-Pacific War into both national and local landscapes byfocusing on the Matsushiro (Nagano), Tachiso (Osaka), and Kurashiki (Okayama) sites. In doing so, I
argue that the conservation movement is challenging the homogenizing national war memory byattaching ethnically diversified vernacular memories to the underground sites.
2) Torsten Weber, German Institute for Japanese Studies DIJ Tokyo
The Nanking Massacre and the Use of History in Japanese-Chinese Relations
This paper examines recent developments in the instrumentalisation of the Nanking Massacre(1937/38) as a disputed topic in official and non-official discourse mainly between Japan and the PR
China. Similar to the comfort women issue, the scope of public history activism in the case of the
Nanking Massacre has recently been widened from the national and bilateral scope to the global
scene. This includes the complete renewal of the Nanking Massacre Memorial site, the official
nomination of the Nanking Massacre for the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register,and the treatment of the massacre in the commemoration of 70th anniversary of the end of the Second
World War in 2015. My paper will analyse recent trends and strategies of the Japanese and Chinese
efforts to establish authoritative interpretations of the event as a case study of public use of history inJapanese-Chinese relations.
3) Shota T. Ogawa, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
The Work of Commemoration in the Age of Digital Colorization: Recent NHK War Documentaries
There is a rare consensus uniting the media today regarding the memories of WWII; they must
be reanimated in color. On August 15, 2015, NHK broadcasted an ambitious documentary that
digitally colorized iconic black-and-white film footages of the Pacific War—snow-covered Attu,
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student conscripts in the rain, and the final rites of Kamikaze pilots. This study places this and other
war narratives that commemorated the seventieth anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the broader
discussion of the elusive position color has occupied in historiography. Drawing on archival theory
and New Historicism, I argue that color marks the constitutive absence in historical narratives;
despite its power to evoke the past with visceral reality, it is an excess that cannot be preserved, fixed,
or documented either in texts or (chemically volatile) photographic media. I recognize theinternational dimension to the documentary trend to rediscover the world wars through color as
evidenced by programs made by ZDF (Germany), ITV (UK), and History Channel (US). But thequestions posed by digital colorization (a process of adding color to monochromatic images) differ
from those posed by documentaries that present color images captured on color film stock. Throughclose-reading the NHK documentary, I argue that digital colorization turns the attention away fromthe question of historical accuracy to that of “presence.” Stressing the painstaking research conductedon material artifacts to digitally reproduce the colors, the documentary recognizes color as anintermediary of the elusive realm of the senses and the tangible world of objects.
4) Aya Ezawa, Leiden University
Japanese Children Born of War and the History and Memory of WWII
In this paper, I examine the identities of Indo-European/Japanese children born of war,conceived between Indo-European (Dutch-Indonesian) women and Japanese men during theJapanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1942–1945). Significant about their identity struggles
is that it is not their supposed racial, ethnic, or cultural characteristics as ‘Japanese’, but rather the
discourse about the Japanese at war in the Netherlands, and their heritage as a child of a reviled
enemy that has been most central in defining their personal life and identity. Associated with theatrocities committed by Japanese forces during WWII, and more specifically, the interment of Dutch
soldiers, as well as civilians in the Dutch East Indies, many grew up feeling marginal and isolated
within their own families and communities. Their stories shed light not only on experiences ofmarginalization as children of the enemy, but more importantly, the role and relevance of public
discourses on Japan’s wartime past, which have silenced their existence and contributed to their
marginal status within their families and communities. Now in their seventies, their stories offer
insight into the long-term impact of family and community memories of war on their individual life
courses, as well as the ways in which children born of war have begun to engage with, and negotiate
the meaning of their existence in the context of discourses of WWII.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts5) Hao Xiaoyang, Kyushu University
The Treatment of Sexual Violence in the Class B/C War Crimes Tribunals Conducted in the
Republic of China
In the wake of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the Nationalist Chinese government
prosecuted 883 Japanese suspects in 605 Class B/C war crimes cases throughout China in pursuit ofjustice for the wartime atrocities committed against the Chinese. The abduction of women, forced
prostitution, and rape were among the crimes that were prosecuted. The past two decades havewitnessed a dramatic increase in scholarship on sexual violence perpetrated by Imperial Japaneseforces during wartime and on war crimes trials conducted in the aftermath of the war. However, thetreatment of sexual violence in the Class B/C war crimes trials conducted in the Republic of China
has thus far remained obscure, a historiographical gap I intend to fill in this paper. To this end, I will
first examine the Nationalist Chinese government’s motivations for conducting war crimes trials andwhether they changed with the deepening Chinese Civil War and Cold War. I will then investigate
how cases of sexual violence treated in the trials served the Nationalist Chinese and whether they
were treated in a consistent manner from the beginning to the final verdict. Finally, I will analyze
how the handling of sexual violence cases was received by Japanese war criminals themselves using
the interviews conducted by the Ministry of Justice in Japan after their repatriation.

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Session 17: Room 352
Haiku in Contemporary Practice (Roundtable)
Chair: Philip Rowland, Tamagawa University
This roundtable investigates the tradition of haiku and the many strands and interpretationsof haiku in contemporary practice. At the turn of the 20th century, Masaoka Shiki brought renewed
attention to haiku. English language poets of the Imagist movement as well as publications
on haiku by Reginald Horace Blyth and Zen by D.T. Suzuki fueled a transnational haiku movement.
Today, haiku groups across Japan and around the world employ a range of approaches andinnovations to the form. The cultural translation of haiku is evident in the work of free verse poets
who draw from haiku concepts and techniques. While the popularity of haiku introduces the form tobroad audiences, these migrations also transform and change the practice in important ways. Thispanel brings together literary scholars and poets to consider movements within haiku and investigate
the fissures, conflicts and erasures of haiku in a global context.
1) Philip Rowland Tamagawa University
2) Toru Kiushi Nihon University
3) Ayako Takahashi Nagaoka University of Technology

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SATURDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS II: 3:30 P.M. – 5:30 P.M.
Session 18: Room 352
China as an Emigrant Destination: Foreign and Internal Migrants in the PRC
Organizer/Chair: Igor Saveliev, Nagoya University
For long centuries, China was famous as a world’s major source of emigration that resulted in
the creation of one of the biggest global diasporas. However, recent economic growth and one-childpolicy in the PRC created niches for foreign workers’ employment and tradesmen activities inside
China itself. China’s efforts to develop relations with a number of African countries triggered
migration of shuttle traders and all other kinds of businessmen, some of whom settled in Guangzhou,
Yiwu and other cities in China. The so-called “Chocolate city” in Guangzhou has become known as
one of these newly established multiethnic areas in China. The three papers aim to examine new
migrant spaces in China. Roberto Castillo’s paper aims to shed some light on how (and to what
extent) African presence in China signals important transformations in the contemporary (and future)articulation of material, discursive and imagined Sino-African cultural and economic spaces. Yang
Ying’s paper provides a comparative study of African communities in China's third biggest city ofGuangzhou and the county-level city of Yiwu and examines African networks in these cities. Li
Zhiyi’s paper focuses on the construction of sisterhood relations by internal Muslim female migrants.
It reveals women’s ability to find a way to resist gender oppression within the existing religious
identity framework which at the same time hinders the formation of a broader network among them.
1) Roberto Castillo, The University of Hong Kong
Red Money: Nigerian Money Spraying, Music and Aspirations in China
Recently, African presence in China has attracted considerable scholarly and media attention.
While researchers have provided significant insights about the political economy of trade, they havelargely neglected other cultural practices. Over the last five years, a thriving trans-African musicscene has emerged in the southern city of Guangzhou. During some performances, members of theaudience “spray” popular singers with 100 RMB notes. In this paper, I examine the re-articulation ofthis and other cultural practices in contemporary China as an entry point to discuss wider historicaland cultural undercurrents connecting African (mainly Nigerian) traditions and artistic practices withthe globalization of Chinese and African economies. I argue that highlighting the interconnectednessof these undercurrents is critical not only to make better sense of the entrepreneurial drives and52

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aspirations behind African presence in China, but also to interrogate what are the real possibilities
and futures opened up by narratives such as the “Chinese Dream” and the “New Silk Road”. In short,
this paper aims to shed some light on how (and to what extent) African presence in China (andNigerian renminbi spraying in particular) signals important transformations in the contemporary (andfuture) articulation of material, discursive and imagined Sino-African cultural and economic spaces. I
believe that by looking deeper at these spaces (and practices) we could open up new ways to engage
existing epistemologies and offer hope (and tools) to go beyond the spaces of imperialism andpolitical economy that so pervade the Africa-China conversations.
2) Ying Yang, Nagoya University
Two African Communities in China: A Comparative Study of African Migrants in Yiwu andGuangzhou
After Africans’ emergence in China in 2000, their communities in Guangzhou have existed for
14 years. African communities in Yiwu formed later than in Guangzhou. Being the third biggest city
in China, Guangzhou benefited from its location in the proximity of Hong Kong and the Pearl River.
These and some other city's advantages attracted African traders. Yiwu, even being ranked a countylevel city in the Zhejiang province, came into prominence as the world`s largest wholesale market
that also attracted Arabic and African traders. Being not so distant from each other, Yiwu andGuangzhou are very much different in terms of their scale, life-styles, business patterns, local
government policies and the patterns of local people residence. All these greatly influenced African
communities and resulted in their striking differences. This study, based on field work in both areas,
attempts to analyze the differences of African communities and their networks in Yiwu andGuangzhou. What does attract them to these cities? What is their aim? Why do they stay in these twoparticular cities instead of others? Do they try to migrate to other cities or other countries? This study
also tries to figure out, if there is a link between African communities in two cites, and examine thepatterns and consequences of their network formation in both locations.
3) Zhiyi Li, Nagoya University
Is Woman’s Eeman (faith) at Home?: A Case Study of the Construction of Sisterhood Relations byInternal Muslim Female Migrants in Yiwu, China
Most research on Muslim women’s participation in religious centers’ activities focuses on theirability to build and manipulate sisterhood relations through their shared gender and religious identity
to resist social oppression. Based on three-months ethnographic fieldwork, this study analyzes how
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internal Muslim female migrants build their gender-based relations through the participation indifferent kinds of religious activities. It looks into how these relations enable them to resist
patriarchal oppression in and out of spaces before and after their movement. Unmarried women build
loose relations with both genders through their participation in Muslim volunteer activities and assert
their rights to participate in the decision-making process just as male members do. While married
women build tight gender-excluded sisterhood by taking part in the religion classes and by creating astrong support system, divorced women, on the other hand, play a major role in representing female
participants in the negotiations with male leaders in various men-dominated religious organizations.
Yet, these marital-status-based relations further reinforce their Muslim gender identity at the sametime. This study reveals women’s ability to find a way to resist gender oppression within the existing
religious identity framework which at the same time hinder the formation of a broader network
among them. By focusing on the construction of sisterhood relations, this study also reveals thediversity of their education background, economic status and social class and demonstrates thatfemale migrant identities are very different from those of the women in traditional local Muslim
communities.
Discussant: Igor Saveliev, Nagoya University

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Session 19: Room 351
Rethinking Power in the Periphery in Medieval Japan
Organizer: Monika Dix, Saginaw Valley State University
This panel explores ways in which cultural production from the Kamakura to the Tokugawa
periods negotiate issues of marginality in terms of political power and imperial authority. Addressing
questions of genre and historiography in literary texts, Erin Brightwell’s paper analyzes the use of
linguistic, literary, and cultural traditions in Kamakura-period narrativizations of the past and theirrelationships to changing power dynamics. Kendra Strand’s paper examines how poetic allusion andselective historiography invests geographical space with imperial authority. Hanna McGaughey’s
paper shifts the focus to social roles within performance and religious practice, addressing peripheral
and ambiguous identities in Zeami’s heavenly woman plays. Lastly, Monika Dix’s paper elucidates
the reflexive relationships between text, image, and geography in Chūjōhime cult practices. Thispanel identifies a range of social roles across geography and history, and charts their textual andperformative gestures toward negotiating relationships with what was considered the ruling elite atdifferent moments in the history of medieval Japan. Each paper underscores the fluidity of theseroles, as well as their capacity for making dynamic interpretations of “central” and “peripheral,”whether this is through issues of genre, historiography, gender, social status, or imperial and ritual
legitimacy. Representations of the peripheral in text, image, and performance create a space in which
the audience may recognize and apply concepts of movement through space, time, and society inconcrete ways to understand and have an impact on their world.
1) Erin L. Brightwell, University of Michigan
Reflecting Authority: Mobilizing Traditions in Medieval Discourse on the Past
For scholars of medieval writings on the past, the exchange in The Tale of Genji that pits “theofficial Chronicles” against “tales” has become a touchstone: in the conversation, Genji argues thatthe former merely sketch the past, while the latter alone reveal the heart of things. Although the scene
does not explicitly address language, it can also be read as implying that Classical Chinese is thelanguage of outlines, and kana that of essence. Within the world created by the Genji, writing history
is an either/or proposition. However, a small yet significant set of texts defies this binary conceptionof historiography and questions the appropriateness of applying the above view to medieval discourseon the past: the Kamakura-period kagamimono (Mirrors). This paper proposes reading The Water
Mirror and the subsequent Mirror of China as historiographic writings that chart a third path: they
hew neither to the chronicle form characteristic of the earlier imperially commissioned “national
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histories” nor to the conventions of the (at the time) morally fraught “tale” genre. Instead, theirauthors produce linguistically hybrid texts, draw on cosmological discourse, and coopt things
Chinese—once the cultural capital of the elite. Thus mobilizing multiple traditions, these Mirrors
enable a new method of talking about the past. Precisely this literal interweaving of languages andthe transcendence of dichotomies rooted in court culture make the Mirror an ideal vehicle for thevoice of a new authority, the Kamakura bakufu, and its own vision of the past, The Mirror of the East.
2) Kendra Strand, St. Olaf College
Ruling from the Periphery: Constructing Imperial Authority in Medieval JapanAt the turn of the fourteenth century, generations of strain upon imperial succession practices
had led to a court fractured in violent political rivalry. In this conflict, two would-be emperors
invested a variety of symbols with political authority associated with the right to rule. The Southern
Court, established by Emperor Go-Daigo (r. 1318–1339) in Yoshino, maintained possession of theimperial regalia and a pristine ancestral lineage to the earliest emperors. The Northern Court’s soleclaim to imperial authority was a powerful one: they occupied the imperial palace in the capital(Kyoto). When Southern Court attacked the capital in 1353, Northern Court Emperor Go-Kôgon (r.
1352–1371) was forced to seek refuge in Ojima, a remote landholding in Mino province. This exile
posed a significant threat to Go-Kôgon, a young and inexperienced emperor, when his other claims topower were already tenuous at best. Nijô Yoshimoto (1320–1388), then regent to Go-Kôgon, hurried
to join the imperial party in Ojima. Yoshimoto records this journey in his travel diary, Solace ofWords at Ojima (Ojima no kuchizusami 1353). In it, Yoshimoto makes a series of arguments
supporting Go-Kôgon’s imperial authority. In particular, Yoshimoto draws on his encyclopedic
knowledge of waka poetry and court precedent to justify their time spent in a “temporary palace.”
This paper analyses Yoshimoto’s account of the chaotic experience of maintaining a makeshift courtin the backwaters, and shows how the text works to invest even a marginal space with historicalprecedent for imperial authority.
3) Hanna McGaughey, University of Trier
How a Goddess Enters Politics
In 1378 (Eiwa 4), aristocrat Sanjō Kintada disparagingly comments on Zeami’s intimacy withthe shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, calling the 16-year-old a beggar, thereby highlighting the young
performer and child companion’s position at the social periphery. However, this episode also shows
how Zeami’s position is not only the object of derision, but also of celebration—the boy sits next to56

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the country’s most powerful politician during a major festival and shares a sake cup with him.
Liminal social status can clearly come with its own advantages with respect to independence, access,and influence, although this is always tempered with the possibility of failure and loss. After
Yoshimitsu’s death in 1408 (Ōei 15), Zeami feels the need to implement a fundamental reform to his
art, adopting the dance of the heavenly woman and putting it into a narrative framework for the firsttime. In play narratives for this dance, the heavenly woman subsumes other female identities—ashrine attendant, a diver, an artisan, a courtesan, or a combination of these—all of them from thesocial periphery. As philosopher Sakabe Megumi states, in noh performance “[t]here is nothing but aplay of identity and difference, without any strictly fixed identity” (Marra, trans., 1999, 247). This
paper investigates how Zeami’s heavenly woman plays juxtapose poetic ambiguous identity, theobject of religious devotion, and the ambiguous identity of people at the social periphery inaddressing how Zeami used his one privilege of experience to advantage in addressing his powerfulpatrons at the center.
4) Monika Dix, Saginaw Valley State University
Sacred Placemaking in Medieval Japan: Mapping Landscapes, Narratives, and Spatial Practices
in the Taima-dera jikkai-zu byōbu
From the sixteenth century onward, especially due to the popularity of mountain cult worship,
stories of places real or imagined went far beyond mere entertainment for the Japanese. One such
example is Mount Katsuragi in Nara prefecture. This sacred mountain is associated with Chūjōhime’scult, Taima-dera, and the Taima mandala which is a cosmic diagram of Amida Buddha’s Pure Land
Western Paradise. Medieval texts describe Mount Katsuragi as an actual location of both Buddhist
paradise and hell. Storytellers compiled such legendary beliefs into the Taima-dera jikkai-zu byōbu, a
set of folding screens dated 1693 and enshrined in the inner sanctuary at Taima-dera, which depicts
the local landscape of Mount Katsuragi as a portal to the other world. Previous scholarship has
touched on the relationship between Chūjōhime’s cult, Taima-dera, and the Taima mandala, but has
failed to address the full spectrum of religious, literary and visual influences that contributed toforming Mount Katsuragi’s dual images of a physical Buddhist pilgrimage site and ideological
Buddhist paradise, a marginal place both real and imagined. By examining the reflexive interplay
between the textual and visual configurations in the Taima-dera jikkai-zu byōbu, this paper focuseson the production and appropriation of space to illustrate how spatial practices at Mount Katsuragi
were mapped onto images and how, inversely, spatial practices which resulted from worship of the
Taima-dera jikkai-zu byōbu were mapped onto the actual landscape. My goal is to show that the57

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spatial construction of the mountain is key to understanding how medieval Japanese society
interacted with placemaking at the margins and Chūjōhime’s cult.
Discussant: Michelle Kuhn, Nagoya University

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Session 20: Room 253“Queer” Lines: Genders and Sexualities in Institutions and at Play in Japan (Part II)
Organizer/Chair: Michelle Ho, Stony Brook University
Scholars of gender and sexuality studies have done impressive research theorizing gender andsexual identities in Japan, especially in recent years. Yet, much of the scholarship written in English
on gender and sexual minorities in Japan (and elsewhere) have privileged gay and lesbian identities(and to a certain extent, transgender), emphasized the heterosexual-homosexual binary, and framed
sexuality in antinormative terms and binary structures, sometimes at the expense of bi, non-binary,and other bodies and sexual identities that do not conform to expectations inscribed by the institutionof the heteronormative family. We propose a twin panel that seeks to explore and challenge thenotions of what constitute “queer” bodies, selves, and practices, where we locate queer in a web of
plural, excessive, and overlapping sexual and gender-variant desires, practices, and subjectivities(Sedgwick 1994; McLelland, Suganuma & Welker 2007). The first panel examines how social andmedical institutions function to regulate and (re)inscribe “male” and “female” and masculinity andfemininity as a way to question and rethink these binaries. Our second panel explores how cultural
media, texts and sites, such as cafes, music, manga and anime, grant spaces to play with gender,
sexual, and social norms as alternative ways of reconfiguring binaries but also push beyond them.
This twin panel is concerned with new approaches to studies on Japanese genders and sexualities. It
takes stock of new directions in queer scholarship, such as studies of alternative genders andsexualities, which are constantly being shaped by transnational flows of ideas, methods, and people.
1) Michelle Ho, Stony Brook University
Queer Attachments: Inhabiting Affective Spaces in Japan’s Drag Cafes
Proliferating in the late 2000s, josō (dressing as women) and dansō (dressing as men) cafes, orwhat I collectively call “drag cafes,” are establishments where men dress as women and women dress
as men respectively and attend to customers. Although cultural phenomena, such as josō danshi (men
who dress as women) or otoko no ko (literally “male daughter”), and dansō joshi (women who dress
as men), began in the late 20th century, drag cafes manifest recent shifts in perceptions of gender andsexual identities in contemporary Japan. Based on ethnographic research in Tokyo, this study
explores the queer attachments circulating within the spaces of drag cafes that resist labeling andarticulation in current discourses in gender and sexuality studies. I argue that drag cafes grantcustomers, who are both men and women, affective avenues unburdened by social norms andfeminine and masculine ideals to engage with alternative bodies, desires, and practices. Although
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patrons’ experimentation with gender and sexuality is predicated on drag cafe employees’ affective
labor and their practice of josō or dansō, I focus on the drag cafe community as a whole in thispresentation. By putting josō and dansō cafés—two separate establishments that run counter to eachother—side by side, I seek to complicate gender and sexual norms, troubling ideals of femininity andmasculinity and the heterosexual-homosexual binary. This research is significant in its challenge towhat constitutes “queer” in Japan beyond gay, lesbian, and transgender identities.
2) Adrienne Johnson, University of Tokyo
Josō or Gender Free? Queering Gender Expression in Visual Kei
While the Visual Kei subculture is already somewhat deviant due to its predominantly female
fan base, many of whom are unmarried and bucking various other societal gendered norms on top of
regularly headbanging to heavy guitar, bass, and drum riffs, it is within the performers themselves
where we find the most obvious evidence of queer gender expression. Often compared to Western“glam” metal, Visual Kei has been famous (or perhaps notorious) for over the top costuming, hairstyles, and makeup since the genre’s inception in the late 1980s, with these flamboyant “visuals”
often crossing gendered boundaries on many levels. Through an in-depth investigation of two
performers in particular, this preliminary study aims to illuminate different strategies of queering
gender expression adopted within the modern scene: specifically, “josō,” the complete adoption offeminine clothing (and often mannerisms) by a self-identified male performer, and “gender free,” oran intentional disregard for gender binaries and boundaries. While outsiders often conclude that
Visual Kei performers are simply effeminate or perhaps homosexual, I argue that these personas
adopted for the stage (and sometimes even within the performer’s personal life) are actuallyremarkably queer in that they refuse to come down on any side of a gendered or sexual binary andcreate liminal identities that are able to shift and move with the performers themselves. These
identities, be they “gender free” or “josō,” offer a glimpse into the possibility of a queerly gendered
existence outside of established sites of gay or transgender identities within a Japanese musicalsubcultural setting.
3) Akiko Mizoguchi, Hosei University/Tama Art University
Birth of a New Queer Community: Theorizing BL as a Transformative Genre“BL,” the acronym for “boys’ love” (also known as “yaoi”) is a genre consisting of male-maleromance manga and illustrated novels created by women and for women. Beginning with MoriMari’s 1961 novel Lovers’ Woods (Koibitotachi no mori), the history of the larger BL genre spans
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half a century. Twenty-five years have passed since the emergence of the commercial BL industry in
the early 1990s. It is widely known that BL is fundamentally an escapist genre that promises
pleasures for female readers by letting them vicariously indulge in male-male romance. As womenfans can totally forget about their reality as women in a patriarchal society, BL functions as a kind of
a fantasy porn genre. In other words, the male-male framework has been adopted to simply ensure
the women readers’ pleasure without considering how male protagonists might correspond to gay
men in reality. Conventional BL narratives further tend to expel female characters so as to secure asafe distance for female readers. Over the years, however, BL has transformed into an unprecedented
genre in which strong female characters are active and gay-identified male protagonists engage inrealistic episodes about coming-out and other negotiations. Surprisingly, the ways in which recent BL
works portray both male gay and female characters are significantly more advanced than the reality.
This paper considers recent transformations in the BL genre by examining the works of Nakamura
Asumiko, Kotobuki Tarako and Akizuki Kō. Finally, this paper asserts how these new dimensions ofBL fictions can forge a new queer community, one that is anti- and beyond heteronormative.
Discussant: James Welker, Kanagawa University

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Session 21: Room 203“Otaku,” Reality, Politics: Labeling and Gender in Contemporary Japan
Organizer/Chair: Patrick W. Galbraith, Duke University
What are some of the new horizons that open up when we look at “otaku” not as a singularly
imagined social group, but rather as a label? This panel explores what this approach to “otaku”
reveals about reality and politics in contemporary Japan. In particular, we focus on how discursive
and material “realities” are produced, regulated and queered in the labeling of “otaku” in various
social and mediated contexts. Critical attention is given to the “realities” of masculinity andfemininity, as well as concomitant sexualities: gender performance in role-playing games,
representation of female sexuality in the anime series Genshiken Nidaime and anxiety over men’s
attraction to girl characters from manga, anime and games. The examination of discourses on “otaku”
and imagination in the 1980s and 2000s contribute to an understanding of Japan as a capitalist andcontrol society. Through this engagement with “otaku” as a label and a practice that organizes theestablishment and subversion of norms, markets and legislation, we hope to grapple with deeper
questions concerning power, politics and “reality.” In understanding how imagination is envisioned
and exercised in varied contexts where the label “otaku” operates, we interrogate the realities that are,and could be, played out in contemporary Japan and beyond.
1) Björn-Ole Kamm, Heidelberg University
Masculinities and Femininities Between Authenticity, Plausibility, and Otaku Stereotypes: How
Language Makes Realities in Japanese Table-talk RPGs
In Table-talk Role-Playing Games (TRPGs) players create fictional characters to jointly engage
a diegetic reality in which they experience adventures, tell stories, try out perspectives, or play
another gender by simply writing “male” or “female” on the character sheet. This possibility forcross-gender player-character-assemblages offers a window into the performativity of practices that
produce certain realities — realities of inclusion and exclusion, realities produced purposefully aswell as those “done” on the way, realities of doing gender. At the game table we encounter crossgender play that is deemed plausible, even “authentic,” which is mostly realised by citing
conventions of gender specific language use. But these performances are not coherent: “Real”
women judge “fictional” women by “traditional” standards of speaking they themselves do notadhere to in the “real world.” At the same time, female gamers object to the portrayal of a passive andignorant (“traditional”) femininity performed by some male players. This tension produces anothercharacter, the unmanly but patriarchal otaku. Disillusioned by sexist interactions of “male” with62

ASCJ 2016 Abstracts“female” characters, many female and male gamers avoid public gaming conventions, excluding
themselves and equally excluding those they call otaku reinforcing a stereotype whose reality they
could be playing with instead.
2) Lien Fan Shen, University of Utah
Otaku Identity as a Strategy to Transgress Normative Sexuality and Gender Politics in Genshiken
Nidaime
While anime series Genshiken depicts a group of college students who share common interests
in anime, manga, videogames, and cosplay, engaging in activities associated with the social label“otaku,” Genshiken Nidaime (the second generation) centers on “fujoshi” characters whose primaryinterests are in Boy’s Love genre, exhibiting a normative femininity with subversive female pleasure.
This paper examines heteronormative enforcements on and through the representation of female
otaku’s bodies and sexuality in this anime. The series of protagonists’ heteronormative representation
and bodily practices reinforce the very limits for their transgressive acts. Second, female otaku’s
subversive pleasure and transgressive acts not only reveal the boundaries of gender and sexual norms,
but also spark off persistent doing to form an “otaku identity.” Finally, this “otaku identity” allows
the subject to adapted a strategy to disconnect one’s pleasurable practices from the politics ofsexuality. Otokonoko (cross-dressing male) is argued as non-identity-related and non-genderconformed, but a pure pleasurable practice as a means to disconnect the subject’s pleasure andfantasy from identity politics. This paper concludes that anime representation of female otaku
reflectively renders the juxtaposition of normative female sexuality and of subversive otaku practices
visible. Female otaku are simultaneously defined and sustained by the very limits of sexual
repression and gender norms while strategically disconnect gender politics through their pleasurable
and persist doing that embodies their fantasy.
3) Patrick W. Galbraith, Duke University
Real(ity) Problem: “Otaku” and the Politics of Imagination
In Japan in the 1970s, compelling stories and complex characters attracted adolescents andyoung adults to manga and anime. By the end of the decade and into the early 1980s, it appeared tosome scandalized observers that fans were taking fictional characters as real sexual objects. Of
special concern were men associated with the phenomenon of so-called “lolicon.” In 1983, Manga
Burikko, which was transforming into a “lolicon” magazine, published a series of articles that63

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sparked a debate about the supposed perversion of manga and anime fans in Japan. It was here, in thepages of Manga Burikko, that “otaku” first functioned as a label for men supposedly attracted to
fictional girls instead of real women. It was here that “otaku” were first said to pose a “real(ity)problem” (genjitsu mondai). Six years later, in Otaku no hon, the first book on “otaku” thatsummarized the debates of the decade, the concept of the “real(ity) problem” was reclaimed and used
as an indicator of subversive sexual and social politics. Teasing out the implications of this discourse,
in dialogue with contemporary media and critical theory, this paper explores the “real(ity) problem”
and its counterpart, the “politics of imagination.”
4) Thiam Huat Kam, Rutgers University
The New (Economic) “Reality” of the “Otaku?”: Valuing and Theorizing to Contain Productive
Capacities into Consumption
A number of discourses emerged in the 2000s, with the purported aim of providing an objective
account of “otaku,” independent of negative stereotyping and hyperbolic celebration – in otherwords, free from the value judgments entailed by the term. The most prominent of these aremarketing discourses that proposed to objectively evaluate the value of “otaku.” The new and more
“real” portrait of “otaku” furnished by these accounts cast this figure/population as primarily amarket of consumers. This portrait coincides with some of the influential theoretical accounts togenerate a triumphant narrative in which “otaku” become acceptable as part of the Japanese society.
To grasp these discourses, I propose to take “otaku” as a label rather than its conventional sense of afandom, examining the values and concerns that it evokes. In this sense, these objective and morepositive accounts on “otaku” constitute no less a label than those saturated with stereotypes andvalue-judgments. By offering a more “objective” description on the “reality” of “otaku,” these
discourses serve to contain and organize media subjects’ productive capacities in order to channel
them towards the generation of economic value and to defuse any potential forces that might disrupt
capitalism. In particular, the conception of “otaku” as consumers and market point to concerns overimagination and the capacities for attachment and detachment.
Discussant Jaqueline Berndt, Kyoto Seika University

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Session 22: Room 252
In Pursuit of an Education: “Study Abroad” in the Cities of Early Modern Japan.
Organizer: Ellen Nakamura, University of Auckland
Chair: Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Sophia University
The schools of early modern Japan have often been discussed in terms of the high levels ofliteracy they fostered, the flexible educational opportunities they offered in the absence of state
sponsorship, or –particularly in the case of schools offering Western learning-- the forward-thinking
leaders they produced. This panel attempts to move beyond simple questions of modernization by
exploring the theme of education and mobility. Using new sources, we provide detail on questions
such as how students from different social and regional backgrounds came to travel, what shaped
their choice of school, where the most cutting-edge forms of knowledge were found, and how theexperience of urban education helped to build networks and empower lives in new ways. Our
examples shed light on the educational experiences in three cities of Tokugawa Japan: Osaka, Edo,and Nagasaki, and will attempt to assess the significance of inter-domain “study abroad” experiences
both in terms of the impact on the lives of individuals as well as the spread of new knowledge andtechniques across the breadth of Japan.
1) Ryō Umihara, Sumitomo Historical Archives
Spreading the Latest Medical Techniques and Knowledge in the Edo Period
Medical studies underwent a dramatic development in the Edo period. According to previous
research, the center of medical research moved from Kyoto to Edo city around the beginning of theeighteenth century. This was due to the presence of the unique social conditions created by sankinkōtai – the system under which feudal lords were required to spend every other year in their domains
and Edo city. In order to acquire a high level of medical technique and knowledge, doctors in thisperiod generally studied abroad. Domain doctors, who belonged to han, the local administrative
units, had the opportunity to visit Edo city to attend their lord on duty. In Edo city many doctors
gathered from all over Japan and participated enthusiastically and actively in academic exchanges. Of
course, it was not possible for doctors to participate in meaningful studies without their lords’
cooperation. They were very hungry to absorb the new studies, and through their efforts, the latest
medical techniques and knowledge were spread throughout the whole country. I argue that the systemof “study abroad” (yūgaku) that the doctors utilized, was extremely important in advancing the
medical environment in local communities. In this paper, I would like to analyze the trends indicatedabove by using the historical documents of Yonezawa-han in the Northeast Japan in the eighteenth
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and nineteenth centuries.
2) Waka Hirokawa, Senshu University
Breaking the Boundaries of Knowledge Acquisition: The Flexibility of the Medical Education
System in Late Tokugawa Osaka
This paper highlights the role of Osaka as a center for advanced medicine in early modern
Japan by exploring how medical students in the late Edo period acquired the newest medical
knowledge and began to break down the secrecy surrounding medical techniques. At that time,
prominent Confucian schools and medical schools including both Chinese medicine and Western
medicine were concentrated in the city center of Osaka. Among them, the most typical Western
medical school was Ogata Kōan’s Tekijuku (established in 1838), while the Hanaoka family’s
Gōsuidō (established in 1827), acknowledged as a Chinese medical school, was well known for its
anesthetic methods. Medical students from all over Japan built strong connections in Osaka andutilized them to establish their medical authority after going back to their home domains. They also
played an important role in diffusing the latest medical knowledge including smallpox vaccination in
their regional communities. Usually medical knowledge was secretly instructed based on the personal
relationship between an eminent doctor and a student. In addition, there was intense rivalry between
Western medical schools and Chinese medical schools. Nevertheless, a considerable number ofstudents studied both at Tekijuku and Gōsuidō at nearly the same time. This fact indicates animportant transformation of the style of transmission of medical knowledge in the late Edo period.
My study of these students’ complicated careers sheds new light on the spread of knowledge as wellas the shape of doctors’ careers in the late Edo period.
3) Ellen Nakamura, University of Auckland
Choosing a Study Destination: The Recollections of Sagara Chian (1836–1906)
This paper focuses on the recollections of Sagara Chian, published as a series of oral history
interviews in the Ikai Jihō, (a medical newspaper) in 1904. Sagara Chian is best known as one of thetwo doctors in the early Meiji administration who made the decision to implement German, rather
than English medicine, but because his bureaucratic career was short-lived, his career has been
eclipsed by other doctors who succeeded his position. Sagara was a highly educated man: he studied
in the medical school of his native Saga, in the Juntendō at Sakura in Shimousa, and in Nagasaki hestudied in the Yōseijo as well as in Saga domain’s English school, established in Nagasaki in 1867. Ina fascinating set of interviews, Saga reflects frankly upon his career, his resistance to the fashionable
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idea that all doctors needed to go away to study, and the reasons why ultimately he chose theJuntendō as his study destination.
4) Takeshi Moriyama, Murdoch University
The Making of a Mapmaker: Shibata Shūzō (1820–1859) and the Institute for Western Studies(Bansho shirabesho)
Many people from the provinces of Japan transformed their status and occupation througheducation and involvement in intellectual communities in cities such as Edo, Osaka, Kyoto andNagasaki, particularly over the transition period from late Tokugawa to early Meiji societies. One
vivid example is Shibata Shūzō who was born in a fishing village on Sado island in the Japan Sea(East Sea) in 1820. When he died at the age of forty, he was a mapmaker working for the Shogun’s
institute for Western Studies, Bansho shirabesho. His accomplishments included his own publicationof a world map (1852) and a guidebook to world geography (1853), as well as a major contribution to
the second edition of the Shogunate’s world map (1855). My project examines his intellectual
journey across two cultural spaces, one small and one large, in his native island and in the shogun’s
capital. Having described his study life in Edo in my previous work, this paper further considers
Shibata’s academic trajectory in mapmaking. By analyzing his published work in geography as wellas his diaries which contain information about his reading and copying of books and maps in Edo and
Sado, the paper offers a discussion of how Shibata developed his expertise in world geography
through Japan’s still limited but swiftly widening window to Western knowledge.
Discussant: Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Sophia University

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Session 23: Room 316
Reframing Tradition to Tackle Contemporary Problems: The Parodic World of Ch’oe Inhun
Organizer/Chair: Barbara Wall, University of Hamburg
The rediscovery, reconstruction, utilization and marketing of traditional cultural contents(munhwa k’ont’ench’ǔ) is an enormous endeavor in contemporary South Korean society with strong
nationalistic tendencies based on the assumption that tradition and modernity are opposing concepts.
This panel aims to provide an alternative approach to the reframing of tradition stemming from thefield of literature. Based on the parodic literary works of Ch’oe Inhun (1936–) we suggest perceiving
tradition and modernity not as dualistic concepts, but as mutually inclusive. We furthermore mean todemonstrate that the reframing of tradition does not necessarily have to stop at national boundaries.
Ch’oe Inhun is one of the most prolific parodists in Korea. Not only the vast number of his
parodies is unique, but also the variety of his source texts: they comprise premodern and modern
fiction from Korea, China and Europe. In this framework, (1) Dennis Wuerthner will discuss Ch’oe’s
adaptations of Chosǒn literature and their impact on issues of postwar Korea. (2) Jaejin Koo analyzes
Ch’oe’s parodic play Hans and Gretel against the background of the Kwangju Uprising in 1980. (3)Barbara Wall compares Ch’oe’s Inhun’s and Gao Xingjian’s parodies of The Journey to the Westwhich share striking parallels in their attempt to transcontextualize the polyphony of the source text.
Having invited a literary critic as discussant, we hope to spark a larger discussion about the place oftradition in contemporary Korea away from nationalistic fantasies.
1) Dennis Wuerthner, Ruhr University
On Adaptations of Chosŏn Dynasty Literature by Ch’oe Inhun
This paper discusses three adaptations penned by the acclaimed post Korean War author Ch’oe
Inhun. In the early 1960s, Ch’oe Inhun wrote modern adaptations of core works of Chosŏn dynasty
literature: the novel Kuunmong (A Dream of Nine Clouds) by Kim Manjung, the collection of talesKŭmo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle) by Kim Sisŭp and the travel-log Yŏrha ilgi (The
Jehol Diaries) by Pak Chiwŏn. The three modern adaptations by Ch’oe will be interpreted against the
backdrop of their premodern models, and they will be read in the framework of post Korean War
literature and society. The questions as to which elements of the Chosŏn dynasty works were taken
up and in which way they were creatively altered by Ch’oe will be debated. There will also be a
discussion of Ch’oe’s understanding of the premodern works as it is reflected in his adaptations. The
paper will address the issue of a possibly necessary reading alongside of source and adaptation: in thecase of Ch’oe’s adaptations it is important to examine to what extent a readership’s knowledge of the68

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premodern models can be considered crucial for an understanding of structural and content-related
elements of the modern works. Ch’oe Inhun’s adaptations can serve to shed a light onto the question
as to whether Chosŏn literature, reworked and in new guise, can help to deal with and have an impact
on issues of modern Korea.
2) Jaejin Koo, Semyung University
History, Ethics, and Nostalgia in Ch’oe Inhun’s Parodic Play Hans and GretelThis paper analyzes Ch’oe Inhun’s play Hans and Gretel (1981) as a parody of the Brothers
Grimm’s fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. I compare the history of Holocaust as portrayed in the playwith the Korean political circumstances of the 1980s in order to shed light on ethical questions andthe role of nostalgia in Ch’oe Inhun’s plays. While most of Ch’oe’s plays are rewritings of Korean
myths or folk tales, Hans and Gretel is an exemption as being a parody of a non-Korean work. Its
protagonist is a Nazi who is imprisoned for thirty years for knowing the secret of the Holocaust. The
play illuminates the mental transformation of the protagonist who finally gives up his politicalconviction in favor of his love. This paper focuses on ethical questions concerning the relation ofcrime and responsibility in the Holocaust and relates these questions to the political circumstances in
Korea in early 1980s Korea, especially to the Kwangju Uprising in 1980. I furthermore examine therole of nostalgia as an opposing force to politics and ideologies to reveal the politicalunconsciousness of the play.
3) Barbara Wall, University of Hamburg
Polyphony Reloaded: A Comparison of Ch’oe Inhun’s Sŏyugi and Gao Xingjian’s Late- TwentiethCentury Lingshan as Parodies of Sixteenth Century Xiyouji
Among the innumerable rewritings of Xiyouji Ch’oe In-hun’s Sŏyugi and Gao Xingjian’s
Lingshan belong to the very few examples that do not reflect single facets of the source text but
which rather succeed to convey its polyphonic tone. They lend themselves for comparison due totheir striking parallels in transcontextualizing the 16th century novel Xiyouji. The protagonist ofSŏyugi, struggling with alienation due to his status as refugee from North Korea, travels into his pastand into Korean history longing for his childhood memories. Being confronted with different kinds of
personified ideological discourses during the journey, he sometimes feels ideologically moved, but
finally realizes the illusionary nature of absolute truths. Similarly, the protagonist of Lingshan,fleeing repression due to his counterrevolutionary writings, also leads the reader into his past and into
Chinese history embodied by monuments and ceremonies in the remote area of southwest China. By
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comparing both works on semantic and structural levels with their source text, I illuminate parallels
and differences of the parodies. Sŏyugi and Lingshan are primary examples that demonstrate how
parodic codes can work in the Sinographic Cosmopolis. Gao and Ch’oe instruct their readers with thehelp of signals to decode their parodic polyphonies in order to tackle problems caused by narrow,authoritarian, monophonic views of different ideological groups.
Discussant: Haehyun Park, Chosŏn Ilbo

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Session 24: Room 251
Individual Papers 4: Prewar East Asian History
Chair: Paul Clark, West Texas A & M
1) Dong Yuting, Harvard University
Localization of an “Imperial” Garden City: A History of Green Land in Shinkyō (1932–1945)
In this paper, I intend to tell a story related both to the city, Shinkyō the capital of Manchukuo,
and to the people who built it. Through a history of this capital city, I aspire to shed new lights on our
understanding of Japanese empire as well as the relationship between the Japanese urban planners
and the Manchurian environment. Green space in Shinkyō will be the lens I adopt to explore these
topics. Differing from previous descriptions of Shinkyō―previous research pointed out that Shinkyō
was a high modernism city and an imperial city―I argue that Shinkyō should be defined as alocalized “Garden City” designed by Japanese urban planners with an imperial and utopian
aspiration. This paper also aims at offering a different perspective in analyzing Japanese urban
planners, and Japan’s imperial system. This paper, by incorporating the ecological aspect, argues thatwartime Japanese urban planners/bureaucrats were environmental conscious “managers”―they were
not only deliberate in incorporating global trends, but also active in adopting local knowledge andpractice. They are not technocrats with utopian dreams, but professionals, who always keep their feeton the ground where they stood.
2) TongyunYin, MacLean Collection
Imaging and Imagining Early Republican Beijing: Photographs of the Imperial Relics in the
1920s
The name of a city always implies an image, be it romantic, exotic, historic, oradventurous. Beijing, the capital of late imperial, early Republican, and socialist China, conjures
instantly an image laden with history. Nonetheless, this image of Beijing as the cultural center ofthe nation was not inherent, but historically, culturally, and socially constructed, a process
initiated in the early 20th century. Previous scholarship focuses on the endeavors made by
Chinese agency in transforming early Republican Beijing. However, modern Chinese cities were
not simply self-defined during the Republican period. Local and global dynamics interacted andwas entwined with each other during the process of this historical transformation. Modern cities
were constructed both on the level of physical spaces and on the perception and meanings ofthose physical spaces. This paper draws upon the photographs of Beijing’s imperial relics
produced by European photographers in the early 20th century to shed light on the formation of71

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the urban identity of early Republican Beijing. By analyzing the dual existence of photographs,
as both images and objects, it argues that Westerners predated Chinese in creating a popularimagination of Beijing as the representative of Chinese tradition and culture in the early 1920s,
when the pre-1928 Chinese government was preoccupied with dismantling the imperial past tomodernize the city. Photography played essential roles in promulgating a collective perceptionof Beijing as an embodiment of Chinese civilizations.
3) Ayelet Zohar, University of Haifa
Opaque Photography: Anti-Photography, Surface and the Images of the Sun in JapanesePhotography
In his 1984 article “Transparent Pictures,” Kandell Walton argues that “photography iscommonly thought to excel in one dimension especially, that of realism […].” The transparencyof the photograph is, for Walton, its most important quality. However, I shall discuss several
images created by Japanese photographers who, using the logic of calligraphy and bokuseki,
were able to create image that are not transparent or show the image of the world, but instead,engage with light registration/ inscription onto the light sensitive surface. Works discussed will
include Shiina Sukemasa photographs of the solar eclipse in 1894; Hamaya Hiroshi’s
photograph of the sun during the Emperor speech of surrender 1945; Kawada Kikuji's series“Last Cosmology”, where he photographed the sun, the moon and other celestial bodies (1985–
96); Ijima Kaoru took the sun's trajectory over one day, registered as a curved line; Kawauchi
Rinko took photographs of the sun on March 12, 2011 – the day after the earthquake anddisaster in Tohoku. Finally, Sugimoto Hiroshi’s “Lightening Field” was created in the laboratory,
using Van der Graaf generator of high voltage to create artificial light within conditions ofcomplete darkness. The photographs discussed in this paper perform a possibility for a visuallanguage that departs from the traditional view of the photograph as “document”, for the sake ofphotography as a mechanism of inscription and registration of direct light, beyond the functionsof visibility, visuality and realty. Japanese photographer creating heliographic images challenge
conventional views, like walton’s, presenting an alternative mode of photography.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Silvio Vita, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
Exotica of the Japanese Past: Shinmura Izuru (1876—1967) and the Representation of theChristian Century.
Since the second half of the 19th century the appraisal of the early contacts between Europe
and Japan has been first a search for historical precedents by Japanese diplomacy, and later a domainof research as well a fashionable theme in popular culture. The 20s and 30s of the 20th century
constitute a crucial period for this discursive formation, to which intellectuals, academic scholars andpopular writers participated from different positions. This paper will consider the role played by
Shinmura Izuru (1876–1967), a figure well known for his contribution to linguistics andlexicography. Starting from an appreciation of Shinmura’s published works in whose titles the words“kirishitan” and “nanban” insistently appear, the analysis will be extended along two directions: thegenealogy of his interest in “nanban” themes and the intellectual context to which Shinmura
responded. A booklet of reminiscences of Ernst Satow (Shinmura bought Satow’s collection ofMissionary Reports for the Library of Kyoto University) will be presented together withcorrespondence and unpublished documents from his private archive in order to understand the lineof transmission of his research from the previous generation. At the same time, the paper will showhow his scholarly narrative engaged with the realm of popular culture and social representations of an
exotic past through such popular books as Nanban sarasa (originally published in 1924) and otherpublications. Possibly I would like to be in a panel with Sonia Favi and Donatella Failla, who will
also give papers on related themes in the Meiji and Taishō-Shōwa periods.
5) Lisa Yoshikawa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Exporting to Extinction?: Animal Conservation and Western Imperialism in Meiji and TaishōJapan
In 1897, the Meiji government passed the Law for Preservation of Old Shrines and Temples(Koshaji Hozon Hō), aimed to provide subsidies for preservation of manufactured objects andbuildings that it deemed valuable. This Law had been long in the making, first to combat domestic
destruction under haibutsu kishaku, and later to curtail the outflow of antiques with foreigners taking
home their purchases made in Japan. Japan was only the world’s eighth nation to establish such a law,and the timing no doubt had in mind the anticipated increase in European and American presencewith the ending of the treaty port system scheduled for 1899. Yet, similar preservation sentiments
only slowly extended to products of nature. In 1882, for example, an Asahi newspaper article proudly
reported how European museums and zoos coveted indigenous Japanese creatures, and identified the73ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
pharmaceutical dealer Koiso Yoshito as the middleman helping the Dutch scientist Anton Geerts
secure animals. Nationwide lobbing to establish a similar law for natural products began after the
Russo-Japanese War, but the discourse emphasized their domestic loss due to industrialization andother reasons. Only in the 1910’s did concerns about overseas demand become more vocal. This
paper explores the intersection between conservation and nationalism, and the changing Japanese
attitudes thereof from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century.

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Session 25: Room 314
Individual Papers 5: Contemporary East Asian Culture and Religion
Chair: Gavin H. Whitelaw, International Christian University
1) Daisy Yan Du, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
International Childhood Fraternity: Imagining the West in Animated Films in Socialist China
Due to Cold War ideologies, socialist China was usually regarded as a closure isolated from thecapitalist West. The West (especially America), was almost an absence in both social realities andcinematic representations during the socialist decades. Michael Berry points out two reasons for theabsence of America in socialist live-action cinema. The practical reason was that Chinese filmmakers
could not afford to hire American actors and travel abroad to do location shooting in America. The
major reason was ideological because America was regarded as the imperialist enemy and there was adeliberate erasure and disavowal of its presence in socialist China. When live-action cinema failed torepresent the significant Other, animation seized the opportunity and dramatized its (over)presence onscreen. In this way, animation returned to its primitive role as special effects to achieve what liveaction film cannot do for practical and/or political reasons in early film history. While live-action
films largely positioned the absent America as negative and imperialist, animated films tended to be
more nuanced by drawing attention to the age/generation difference. Adults were usually depicted asevil and imperialist, but children, be they white or black, were represented sympathetically andpositively, yearning for the sunny international paradise for children constructed by socialist China. I
argue that it was the medium specificity of animation—a plasmatic artistic form that indulges inelasticity and fluidity in terms of both form and content—that made socialist animated films differ
from its live-action counterpart and consequently subverted our stereotypes of the Cold War.
2) Benjamin Hiramatsu Ireland, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Marcel Proust’s Queer Japan
Little is known to date on Japan’s most researched French novelist, Marcel Proust, and his
relationship with Japanese artwork — in particular, with those collectibles including ukiyo-e, shunga,
nanshoku/kagema prints that were shipped from Japan to France at the end of the nineteenth century.
These exoticized collectibles, known as japonaiseries, circulated within Parisian society and ignited
an interest among curio collectors and notable names in French intellectual and aesthetic thought,
including Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Debussy, Édouard Manet, among others. Proust’s most prominent
seven-volume work, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), evokes Japanese (orjaponiste) aesthetics on numerous occasions. What is of import in Proust’s turn to Japan as he wrote
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many famous passages is the extent to which many of the japoniste imageries and objects appearing
within À la recherche and within the historical Proust’s personal life exhibit a characteristic
homoeroticism. This study examines certain japoniste objects (flowers, teas, and sartorial
accessories) appearing within À la recherche to explore their codified, queer metaphors. Namely,
Proust ascribes a homoeroticism onto certain japonaiseries and onto novel characters by associatingthem with either things or people that, for the historical Proust, were related to the homoerotic
subcultures of Japan and France. Specifically, this study will focus on Proust’s little-known Japanese
homoerotic print collections and his personal relationships with French and Japanese males. By using
Queer Studies as a theoretical framework, this study contributes to the emerging field of Queer
Japanese Studies from transcultural, comparatist, literary, and visual-cultural perspectives.
3) Ono Sayako, Independent Scholar
The Body and Akogare: Women Who Express Themselves through Dancing Ballet
In the post-bubble era learning ballet is a popular hobby among Japanese mature women. Sinceballet was first imported from the West in the early 20th century, it has been regarded as a hobby forgirls. However, after the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s, governmental support of leisureactivities resulted in ballet studios opening classes for mature women for the first time. As an
outcome, not only girls, but also a growing number of adults began to dance ballet. In this paper,
therefore, I focus on mature women, from young Office Ladies (OL) to middle-aged women, whowere interested in asserting their own individual identity through dancing ballet. In the case of girls
registered in ballet classes by their mothers, learning this form of dance has always been endowedwith positive meanings in Japan such as feminine beauty and elegance. It has also been viewed as anindex of status. However, in the case of adult women because of social perceptions regarding middleaged women in particular, until the 2000s it was widely viewed as an embarrassment to start dancing
ballet at this age. Therefore, in this paper I investigate why these mature women started taking ballet
lessons particularly focusing on female dancers’ embodied experience. Since many women felt
constrained by hegemonic gender ideals, I investigate what they expected to obtain through moving
their bodies.
4) Yuki Ohsawa, University of British Columbia
Technological Bodies: Reconceptualizing the Cyborg/Human Relationship through JapaneseAnime and Manga
What can you imagine when you hear the words “robots” together with “Japan”? Why do we
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feel that images of technological bodies and Japan have a connection? Scholars such as Sharalyn
Orbaugh have argued that the images of robots/cyborgs relate to the modern history of Japan, while
the Japanese culture critic, Ueno Toshiya, has even claimed that Japanese people are seen as“Japanoid,” a term coming from the ideas of techno-orientalism, in the West. Since the 1950s,
Japanese popular culture has created a wide range of imaginations of technological bodies. My focus
in this paper is on what kinds of influences have shaped the conception and development of Japaneserobots, and how the images of the body around such conceptions have changed. I analyze
representative robot manga and animation that were very popular in each of the decades from the
1950s to the 1980s, to reveal 1) the relation between the robot body, influenced by advanced
technology, and human beings; 2) the conceptualization of the modern body; and 3) how these robot
bodies brought specific ideas and understandings of modernity and modern life to their audience.
Also, this paper show the limited presentations of gender and sexuality in those robot bodies, to argue
that, even though robots/cyborgs offer an opportunity for scholars, artists, and average consumers ofthese works of art to overcome traditional, restrictive, or normative categories of sex and sexuality,
ultimately the majority of these works fall back on the ‘safety’ of normative conceptions of theseterms.
5) Charles Cook, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Reimagining Religion: NGO Discourses in Post-3.11 Japan
After the Kobe and Great East Japan earthquakes, Buddhist Non-Governmental Organizations(NGOs) have increasingly engaged in domestic Japanese relief efforts alongside their historical roles
providing international aid. The increased responsibilities taken on by these Japanese NGOs mirrors
global trends as NGOs have been multiplying and expanding within the international neoliberalmilieu. NGOs as globalized actors in a transnational conversation utilize discursive formations liberalvalues, political activism, empowerment, and citizenship. However, being privatized welfare
providers authorized by governmental bureaucracy, these groups also reaffirm certain foreign andeconomic policies. In the case of Buddhist NGOs, this implies a number of questions around how
Buddhist groups frame their involvement; imagine their role in secular society; and what forms ofsubjectivity and identity they promote for volunteers and aid recipients. By looking at mission
statements and documents produced by Buddhist NGOs, such as Shanti Volunteer Association and
AYUS, as well as interviews with its members, this study will examine these NGO’s influence in theJapanese conversations of care.

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SUNDAY, JULY 3
Sunday Morning Sessions: 10:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.
Session 26: Room 352
Changes and Perspectives in Asian Studies Over Twenty Years (Roundtable)
Chair: Mark E. Caprio, Rikkyo University
In commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the ASCJ this roundtable of past and present
ASCJ presidents, along with the current AAS president, will discuss trends that have dominatedAsian studies over these two decades and anticipate how they might develop in the future. The
speakers will focus on contemporary issues that concern the Northeast Asian states of China, Korea,
and Japan with the hope that discussion might include other areas of the vast continent.
1) Linda Grove, Sophia University, China, History
2) David Wank, Sophia University, China, Sociology
3) Michael Watson, Meiji Gakuin University, Japan, Literature4) M. William Steele, ICU, Japan, History5) Laurel Kendall, American Museum of Natural History, Korea, Anthropology
6) Mark E. Caprio, Rikkyo University, Korea, History
Session 27: Room 253
Mental Health/Illness in Contemporary Japan (Part I): Addiction and Self-Help Groups
Organizer: Paul Christensen, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Chair: Junko Kitanaka, Keio University
Mental health and illness are subject to a patchwork of divergent and conflicting views incontemporary Japan. What are conventionally labeled ‘traditional’ attitudes toward mental illness
remain entrenched in places, intermingling with the strong influence of Western biomedicine andJapan’s robust medical infrastructure. The result is varied institutional practices and treatment
methodologies; conflicting views of diagnosis, cause, or severity; and uneven, possibly exclusionary,societal perception of afflictions. More generally, we hear ever louder calls to reexamine fundamental
categories structuring mental health as “an entirely different way of being in the world” (Kleinman
2012: 185). Taking Japan as our area of focus, this double panel addresses contemporary concerns ofmental health and illness from a diversity of perspectives. Our themes include the ideologicalstructuring of addiction to alcohol and gambling, self-help associations for families of mental patients78

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and people with autism spectrum disorder, pharmaceuticalization of psychiatric disorders,(un)willingness of depressive people to seek professional help, and feelings of persistent stressresulting from the 3.11 nuclear disaster. Across this range of papers we seek to illuminate the varied
ways in which association with mental illness shapes individual lives in contemporary Japan.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts1) Tom Gill, Meiji Gakuin University
Foreign Models and Local Needs: The Treatment of Compulsive Gamblers in Yokohama
A study commissioned by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2014 suggested that
there could be as many as 5.36 million people with a gambling problem in Japan, representing 4.8%of the adult population – an extremely high proportion by global standards. Yet this giant problem
remains under-researched. Excessive gambling, like heavy drinking, has been largely tolerated inJapanese society. The discourse of medicalization is only now starting to be heard. The Japanesebranch of Gamblers Anonymous was founded as recently as 1989, and now has active branches in all
47 prefectures. This presentation will focus on two NPOs, located near each other in the western
suburbs of Yokohama, both of which offer residential care for compulsive gamblers. One of theseviews gambling as a curable disease and applies the 12-step approach of Alcoholics Anonymous,
including the Christian-influenced appeal to a “higher power” to aid with salvation, without muchadjustment for differences between alcohol and gambling or with regard to Japanese cultural
particularity. The other has abandoned the 12-step programme, and the disease model of problem
gambling, rather viewing problem gambling as a symptom of deeper-lying problems, often including
unacknowledged mild intellectual impairment. Yet both NPOs emphasise communal living andphysical group activities as the path to recovery. Both were launched at the start of the 21st century,and their divergent courses offer an insight into how Japan is just now starting to cope with this longneglected problem.
2) Rie Yamada, University of Tokyo
The Meaning of “Self-Help” for Families of Patients with Mental Disorders in Japan
Discussion of “community centered care” of patients with mental disorders invariably lays
heavy stress on the role of the family in patient care. Social policy in Japan has emphasized family
responsibility more than in most other countries, and families have been organized into associations
to share the burden of having a mental patient in the family. The purpose of this presentation is toreveal the historical background of family associations of patients with mental disorders(‘kazokukai’) in postwar Japan. Currently there are various types of associations conceptualized as“self-help” groups, comparable to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which was an important model
influencing the form of associations in 1980s Japan. However, kazokukai were first created in the late
1950s by doctors in psychiatric hospitals. How did they come to be gathered before the ‘self-help’
concept had arrived in Japan? And after the self-help model arrived in Japan, did it work in the sameway in kazokukai as in the AA model? This study examines academic papers archived by the Japan
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Medical Abstracts Society (“Igaku Chuo Zasshi” or “Ichushi” in Japanese) and the archive in the
National Diet Library, using two keywords, “kazokukai” and “self-help”, for the period 1960–2010.
In this research, I will unveil the historical background of family associations for patients with mental
disorders. Then I will analyze the influence of the introduction of the self-help concept on theformation of various kazokukai. In conclusion, I will seek to define the meaning of self-help withinfamily associations in Japan.
3) Sachiko Horiguchi, Temple University and Junko Teruyama, University of Tsukuba
Envisioning Individual and Social Change: An Ethnography of Communication Skills Workshops
for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder
ASD, or autism spectrum disorder, is a relatively new category of psychiatric disorder thatentered the public discourse in Japan only in the past decade. Commonly referred to as ‘hattatsu
shogai’ (developmental disorder), it has drawn the attention of not only psychiatrists, psychologists,and educators but also adults who have struggled to make sense of difficulties in communication andsocial relationships with others. Self-help organizations catering for adults as well as children with
ASD and their families have been increasingly established in recent years, particularly in urban areas.
Based on participant observation of ‘communication skills workshops’ organized by one such selfhelp group for adults with ASD around the Tokyo area, as well as in-depth interviews with their
participants and facilitators, this paper aims to examine the multiple meanings and desires fortransformations these individuals under diverse mental health conditions report as motivating them toattend and/or run the workshops. The workshops are designed mainly for adults with ASD andprimarily focus on improving communication skills through “trying out” a variety of communication
tasks, but are open to all that are interested. In fact, people of various ages, gender identities,
occupations, class, as well as diagnoses participate, regularly or otherwise, with varying motivations.
By examining how these diverse motivations for change, both at the individual and social levels, arenegotiated against a backdrop of the self-help group’s “official” goal of developing communication
skills, this paper sheds light on emerging possibilities of self-help organizations in the Japanesemental health care system.
Discussant: Amy Borovoy, Princeton University

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Session 28: Room 252
Marginal Issues in Japanese Higher Education
Organizer/Chair: Maiko Sumino, University of Tokyo /Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science
As the Japanese society as a whole is facing demographic, social and economic changes, thehigher education system is required to become more inclusive in supporting students with diverse
social, economic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. However, these emerging issues have not been
widely acknowledged in the public discussion. The papers in this panel consider the various contexts
that shape the current change, and explore the possibilities of Japanese higher education to respond tothese demands by serving as an inclusive institution. The papers take political, structural, andpractical approaches to examine this important issue in Japanese higher education. Takako Hayashi
examines the current situations and challenges of the student support system within the Japanesehigher education, and drawing on cases of professional development programs, explores a solutionthat could impact the current situation. Jennifer McGuire explores the best possible learning
environment considering the deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Japan, and discusses how theprocess of negotiating and securing access to “information support” offers itself as a paradigm for
empowerment. Maiko Sumino considers how inclusion practices could be understood as a criticalrole of higher education in Japan, borrowing models of under representative groups in the UnitedStates. Lastly, Tomoko Tokunaga reflexively examines an international collaborative course which
addressed the topic of minority education issues in Japan, and illuminates the ways in which thestudents from diverse backgrounds learn from cross-cultural comparison.
1) Takako Hayashi, University of Tokyo
Expertise and Professional Development of Faculties and Staff Engaged in Student Support at
Japanese Universities: Current Situation and Future Outlook
In recent years, faculties and staff members who are engaged in student support at Japanese
universities are facing the need to develop expertise than ever before. They are at the front line ofmassification and internationalization of higher education to meet students’ various needs. Also, themode of education is shifting from “faculty-centered” to “student-centered”, and student support
programs and services implemented in the form of extracurricular activities draw attention as new
resources for student development. The faculties and staff are expected to play a role as an educator
who facilitates students’ holistic learning. All these reasons are behind when Japanese universities are
in search of more structured and systematized training programs for student support professionals.
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Some researchers and practitioners are trying to find solutions from the methods developed in the
United States. However, these attempts have limitations within the general-skill oriented Japaneseemployment culture. The purpose of this presentation is to examine the present situation of expertiseand professional development of faculties and staff engaged in student support at Japanese
universities. The paper first reviews previous research. Next, it looks into an actual training program
implemented to develop student support professions and other similar qualifications. Finally, I
propose possible ways for Japanese universities to overcome the impasse and to enhance student
support to meet the needs of students with diverse backgrounds.
2) Jennifer McGuire, University of Oxford /National Museum of Ethnology (JSPS Fellowship)
Accessible Information in Higher Education: A Paradigm for Empowerment for Deaf and Hardof-Hearing Students in Japan
Historically, higher education has been out of reach for the majority of deaf and hard-ofhearing (DHH) students in Japan. Today, as a result of changes to university entrance exams, thedevelopment of more university disability centers, a drastic increase in students being educated inmainstream schools, a declining youth population, and the establishment of a university campus
exclusively for DHH students, entrance into institutes of higher education is a possibility for a higher
percentage of DHH students. However, access to higher education does not equal accessibility.
Without appropriate “information support” (jyōhō hoshō), DHH students are unable to receive thesame education as their hearing peers. Information support is often broadly defined, ranging fromnote taking to captioning to sign language interpretation, and the information technology available
varies greatly from university to university. Moreover, what is “appropriate” support depends on
students’ educational and linguistic backgrounds as well as hearing levels and learning preferences.
In this paper, I explore the ways in which students work with their university’s disability office toensure the best possible learning environment. I discuss how the process of negotiating and securing
access to “information support” offers itself as a paradigm for empowerment for deaf and hard-ofhearing students in Japan.
3) Maiko Sumino, University of Tokyo /Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
The Interpretation of Inclusion Practices by Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis of Japanand the United States
As Japanese higher education increasingly faces students coming from various challenging
backgrounds, current research point out the importance to develop supporting structures and practices
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to better serve the current student population. However, within the current educational policy climate,poverty issues among children/ youth have been lately “discovered” in Japan in the 2000s (Abe,2012). Therefore, providing special treatment according to the students’ various socio-economic
backgrounds were conventionally seen as marginal issues in the public discourse. In the advanced
nations, such as the United States, there has been a long history of reaching out to the diverse youth
population; such students who could be at risk of dropping out, or who could not be attending any
educational institutions, due to their socially or economically challenging circumstances. Particularly,
community colleges have historically served to address the needs of local communities. In thispresentation, firstly, I present various inclusion practices within the community colleges in the UnitedStates. Secondly, I analyze how these practices are understood and interpreted in the public discourse.
Thirdly, while critically examining the differences with the United States, I review the current policy
discussions of higher education in Japan from a comparative perspective. By doing so, thispresentation reveals the characteristics of the current public discourse in Japan, and examines thepossibilities and challenges that lie ahead.
4) Tomoko Tokunaga, Keio University
Reimagining Minorities in Japanese Education: The Possibilities of International Collaborative
Courses in Japan
As part of the globalization initiatives of Japanese higher education, many universities in Japan
have begun to offer co-learning courses where “International students” and “Japanese students” learn
together through the medium of English language. Scholars have argued that these classes havepotential to create inclusive learning communities among diverse students (Suematsu, 2014), developintercultural understanding and competency (Kagami, 2006), and raise awareness towards humanrights issues globally (Miyamoto, 2013). In the twenty first century where ideas, information, people,
and goods flow across national borders, international co-learning courses could become a criticallearning site in producing unusual forms of knowledge which transcends national, cultural, andlinguistic borders. In this presentation, I critically and reflexively examine an international
collaborative course I taught on the topic of education for minorities in Japan at a Japanese university
in 2015. The course explored the possibilities and constraints of educational issues of various
minority groups in Japan including non-attendant students, students from working class backgrounds,
Buraku youth, Okinawans and Ainu, ethnic Koreans, returnees, newcomers, LGBTQ students, andstudents with disabilities. This presentation illuminates the ways in which students from diverse
backgrounds unlearned and reimagined minority and education issues in Japan through privileging
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personal stories and learning from cross-cultural comparison.
Discussant: Christopher Bondy, International Christian University

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Session 29: Room 204
The Confucian Classics and East Asian Politics
Organizer/Chair: Hong-Kyu Park, Korea University
The three East Asian countries, namely China, Korea and Japan, belong to the East Asian
cultural sphere, which is also called Confucian culture. Virtually, traditional East Asian politicalthoughts have had great influence on the politics in these countries, not only in the premodern era
when it worked as the ruling principle, but also in the modern political system where it professes
liberal democracy or socialism. Therefore, there is an inextricable link between the Confucian
Classics and the politics of the three East Asian countries. In this respect, this panel explores the
Confucian Classics and political thoughts, and also considers how those political thoughts are
realized at their real politics. Three articles will be presented in this panel. The first considers thecorrelation between the statesman Jeong Do-jeon (鄭道傳)’s writings and The Classic of History (書經). This explains how he designs the new country Chosun’s political power. The second deals with
Zhang Juzheng (张居正)'s reinterpretation of The Great Learning (大學), who was a reformer andstatesman in the late Ming dynasty. This shows how he tried to reform Ming's administration system
under Confucianism framework, as a Neo-Confucianist and reformer. Lastly, the book Mencius and
Mencius’ unification theory are handled in the third article. This is one of the attempts to interpretmodern political phenomenon from the perspective of East Asian political thoughts.
1) Jae-Hyeok Song, Korea University
Statesman Jeong Do-jeon and The Classic of History
This paper considers the correlation between The Classic of History and the statesman Jeong
Do-jeon (1342–1397)’s writings which were written at the beginning of Chosun Dynasty. Since
Chosun Dynasty was founded on the Korean peninsula in 1392, Jeong Do-jeon had designed politicalpower of a new political community, Chosun, through the writings such as Chosun kyeongkukcheon(朝鮮經國典, 1394), Kyeongjemungam (經濟文鑑, 1395), and Kyeongjemungambyeoljip (經濟文鑑

別集, 1397). The earlier studies have emphasized that his writings were affected by the Rites of Zhou(周禮), the Grand Canon for Governing the World (經世大典) of the Yuan Dynasty, and the books of
Utilitarianism (事功學派) during the Song Dynasty. Among them, the influence of the Rites of Zhou
had been especially stressed. However, the statesmen, including Jeong Do-jeon in the early years of
the Chosun, understood the Rites of Zhou as a work of the Duke of Zhou (周公). In addition, they
considered the relations between Officers of Zhou (周官) in the Classic of History and the Rites ofZhou as interior and exterior relations. As a neo-Confucianist, Jeong Do-jeon paid attention to the86ASCJ 2016 Abstracts
Classic of History, which describes fair principles and rules (大經大法) by which the Two Great
Emperors and Three Great Kings of Ancient China (二帝三王) ruled the world. Moreover, he tried torealize three Great dynasties’ politics, an ideal model of traditional East Asia’s politics, in the Chosun
dynasty. In order to better understand Jeong Do-jeon’s political designing, the Classic of History is
especially worth noting.
2) Sulsoo Park, Korea University
Reformer Zhang Juzheng’s Interpretation of The Great LearningThis article introduces Zhang Juzheng (张居正: 1525–1582)’s interpretation of the Great
Learning and clarifies his political intention. When facing the crisis of polity, there were two
distinctive ways to prevent degradation and to revitalize the polity. One is cultivating ruler’s
virtue(cultivation approach), and the other is reforming administration system(reforming approach).
By the 16th century Ming dynasty confronted serious problems from inside and outside. The census
register of Ming dynasty became disorderly, local gentries evaded tax, it resulted in serious budgetary
deficit. Moreover, Mongolian tribe from north and Japanese pirates from south threatened the borderof Ming dynasty. In order to solve these problems, Zhang promoted overall administration system
reforms. But there was a problem to audacious reformer Zhang. Since 14th century NeoConfucianism had become the mainstream of the East Asian political thought, most of the literati ofMing dynasty were acquainted with cultivation approach. They did not favor reforming approach;even they were hostile toward it. Thus, Zhang couldn't push his reform plan without philosophicalembellishment. He had to elucidate that his reform plan in fact had some accordance with cultivation
approach in order to make his idea being more plausible to his contemporary common sense. To doso, he reinterpreted the Great Leaning, which was regarded as the essence of cultivation approach, byadding annotations. In his commentary, he insisted that his plan was definitely not going astray fromthe Great learning’s main idea but fitting close to it.
3) Gi-Yeon Kim, Korea University and Hong-Kyu Park, Korea University
Mencius and Unification of a Divided Country
This paper attempts to present Mencius’ unification theory, in his book Mencius, one of the East
Asia's Confucian Classics, and suggest modern implications for the unification of the two Koreas
based on this theory. Mencius claimed that a great country should serve a small one, and a small
country should serve a large one, as a way of regulating one’s maintenance of intercourse with its
neighbouring kingdoms. This was one of the main reasons why China keeps a tribute system with her
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neighbouring countries. However, did Mencius intend to obtain international order through mutual
coexistence of large and small countries? Mencius thought that the sovereign of the kingdom(王者)should appear and unify a whole country in order to lead an era of peace. Nevertheless, Mencius’unification theory as the path to peace has not received much attention from the international
relations theorists, who pay attention to the way of relations with neighboring countries. This article
will review how to interpret these two arguments, which look contradictory on the surface, andtheorize about the unification of divided country by reconstructing Mencius’ unification theory in his
book. After then, I will explore President Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy, which was the unification
policy of South Korea, and try to answer what are the implications for the unification of the Korean
Peninsula. I believe that the reconstruction of Mencius’ unification theory could provide modern
implications for the two Koreas, which long for the unification of the Korean Peninsula in order tomeet an era of peace.
Discussant: Tadashi Karube, Tokyo University

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Session 30: Room 251
Constitutionalism in Asia
Organizer/Chair: Joseph M. Fernando, University of Malaya
This panel titled “Constitutionalism in Asia,” which has three papers, examines several themes
on aspects of constitutionalism and constitution-making in Malaysia and Indonesia. Constitutionalism
and constitution-making in Asia are important areas of research which have continued significanceand relevance to the study of government and politics of the region. The study of the process of theframing of constitution and the underlying intent of the framers provide for a deeper understanding ofmodern constitutions. The first paper in this panel by Joseph M. Fernando examines the historicalconstitution-making process in Malaysia in the period between 1956 and 1957 to discern the impactof nationalist groups on the nature of the post-colonial state that emerged in 1957. It seeks tounderstand the nature of the post-colonial state as envisioned by the leading political groupings. The
second paper in the panel by Hasyim Asy’ari examines the changes made to Indonesia’s 1945
Undang-Undang Dasar (UUD), the country’s founding constitution, and the constitutional
amendments made between 1999 and 2002 to understand the implications of these changes inredesigning the state in Indonesia. The third paper in the panel by Saimin Ginsari examines theconstitutional agreements contained in the Malaysia Federation Agreement of 1963 between thegovernments of Britain and Ireland, the Federation of Malaya and the states of Singapore, Sarawak
and Sabah. It seeks to ascertain if the agreements contained in the Malaysia Agreement which wereinserted in the Malaysian federal constitution in 1963 have been duly observed in spirit and practiceby the various parties.
1) Joseph M. Fernando, Department of History, University of Malaya
Imagining the Post-Colonial State: Malayan Nationalism and the Framing of the Independence
Constitution
This paper examines the discussions and debates surrounding the framing of the Malayan
independence constitution between 1956 and 1957 to discern nationalists’ conceptions of the postcolonial state. It examines the primary constitutional documents, party documents and theconstitutional negotiations during this period to consider how the main political groups perceived thenature of the independent state. While the leading Alliance party’s vision was dominant and received
the most attention from the framers, there were at the same time inherent differences with the multicommunal alliance as well as other conceptions of the nature of the post-colonial state from otherpolitical groupings that were also evident. The paper begins with a discussion of the background to89

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the appointment of an independent constitutional commission to frame the new constitution. The
paper then considers some of the main ideas of the Alliance and other leading political groupings thatwere evident during the evidence-taking stage and after the report of the Reid Constitutional
commission were completed. In taking this approach, this paper seeks to show the similarities in theimages of the post-colonial state that were evident among the leading political groupings and theinherent differences, and the impact of Malayan nationalism on the nature of the post-colonial state in
the period under examination.
2) Hasyim Asy’ari, Diponegoro University
Constitutional Change and Re-Designing the State: Towards Strengthening the Presidential
System in Indonesia
The design of the founding principles of the Indonesian state before the reforms of the UndangUndang Dasar (UUD) 1945 is often viewed as ambiguous. Is it a presidential system or prime
ministerial system? The Indonesian constitution provides that the administration is to be lead by a
President, and the President elects the cabinet ministers. The constitution, similarly, provides that the
President is elected, appointed and dismissed by the Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (MPR), and is
not directly elected by the people. These two elements in the constitution reflect characteristics ofboth a presidential system and a parliamentary system. After the constitutional amendments between
1999 and 2002, the redesigned state tilted towards strengthening the presidential system. Several
characteristics of the presidential system were adopted in the Indonesian constitution. These
provisions include: the President is elected directly by the voters; the selection of the ministers in thecabinet is made by the President; and the President cannot dissolve the DPR. On the other hand, theDPR cannot restrain the President. Instead, a new body, the Mahkamah Konstitusi (Constitutional
Court), one of whose duties it is to examine DPR complaints towards the President, can examine any
constitutional infringements by the President, and which could lead to his/her dismissal. This paper
examines the changes made to the 1945 UUD and its implications in redesigning the state inIndonesia. It examines closely the constitutional changes before and after the 1999–2002
constitutional amendments to consider the broader implications of these amendments.
3) Saimin Ginsari, University of Malaya
Revisiting the Spirit of the 1963 Malaysia Federation Agreement
This paper examines the discussions relating to the Federation of Malaysia Agreement that was
signed on 9 July 1963 by the governments of Britain and Northern Ireland, the Federation of Malaya,
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Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. This agreement is examined together with the Inter-Governmental
Committee (IGC) report and the 1963 Malaysia constitution. The paper seeks to examine the natureof the agreements reached in these discussions and which are reflected in the Malaysian federal
constitution. It poses the question as to whether constitutional amendments and reforms that conflictwith the original Malaysia agreement could be passed by parliament as the highest legislative body.
The paper begins with a discussion of the contents of the Malaysia Agreement that were inserted in
the constitution of Malaysia on 16 September 1963. It then examines the developments related to thecontents of the Malaysia agreement. The paper then considers if there were changes, including
constitutional amendments and the discontinuing of certain acts, that may have infringed the
Malaysia agreement. The paper will focus mainly on changes between 1963 and 1985 that affected
the state of Sabah but which may also have impacted the state of Sarawak.
Discussant: Tsuboi Yuji, Tokyo University

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Session 31: Room 351
Meditation, Caves and Art in Central Asia
Organizer/Chair: Tamami Hamada, Yokohama College of Art and Design
This panel explores the relationship between Buddhist meditation, caves and art in Central Asia
from the perspectives of Buddhist Studies and Buddhist Art History. As Angela Howard andGiuseppe Vignato have recently discussed in detail, many caves (mostly undecorated) in the Kucha
area have space just sufficient for a monk to practice meditation. On the other hand, many othercaves are decorated with various kinds of Buddhist artworks (sculptures and paintings). Howard andVignato’s important finding is that these caves functioned in close conjunction and not separately.
Since regional differences are observable in various in Central Asian sites, our first task is to discuss
to what extent this finding is applicable to other sites. In the practice of Buddhist visualization,practitioners vividly envisioned Buddhas or bodhisattvas in their contemplation. Thus, it issometimes suspected that some of Buddhist artworks functioned as aids for visualization. Others
think that some artworks were representations of their meditative experiences. In addition, paintings
representing practitioners of visualization appear not infrequently in Central Asian caves (Kucha,
Turfan, Dunhuang). Considering these points, it is important to examine the meaning of Buddhist art
in Central Asia in terms of its relationship to meditation in general, and more specifically tovisualization. Referring to recent findings in this field, this panel intends to reconsider the functionsof Central Asian Buddhist caves and discuss the significance of religious art by bringing together
scholars of Buddhist Studies and Buddhist Art History.
1) Tamami Hamada, Yokohama College of Art and Design
Buddhist Iconography and Visualization in the Central-Pillar Caves in Dunhuang
Many central-pillar caves were created in Dunhuang during Northern Wei (5th–6th century),
where individuals may walk round the pillar as they gaze at the Buddhist sculptures and paintings.
What is interesting is that the content of the murals matches the movement of the worshiper. Such isthe case with the thousand Buddha images in Dunhuang Mogao cave 254. The inscription beside thethousand Buddhas lists the names of the past and the future thousand Buddhas, and the viewer/
worshiper moves from the past thousand Buddhas towards the future thousand Buddhas. This paper
also focuses on the image of the White-Robed Buddha, placed between the past and the future
thousand Buddhas. The iconography of the White-Robed Buddha reminds one of the description of
the Buddha’s shadow in the nagas’ cave at Nagarahara, mentioned in “The Visualization of the Four
Types of Deportments of the Buddha,” in the seventh volume of the Sutra on the Ocean-Like
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Samadhi of the Visualization of the Buddha. The painting could have been used in the visualization
performed by those who practiced in the cave. It is to be noted that the meaning of these paintings
and their use in the visualization would differ according to the positions of the art works and theactions of the practitioners. This paper specifically explores the close relationship between thevisualization text, the space in the central-pillar caves and the iconography of Buddhist paintings in
Dunhuang.
2) Michiyo Mori, Waseda University
Pranidhi Paintings in Kucha and Turfan
The so called Pranidhi paintings are depictions about the stories of Sakyamuni’s countlessprevious lives, and about how he worshiped each buddha of each life, and received from them theprophecy of future buddhahood. The Pranidhi paintings had been known as the most representative
theme of the Uygur Buddhist art in Turfan area, but recently more and more examples have been
identified in Kucha area. At present, we can surely say that the Pranidhi paintings are the creation of
the Kuchean Sarvastivadin Buddhism (or Tocharian Buddhism), which is one of main sources of the
Uygur Buddhism. Both in Kucha and Turfan there are several types of Pranidhi paintings depicted indifferent types of caves or free-standing temples. In this paper, I would like to focus on themonumental Pranidhi paintings in those areas. In Kucha, central pillar caves count for the majority ofworshipping caves, whose rear corridors show the cycle of Buddha’s nirvana. The large Pranidhi
paintings cut in this nirvana cycle during the middle stage of central pillar cave’s period, and later
they occupied the whole rear corridors. So, I would like to explore how this kind of paintings and thelayout of the caves were incorporated in Turfan’s Uygur temples.
3) Angela Howard, Rutgers University
The Silent Language of Meditation in the Painting of Kucha
This paper examines the central role meditation played at the monastic sites of Kucha inCentral Asia from the early centuries of the Common Era to 650. Over a hundred meditation cells
remain today. The caves varied in their meditative functions: some were set up as individual, others
as collective places; some were exposed to the elements, others were dug in underground tunnels;
some barely contained a seated practitioner, while others were larger and apparently intended for
prolonged meditation. The different types may have been connected to different rules of themonasteries. Because meditation played such an important role in Kucha monasticism, I argue thatthe practice of meditation was a source, if not the main source, of the decoration of central pillar
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caves and monumental Buddha caves. Here this specific visual vocabulary is much more than arecord of events from Shakyamuni’s last and previous lives; it is the offshoot of a concentrated mind
which generates several miracles such as the two phases of the Shravasti wonder. In the first phase
Shakyamuni having alighted in the sky projects fire and water, while in the second appears as a
double emanating infinite clones of himself. The ultimate goal of these miracles rooted in meditation
was to predispose the audience to listen to the preaching of the Dharma and then become converts.
This miracle making and preaching cum conversion scene is constantly portrayed in the lateral wallsof central pillar caves.
4) Nobuyoshi Yamabe, Waseda University“Meditation Caves” in Kucha, Turfan, and Dunhuang
Meditation caves in Turfan have long been a focus of my scholarly interest. Based on bothtextual and art-historical analyses, I have proposed that the types of visualization as described in the
Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha and the Amitāyus Visualization
Sūtra were likely practiced in Toyok caves (in the Turfan area). On the other hand, I have been
skeptical of the association between Dunhuang Mogao Cave 285 and the practice of meditation.
Though it is often assumed to be a meditation cave based on its vihāra-type structure, it appears to be
too decorative to be a place of actual practice. Another reason of my skepticism is that the side-cellsof this cave supposedly used for meditation seem too small for extended periods of meditation.
Recently Angela Howard and Giuseppe Vignato have published a very detailed and comprehensive
study of Kucha caves, in which they have argued that many small caves in the Kucha areas were used
for meditation. In addition, at Toyok major excavations are currently underway, and many new
findings have been reported. In the face of these new findings, it is now time to reexamine thevalidity of my former hypothesis. This is what I intend to do in this paper.
Discussant: Teruo Nakano, Seijo University

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Session 31: Room
Individual Papers 6: East Asian Contemporary Film
Chair: Lisa Yinghong, J. F. Oberlin University
1) Jessica Ka Yee Chan, University of Richmond
A Simple Life: Aging in Documentary Realism
Aging, an understudied cinematic representation, intersects with Andre Bazin’s notion of the“mummy complex”: cinema is motivated by the human desire to preserve time in the face ofimminent aging and death. In A Simple Life/Taojie (2012), Hong Kong director Ann Hui explores
aging through a creative experimentation of documentary realism—a combination of documentaryand fictional filmmaking. In doing so, Ann Hui gives voice to marginalized social groups, preserves
memory of a passing generation, and records local family history in postcolonial Hong Hong, whose
culture, as Akbar Abbas puts it, is characterized by “disappearance.” A Simple Life is not only about
the disappearance of human life, but also the disappearance of local history and even Hong Kongcinema. The mixed use of professional and non-professional actors, on-location shooting,typecasting, and star presence gesture towards a meta-commentary on filmmaking in Hong Kong andits survival in the post-CEPA era, when low-budget and mid-range films are squeezed out by coproductions with mainland China, along with the anxiety over the loss of local flavor. On a larger
scale, Ann Hui’s A Simple Life corresponds with a number of films such as Echoes of the
Rainbow/Suiyue shentou (Alex Law, 2010), which features a coming-of-age tale that captures thememory of a passing generation in Hong Kong. In tackling aging—an imminent and inevitableprocess of life that is un-glamourized and under-represented on screen, Ann Hui questions our own
mortality and dignity in aging through an engagement with documentary realism.
2) Chia-Ning Chang, University of California, Davis
Perspectives from Leftist Cinema: Yamamoto Satsuo and Postwar Japan
My paper examines cinematic interpretations of postwar Japanese society and politics andquestions of war and peace in the works of the prominent film director Yamamoto Satsuo 山本薩夫
(1910–83), a member of the Japanese Communist Party, committed pacifist, and one of the mostimportant socially- and politically-engaged filmmakers of postwar Japan. Focusing my attention on
his independently-produced films, my paper traces the formation of his social and politicalconsciousness to the effects of Japanese wartime military discipline, his experiences in China as awar combatant, and his observations in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It contextualizes his
filmmaking processes in the immediate postwar decades by taking into consideration the effects of95

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the tumultuous Tōhō; Labor Struggle (1946–48), U.S. Occupation policy, the Red Purge, themonopolistic strategies adopted by the mainstream studios, and the response from Japan’s liberal
filmmakers including Yamamoto, Kamei Fumio, and Imai Tadashi. Through the examinationof Yamamoto’s major films including War and Peace (1947) The Vacuum Zone (1952) Streets
without the Sun (1954), The Great Ivory Tower (1966), War and Humanity (1970–73), and The
Barren Zone (1976), I elucidate Yamamoto’s assessment of the fragile peace in postwar Japan, thesadistic brutality embedded within Japanese military discipline, and the moral corruption, selfaggrandizement, and human frailty within Japan’s postwar elite academe, transnational corporations,and its highest level of government. The paper discusses the relationship between art and politics byadvancing the argument that Yamamoto’s social and political commitments are mediated andinformed, but artistically liberated from, elaborate-formulated political ideologies, and that theabsence of ideological dogmatism characterizes the fluidity of his filmic dramaturgy and the strong
humanist tendencies in his aesthetic vision.
3) Timothy Iles, University of Victoria
The Semiotics of Water in the Films of Imamura Shōhei
This paper argues that the deliberate presence of water imagery in Imamura’s films serves as aconcrete manifestation of the various forces which his characters enounter. Water-as-force, andforce-as-water recur and point to the potential for transformation of the characters through immersion
in a substance both greater than they are and yet less precise; eternal yet never static; sustaining yet
never sedate. Water-as-force and force-as-water serve as barometers of a morality that remains
amoral, transcending the limitations of the characters upon whom Imamura focuses his attention,
while permitting them a chance for redemption, inclusion, happiness, and, indeed, even love. Against
a backdrop of despair and dissolution, Imamura creates a world in which both wonder and hope arepossible. The fundamental humanism of Imamura’s work sustains a community in which
communication, redemption, and forgiveness merge with the absurd, the perverse, and the fantastic,
to demonstrate the dignity and value of each individual. Through a close textual analysis of Warm
Water Under a Red Bridge (Akai hashi no shita no nurui mizu, 2001), situating it in a context of
Imamura’s earlier films, I argue that through the imagery and symbolism of water, the film proposes
an inclusive, sustaining circulatory system of love, capable of transforming individuals’ lives andtransporting them from despair to stability. The film presents a compendium of the features whichmake up Imamura’s mythic system, dealing as it does with the issues which have run, as a stream,
through his works.
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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Sean O’Reilly, Akita International University
Fighting Blind: Zatoichi and Popular Perceptions of Blindness in Late Tokugawa JapanIn 1961/1962, with Zatoichi, the trope of the blind warrior emerged in the popular culture ofmodern Japan, becoming the most high-profile depiction of Tokugawa-era blindness. But Zatoichi’sfame distorts the historical realities of blindness. How has this extraordinary warrior product of
postwar anxieties affected perceptions on the experience of blindness in the nineteenth century? The
popular notion that loss of sight provides desirable abilities in compensation structures how
disabilities like blindness are understood. I use close visual analysis of Zatochi’s portrayal in visualmedia to show that fascination with such warriors in Japan’s popular culture has blinded many to therealities of visual impairment in early modern Japan. Depictions of Zatochi’s “day job” as a masseur
deviate from the historical experience of working as a blind man. Zatoichi’s putative ties to theinstitutions of the blind—the “Zato” is actually an official guild title from the tōdōza—aresystematically ignored. Instead, viewers see a “wandering yakuza” (matatabi) motif, one in which
Zatoichi is a representative matatabi hero of Japan's popular culture. As both benevolent protector
and fearsome killer, Zatoichi is the fulfillment of both faces of disability: he reassures us that he has
overcome his impairment and can protect the worthy precisely because he is blind, but he also
unnerves us with his tremendous skill. Zatoichi’s exceptionalism hides from our sight more ordinary
experiences of blindness; by studying how he has been depicted, I explore the intimate relationshipbetween popular culture and perceptions of blindness in Tokugawa Japan.

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Session 33: Room 314
Individual Papers 7: Japanese and Korean Family
Chair: Robert Eskildsen, International Christian University
1) Isabel Fassbender, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Discourses on Family Planning in Contemporary Japan: Gender and Bodies in the Context of
Ninkatsu
Since the declining birthrate is perceived as a major menace to Japanese society since the1990ies, pronatalistic policy approaches are (again) in the focus of social and political consideration.
The fact that women get married and give birth later along with its medical implications, is more andmore moving to the center of attention. In this context, especially since 2011, Ninkatsu (妊活) andthe discourse about the aging egg cell have gathered a lot of interest in the media. In these discourses,
predominantly directed at young women, the female body, its reproductive mechanisms and thelimited reproductive age are the main concern. In addition, the necessity for thorough life planningand the acquirement of information concerning fertility, pregnancy and birth in order for it to be able
to make informed life-decisions and design one’s life according to one`s own wish is emphasized inthis discourse. In this paper, I will explore how gender and body images are represented in thismedial Ninkatsu-discourse through the analysis of key narratives in magazines and TV, as well asinterviews with key figures of the Ninkatsu-discourse, such as medical professionals, health-activists
and writers.
2) Takeshi Hamano, The University of Kitakyushu
The Family that Matters? An Analysis of the Construction of a Social Problem in Contemporary
Japan
This presentation aims to investigate recent social discourses regarding international parental
child abduction by Japanese nationals as a process of the construction of a social problem. Almost
two years have passed since Japan became a signatory of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspectsof International Child Abduction. Until recently, parental child abduction was seldom considered in
the light of the best interest of the child, and little consideration was given to the significance ofshared parenting during separation. When several foreign governments began to accuse Japan ofneglect because of increasing parental child abductions committed by Japanese nationals overseas,
domestic media outlets took a wider perspective in their description of the issue; it shifted from being
considered contestable “gaiatsu” (foreign pressure) to a problematic human rights concerns. The
process in which the Japanese government debated the possible ratification of the Convention
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unexpectedly involved multiple public voices, such as conservative politicians, feminist groups
concerned with domestic violence against women, and parental rights activists suffering from a lackof child visitation during separation. However, it seemed that this issue achieved wider attention andwas recognized as a coherent social problem in Japan by the time Japan signed the Convention in
April 2014. Applying a social constructionist approach, this paper explores the process in whichthese multiple voices concerned about parental child abduction eventually converged into a commonsocial problem. It will then lead us to understand how perceptions of the family are transforming inJapan within the context of globalization.
3) Allen Kim, International Christian University
Fathers Across Shores: Intergenerational Relations and Korean Patriarchy
In the South Korean press and Korean-American communities, patriarchal norms are criticizedfor causing distant and dysfunctional family relationships, particularly between fathers andchildren. Father School (FS) is a large, transnational, men’s movement which aims to convert
traditional fathers into caring dads--consistent with the Western “new father” ideal. FS participants
illustrate the implications of cultural change for father-son relations in adulthood. Drawing on
observational research conducted at FS events in U.S. immigrant communities and South Korean
organizational settings, this paper analyzes how men make sense of their relations with
their fathers in light of changing cultural expectations. Based on a content analysis of 50 personal
letters that middle-aged workshop participants wrote to their own aging fathers, I identify recurrent
themes in men’s accounts of the painful emotional legacy of their fathers’ traditional masculinity.
While describing the negative aspects of their relationships with their fathers, informants also point tothis experience as motivating their desire to act differently toward their own children. A comparisonof South Korean and U.S. FS participants show that immigrants experience an additional burden.
Immigrants feel guilty about not being available to care for aging parents. Although Korean men
reject the patriarchal values which undermined their personal relationships with their fathers, U.S.
immigrants embrace traditional filial values which emphasize their responsibility for aging parents.
Consistent with the time-and-place paradigm of life course theory, this study shows that the content
and meaning of intergenerational relationships are contingent on historical era and cultural context.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Kristina Vassil, California State University, Sacramento
The Aesthetics of Migration: Family, Class and Empire in Early Twentieth-Century Japanese
Migrant Fiction
This talk will discuss discursive identity construction among Japanese migrant writers vis-à-vis
a developing Japanese empire in the early twentieth century. Focusing on the Japanese language
literature produced by two vernacular newspaper reporters living and working in Northern California
in the early 1900s, I explore seemingly opposite views within the migrant community—one thatconsidered it an extension of the Japanese state, and the other that called for a compete separationfrom it. My discussion coalesces around two texts, 1) Hosaka Ki’ichi’s, The America that I See(1913-1914), written as a sequel to Natsume Soseki’s famous I am a Cat (1907), and 2) Okina
Kyuin’s discourse on “iminchi bungei,” (immigrant land literature), a genre of writing that Okina
explains and promotes in three sets of articles published in the Nichibei newspaper between 1913 and1919. My paper addresses how these writers apply Japanese expansionist ideologies and colonial
attitudes to the prewar Japanese migrant community in the U.S., how issues of class force morecreative imaginings of Japanese migrant communities as pseudo “colonial” spaces, and how literatureis specifically addressed as a means to convey these complex positions. Finally, I address how
investigations of these works contributes to burgeoning field of minor transnational studies by
expanding it historically (through the recovery of materials from the early twentieth century) andgeographically (through an investigation of Japanese materials).
5) Kathryn Tanaka, Otemae University
Conception in the Hospital: Births, Deaths, and Changing Families in Hōjō Tamio’s Fiction
In 1934, a young man named Hōjō Tamio (1914–1937) was admitted to Zensei Hospital inTokyo for treatment of Hansen’s Disease (leprosy). Soon after his quarantine, with the support of
Kawabata Yasunari, he began to publish short stories about Hansen’s Disease and life in the hospital.
One of the hallmarks of Hōjō’s work is his depictions of the darker side of hospital life. His work
describes suicide, madness and drug addiction among patients who are without hope of a cure.
His work also depicts the ways in which normal social relations between men and women are alteredby hospital authorities. Families in Hōjō’s work are controlled by the state as a result of their
hospitalization. This paper examines the ways Hōjō depicts this control and denial of family relations,marriage, and childbirth in the hospital through a detailed reading of three of his short stories, “Raiin
Jutai” (“Conception in the Leprosarium”), “Rai kazoku” (“A Leper Family”), and “Fubuki no ubugoe”(“First Cry of the Snowstorm”). These stories address numerous patterns of love, family relationships
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and even birth in the quarantine hospital. Through his depiction of human sexuality in the hospitals,
Hōjō reveals not only the humanity of the sufferers but also how patients created different kinds offamilies in a space of social exclusion where normal social roles, such as spousal relations orparenthood within a nuclear or extended family, were denied to patients.

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Lunch Break: 12:00 P.M. – 1:30 P.M.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS I: 1:30 P.M. – 3:30 P.M.
Session 34: Room 252
Performance and Representation in Transnational Asia: Refiguring Gender, Sexuality, andNationality in Colonial and Postcolonial Space
Organizer: Huang-wen Lai, University of Pennsylvania
Chair: Ayako Kano, University of Pennsylvania
Examining social and political issues in East Asia, this panel presents cutting edge researchanalyzing gender, sexuality, and nationality through various social and political performances andpresentations as central to the production and invention of transnational cultures and spaces inManchuria, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Japan. The panel crosses disciplinary and geographicalborders by exploring the interplays between peripheries/ center, colonies/empire, and personal/ public
in transnational Asia from the 1930s to the present. Focusing on this complex period of social andpolitical struggles, the panelists address frequently overlooked historical agents and public figures intheir studies. More specifically, Nayoung Aimee Kwon examines the vicissitudes of mass media
representations in East Asia by shedding light on three international performers who experienced
conflicts between personal and public demands during the tumultuous time of transwar ideologies.
Similarly, Huang-wen Lai demonstrates a two dimensional colonial discourse which showcases amutual conversation of the colonial subjects through a transnational superstar Ri Kōran. Moreover,
Hideyo Konagaya considers how a new public space is constructed in Tokyo via a particular
Okinawan festival with a special Okinawan drum-dance performance, eisa. Finally, Fang-chih Irene
Yang investigates a recent political incident, Hatano Yui event, in order to expound the complex
views of gender, sexuality, and homo-sociality in the current political society of Taiwan. Overall, thispanel utilizes methodologies from media, history, and anthropology to cultural and political studies inorder to provide brief sketches of colonial and post-colonial ideologies and implications throughperformances and representations in transnational Asia.
1) Nayoung Aimee Kwon, Duke University
Performing Interracial and Inter-Ideological Crossings in Transwar East Asia
This presentation is a preliminary inquiry into the shifting logics of interracial and interideological (dis)affiliations in the transition from wartime to Cold War eras in East Asia, and their102

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implications for colonial and postcolonial structural relations in the region. This broader problem is
examined by tracing vicissitudes in mass media representations of interracial and inter-ideologicalcrossings of three iconic performers, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (1920–2014), Anna May Wong (1905–
1961), and Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi (1911–1969), whose dramatic lives and careers traversed multiple andfluctuating borders during this era. The paper examines the different ways each performance artist
negotiated conflicting personal and public demands during these tumultuous times to shed light on
the scandalous confluences of race, sex, and geopolitics across wartime and Cold War ideologies.
The paper will further consider the possibilities and challenges of transwar and transpacificmethodologies in suturing hitherto divided histories and memories.
2) Huang-wen Lai, University of Pennsylvania
Showing the Empire on the Big Screen: The Views of Nationalism, Commercialism, and Stardom
under Japanese RuleAs an agent of Japanese colonial power, Man’ei produced films for national policy. Yet, thepromotion of Man’ei largely relied on its superstar, Ri Kōran—a Japanese actress who grew up in
China. Together with the strict regulations set by Manchukuo, on the one hand, Man’ei served as atool of marketing Japanese militarism and was developed under the political and military needs of theJapanese empire; on the other hand, the whole empire was, in fact, entertained and educated by thefilms made by Man’ei. By analyzing Man’ei and Ri Kōran, it is clear that Manchurian popular
culture was once a great mass fervor in Japan and the Japanese cultural empire was not a one-way
street of assimilation, but a two-way path of influence. In this paper, I intend to reveal this two-way
path of mutual conversation that the Manchurian film production and superstar Ri Kōran showcasedand presented in terms of nationalism, commercialism, and stardom. Through the plots and scenes of
Sayon’s Bell, Ri Kōran’s female body not only functioned as a medium to advertise Japanesemilitarism and colonialism, but her performance, in fact, represented a colonial discourse indicatingthat while it is obvious that the Japanese colonizers enjoyed their reign and control of the colonies
and the colonized suffered from the cruelty of the military and political missions on big screen, theyboth appreciated a momentary and relaxed break provided by the mass media and Ri Kōran in theJapanese empire during the period of colonialism.

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3) Hideyo Konagaya, Waseda University
The Politics of Performing the Native Other in National and Transnational Cultural Policy
This paper discusses the way in which the cultural heritage of Okinawa has emerged as a
primary focus of Japanese cultural policy and politics in their national and transnational context.
Kumiodori, the musical and theatrical tradition of the ancient Ryukyu Kingdom, has been valorized
as the authentic performance of Okinawa, in which, however, the native body has been imagined andperformed as the temporal and spatial other while Okinawa has been defined and gendered in termsof hegemonic relations in the history and geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region. Reconstructed in the
discourse of nation building, particularly after the Reversion of Okinawa from the United States
military control in postwar Japan, kumiodori has been designated, and thus protected and promoted,
not only as the important intangible cultural property of Japan, but also as UNESCO’s intangible
cultural heritage. The growing influence of the transnational framework of cultural heritage on thecultural policy of Japan has complicated and destabilized established contextual assumptions about
the performing of the Okinawan other. This paper examines the cultural production of the native
body, paying attention to the underlying force of national and transnational policy and politics, aswell as that of the authority of scholarly discourse, in elevating kumiodori as cultural heritage. It
explores how the performance of kumiodori has strategically mediated and negotiated historical anddiplomatic tensions between Japan, China, and US from the premodern era to the present, and how
Okinawan cultural politics has challenged, while continuing to be entangled in, the structural
hierarchy.
4) Fang-chih Irene Yang, National Cheng Kung University
Public Sex and Sexualized Politics in Taiwan
This essay attempts to use the recent Hatano Yui event to engage with debates on thesexualization of women’s bodies, homo-sociality, and homophobia in the domain of politics from afeminist perspective. Taipei City government issued a smart card, featuring Hatano Yui, a Japanese
female porn star. The event led to a series of cultural and political wars in Taiwan. Using Foucault’s
notion of eventalization, this paper attempts to address three issues. First, in making profit, theneoliberal city/state work with private corporations in using women’s hyper-sexualized while“innocent” bodies as commodities. This body ignited a gender war on the sexualization of women’sbodies, broadly construed as gender politics and sexual politics, which divided women’s movement
since the early 1990s in Taiwan. Yui’s case allows us to investigate the role of the neoliberal state inmediating patriarchy and neoliberal capitalism, a blind spot in Taiwan’s polarized feminist debates.
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Second, the moral consensus among politicians is about the inappropriateness of the encroachment ofsexuality over public life. Paradoxically, the public sphere is saturated with sex talk in the name ofdisembodied, sexless politics. This cultural politics over sexuality is used for political struggle as away to shut down normative government function. Third, as the event unfolds, it opens up
possibilities to express the role of homo-sociality, homo-social desire and homophobia in politics. As
normative political power works through homosociality which undermines democratic principles,
pro-democratic struggles, however, use homophobia as a form of criticism which then gets co-opted
by conservatives.
Discussant: Ayako Kano, University of Pennsylvania

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Session 35: Room 253
Mental Health/Illness in Contemporary Japan (Part II): Patient/provider interfaces
Organizer: Paul Christensen, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Chair: Junko Kitanaka, Keio University
Mental health and illness are subject to a patchwork of divergent and conflicting views incontemporary Japan. What are conventionally labeled ‘traditional’ attitudes toward mental illness
remain entrenched in places, intermingling with the strong influence of Western biomedicine andJapan’s robust medical infrastructure. The result is varied institutional practices and treatment
methodologies; conflicting views of diagnosis, cause, or severity; and uneven, possibly exclusionary,societal perception of afflictions. More generally, we hear ever louder calls to reexamine fundamental
categories structuring mental health as “an entirely different way of being in the world” (Kleinman
2012: 185). Taking Japan as our area of focus, this double panel addresses contemporary concerns ofmental health and illness from a diversity of perspectives. Our themes include the ideologicalstructuring of addiction to alcohol and gambling, self-help associations for families of mental patientsand people with autism spectrum disorder, pharmaceuticalization of psychiatric disorders,(un)willingness of depressive people to seek professional help, and feelings of persistent stressresulting from the 3.11 nuclear disaster. Across this range of papers we seek to illuminate the varied
ways in which association with mental illness shapes individual lives in contemporary Japan.
1) Katsuya Kushihara, Tokyo University“Pharmaceuticalization” within Japanese Psychiatric Clinics: From the Viewpoint ofPharmacotherapy Users
Since 2000s, “pharmaceuticalization” studies that follow “medicalization” studies have been
discussed mainly in the U.S. and U.K. John Abraham points out that pharmaceuticalization means
doctor’s prescription and patient’s use of medicines that involve no medicalization (no translation ofa problem into a medical one) under the influence of pharmaceutical companies. In addition, there aresome case studies focusing on the use of medicines for health enhancement outside a clinic. In thelight of the relatively strict regulations on medicines in Japan, my research focuses on
pharmaceuticalization in a clinic―especially between patients and doctors. I conducted a case study
targeted at the outpatients of psychiatric clinics. Through interviews with twenty people, I reveal
some hypothetical conditions that affect the outcome of pharmaceuticalization from the patient’s
interpretation of pharmacotherapy and diagnosis. When pharmaceuticalization occurs, there are twointerpretative patterns; (1) Patients asking doctors to prescribe pharmaceuticals on demand in
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disappointment at their doctor’s skills; (2) Patients reducing their mental problems to temporary
moods and behaviors and isolating their mental problems from problems of personality. On the other
hand, when pharmaceuticalization is rejected, there are three patterns: (1) A contradiction between
doctor’s diagnosis and patient’s self-diagnosis, (2) Patients considering their mental problems wholly
psychological, (3) Patients judging doctor’s diagnosis and prescription inappropriate after gathering
medical information. In sum, pharmaceuticalization is dependent on patients’ interpretations of theirown condition, and also occurs in the clinic. This study stresses the need to appropriately grasp
pharmaceuticalization that hides behind the relationship between medical professions and patients.
2) Lenna Schlemper, Tokyo University
Young Adult’s Mental Health Literacy in Seeking Professional Help for Depression in Japan
Despite the high prevalence of major depressive disorder in Japan, most young adults do notaccess professional health care. There is a mismatch between service use and provision of effective
treatment in the clinical setting. The researcher aims to examine this “service gap” though conducting
a questionnaire survey on young adults’ mental health literacy in seeking professional help for
depression. A total of 719 respondents (324 males, 395 females) participated in the survey asking
about (1) recognition of depression, (2) knowledge of depression, (3) perspective toward depression,(4) effective treatment, (5) treatment outcome and (6) help-seeking intention. The results showed that439 respondents, who recognized depression from a vignette describing a person with major
depression, held more knowledge about symptoms of depression and effective treatment.
Nonetheless, 46.7% of them preferred not to seek professional help. The other 53.3% respondents
who preferred professional help-seeking had characteristics such as recognizing physical symptoms
more than psychological symptoms; overwork and kizukare, a physical and mental stagnation ofenergy, leading to depression; choosing psychotherapy and counseling as effective treatments; andhaving higher treatment expectancy. The results suggest that simply increasing their literacy would
not promote access to professional help-seeking. Appropriate intervention is necessary to take into
account young adult’s perspectives and the culture of health system in Japan. Future directions for
effective strategies in promoting access to professional health care and provision of treatment inclinical setting are discussed.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts3) Nicolas Sternsdorff-Cisterna, Tokyo University
Stress and Radiation after Fukushima
The Fukushima nuclear disaster precipitated a crisis of confidence about the potential healtheffects that radioactive pollution can have on human health. The public was confronted with experts
who reassured them that exposure levels were safe, while others cautioned them to be careful about
the dangers of exposure. People concerned about radiation, especially those with young children,
became increasingly worried about the potential effects of radiation and what steps they could take toprotect themselves and their offspring. In this context, stress became a new potential source of illness
after the accident. During fieldwork, I met mothers who wondered whether the stress of worrying
about their kids would have worse health effects than radiation itself. At the same time, they worried
about how not to appear “radiation-crazy” in their kids’ eyes, lest they be perceived negatively bythem. The post-Fukushima moment engendered a situation where it became difficult to know where
the line stood between being a concerned parent and being perceived as overzealous and not heeding
the government call that all was well. Stress and anxiety became inseparable companions of radiation
exposure. In this paper I examine ethnographically the struggles people in Japan faced when dealing
with stress after Fukushima, and the ways in which battles over the meaning of radiation exposure
affected the way in which stress was sometimes described as a normal response to the disaster, whileat other times it was characterized as a negative and used to invalidate people’s concerns.
Discussant: Kathryn Goldfarb, University of Colorado

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Session 36: Room 204
Educating Japanese Women: Intersections with American Values
Organizer: Julia C. Bullock, Emory University
Chair: Sally A. Hastings, Purdue University
This panel traces the impact of American values on education for Japanese women from the
Meiji to the postwar era. While it's well known that the Japanese education system was modernizedin part through a borrowing of Western educational theories and practices, this process of“translation” of foreign ideas was neither easy nor straightforward. As our presentations demonstrate,
in some cases these new ideas dramatically expanded the range of opportunities available to Japanesewomen; in other cases their impact was less straightforward or posed insurmountable conflicts withJapanese values and presumptions about women’s desired role in society. Sally Hastings discusses
the varied experiences of Japanese women who studied in the U.S. prior to 1945 and then attempted
to capitalize on their new educational qualifications after returning to their home country. Noriko
Ishii’s presentation offers a complementary perspective, outlining the struggles of an American
missionary woman, Charlotte B. DeForest, to advocate Christian internationalism at a time ofintensified state Shintoist discourse. Vanessa Ward highlights the influence of Christian realism on
one of DeForest’s students, Takeda Kiyoko, with particular emphasis on her role as translator of thephilosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr and the inspiration she took from this text in reconceptualizing
Japanese identity in the early years of the Cold War. Finally, Julia Bullock explores the role thatdifferent conceptions of “equality” and sexual difference played in shaping the Japanese response to
the implementation of coeducation as part of Occupation-led educational reforms.
1) Sally A. Hastings, Purdue University
Government, Church, and Family: American-Educated Japanese Women in Prewar JapaneseSociety
It is well known that the government-sponsored Iwakura Expedition of the 1870s included fivefemale students, three of whom remained in the United States for a decade. The difficulties these
women encountered finding employment on their return to Japan have often been taken as
emblematic of the Japanese government’s weak commitment to women’s education. In fact, theJapanese government continued to send abroad a small number of women in its employ. Far more
extensive, however, were the efforts of missionaries, Japanese Christians, and individual families tosend women abroad. With the exception of the extensive scholarship on the women supported by
Tsuda Umeko’s Philadelphia scholarship, there has been little attention to the effects of Japanese
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women studying abroad prior to 1945. This paper will explore how the interests of those who
sponsored education abroad, gendered hierarchies in both Japanese society and in Christiancommunities, and assumptions about national interests created great variation in the extent to which
Japanese women educated abroad were able to make use of their education in the public sphere upon
their return to Japan and their ability to replicate in Japan their educational experience in the UnitedStates. Although Japanese women traveled to the United States to pursue educational opportunities
not open to them in Japan, they were more likely on their return to be incorporated into Japanesecontrolled institutions than into missionary ones. Further, although several Japanese women
graduated from co-educational institutions in the United States, female-only schools remained
dominant in Japan until after 1945.
2) Noriko K. Ishii, Sophia University
Transnational Conversations, Liberal Religion and Cosmopolitism: Women Missionaries in
Wartime Japan
This paper focuses on a second-generation American woman missionary in Japan who was
active in crafting new egalitarian visions of Christian internationalism, social justice and peace thattranscended differences of race, culture, religion and nation-state, when the two countries were
heading towards war in the 1930s and 1940s. Charlotte B. DeForest, who became the last missionary
President of Kobe College from 1915 to 1940, struggled to invent new ways to come to terms withthe development of modern Shintoism and emperor worship as Japan developed as a nation-state in
the 1930s. These missionaries created a multicultural educational space where students from China
and Korea studied together with Japanese students on an equal basis even during the late
1930s. Such space encouraged students to foster egalitarian visions of Christian internationalism andsome expanded them further. This paper discusses how DeForest skillfully combined missionary
visions and Japanese cultural values to promote what she considered as the best Japanese women's
education at that time. Being born and raised a missionary daughter, DeForest inherited nineteenth
century missiology that emphasized women’s education as an effective form of evangelism. She
viewed Japanese women as helpers in the evangelization of Japan, according to the missiology ofWorld Friendship of the 1920s that perceived missionaries and the native women as equal partners.
The paper suggests that these transnational conversations and wartime experiences further allowed
DeForest to craft cosmopolitan religious outlooks that transcended differences.

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3) Vanessa B. Ward, University of Otago
Translating Ideas: Chō Takeda Kiyoko and Reihold Niebuhr between Japan and the United States
In 1939 Kobe College senior Takeda Kiyoko left Japan for Olivet College, Michigan. On theway, she attended the First International Conference of Christian Students in Amsterdam. There sheheard a powerful address from the Christian realist Reinhold Niebuhr on the topic “The Christians in
a World of Conflict”. At Olivet, she would learn more about Niebuhr’s ideas from one of his former
students. After graduating from Olivet, on this man’s recommendation, she went to New York to
study under Niebuhr himself. In 1942, at the urging of the Japanese government she declined theoffer of Niebuhr and his wife to act as guarantors so that she could continue her studies, and returned
to militarist Japan. Four years later she was re-united with Niebuhr’s ideas through his book The
Children of Light and Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional
Defenders (1944). Niebuhr argued that the optimistic view of human nature shared by proponents ofdemocracy and Marxism ignored the problem of economic, political and social injustice as broader
manifestations of individual sin—a caution that Takeda thought applicable to the attempt toreconceptualise Japanese identity in the emerging Cold War. Her first translation was published in
1948; revised editions followed in 1964 and 1994. In this presentation, through an exploration of
Takeda’s engagement with this text, I trace how the opportunity to study in the United States led toencounters with people and ideas that shaped profoundly Takeda Kiyoko’s intellectual career after theSecond World War.
4) Julia C. Bullock, Emory University
Separate but Equal? Equality and Difference in Discourses of Coeducation in Postwar Japan
With the passage of the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE) in 1947, coeducation was
officially “recognized” for the first time, ending the prewar sex-segregated system of education andintegrating elementary and middle schools, as well as many high schools and universities. The FLE
was essentially a compromise between activist Occupation staffers and their progressive Japaneseallies who favored coeducation as a means of “democratizing” Japan, and the Japanese Ministry of
Education bureaucrats who resisted it on the understanding that it would cause “moral problems.” My
research indicates that these arguments were likewise echoed in the debates over coeducation in theJapanese media that ensued as Japan transitioned to the “new system” of coeducation, and pivoted on
fundamentally different conceptions of the notion of “equality” and the meaning of sexual difference.
Those who argued for the merits of coeducation did so by emphasizing the essential similarities ofmen and women as human beings, and thus saw the prewar sex-segregated system of education as
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institutionalizing inequality by artificially instilling difference through sex-specific forms ofeducation. By contrast, those who opposed coeducation frequently argued for a model of “equality”
that was based on the presumption of sexual difference as natural and inevitable, thus justifying sexspecific training. Because the postwar Japanese educational system was constructed without
resolving these fundamental theoretical differences, we are still grappling with the contradictions
they have produced in education policy to this day.
Discussant: Patricia Sippel, Toyo Eiwa University

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Session 37: Room 352
Disenchantment of the West?
Organizer/Chair: Marius Meinhof, Bielefeld University
The colonial experiences of the “century of humiliation” shaped a long lasting discourse thatshowed China basically as a backward society in need of modernization. Although different politicalconstellations created divergent images of China’s backwardness and its relation to the former
colonizers, the quest for modernization and the perceived need to learn from and adjust to other,stronger and more modern, role models remained. During both, the pre-Mao and the post-Mao era,
many Chinese scholars took an imagined, monolithic Western world as their model. This Panel brings
together contributions from history and sociology related to an underlying hypothesis: (1) that theconceptions of the west and of modernization in China predominant in the early reform era wererooted in experiences of colonial modernity that equated the modern with the strong and the superior,but (2) that currently this colonial heritage is once again undergoing changes, leading to a“disenchantment” of the west as the role model for modernity not only in the eyes of political elites
but also in everyday life culture. As a result, a decline in admiration for the west may also go hand inhand with a decline in hate towards former colonizing powers. The different contributions in ourpanel will discuss the viability of this hypothesis from different perspectives based on (mostly
qualitative) empiric work.
1) Lili Zhu, Bielefeld University
The Weak Colonizer and its Cooperator: German Colonialism in China after World War I
The aim of this paper is to study the nature and scope of the German military help for China’s
nation building movement in the 1920s and 1930s, in order to examine (1) how this post-WWI formof (crypto-)colonialism in China was set up and reinforced by the Germans and the Chinese, and (2)how colonial knowledge was reproduced within military institutions that were surrounded by themyth of “modernization” while the same time functioning as colonial agencies. Germany became thefirst western country to give up all its special rights in China due to the Sino-German Peace Treaty in
1921. However, this was just a beginning of a new form of a German hidden colonialism incooperation with the Chinese elites in China. In almost two decades after WWI, Germany was seenby the Chinese elites as the paragon for China’s development, especially in industrial and militaryspheres. This had its roots in China’s colonial experiences and the Chinese people’s quest formodernity since the Opium War. Also, Germany’s status of being a “modern” country, but at the sametime a loser of the WWI and “depressed” by imperial powers legitimated its advantaged position with113

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regard to cooperation with China. The appreciation of German technology and the desire for national
independence of the Chinese elites determined the Chinese common people’s subaltern conditions inthis relationship with Germany. It is therefore difficult to tell whether the Chinese elites helped theGermans to colonize China, or the other way round. Hence, the margins of internal and oversea
colonialism disappeared.
2) Marius Meinhof, Bielefeld University
Negotiating Modernity: Chinese Students Positioning Strategies and the Ideology ofModernization as Colonial Heritage
Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork including interviews, videography and analysis of
online discussion boards, my presentation will show, how students in Chinese universities negotiate
discourses on modernization and development. Almost all students reproduce modernization
discourses that ultimately put them in an inferior position towards the West. But they appropriatethese discourses to articulate their critiques either towards social injustice within China or towards
western intrusion into Chinas inner affairs. To show this, I will introduce four types of positions: (1)uses of modernization discourses as claims for status towards other Chinese, (2) uses ofmodernization discourses as critique on social inequality within china, (3) uses of modernization
discourses as a critique on Chinese Occidentalism, and finally (4) claims for status that rendermodernization discourses irrelevant. Through this, it becomes visible, that many students have adisillusioned or even indifferent stance towards the west, that the wests position as idol for
modernization is highly contested and that even the glorification of the west is more of a critique onsocial inequality in China than a display of colonial mentality. However, a (post-)colonial continuity
can be shown not so much in the exact content of these contested positions, but in the obsession witha hierarchy of development and a comparison of China with “the West” or the USA, that is shared by
all but the fourth of these positions.
3) Tao Liu, Bremen University
The Emergence of a Chinese Epistemic Community: The Rising Confidence of China?
Since adoption of the open-door policy Chinese elites have turned towards the Western society,borrowing advanced social, economic and technological knowledge to make China a strong andprosperous country. The leaning towards Western has shaped a mentality stereotype within the
Chinese society tending to mythologize the advancement of the Western society and belittle any waysof Chinese thinking. However, at the dawn of the 21st century a new epistemic community in China
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has gradually emerged highlighting the Chineseness of an economic, social and political model ofmodernization. The perpetuating economic achievement and China’s rapid rise to a global super
power has created new confidence for Chinese scholars. This article has presented ideas fromdifferent leading scholars advocating the ‘Chineseness’ of modernity explicitly. A commonality ofthese scholars is that all of them attribute the rise of China to the distinctive characters of Chinese
culture and Chinese special political system. However, unlike the self-proclaimed universality ofWestern values, the Chinese scholars still stick to the particularism of Chinese model which is only
applied to the Chinese context and cannot be copied by any parts of the world.
Discussant: Miho Saito, Ritsumeikan University

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Session 38: Room 351
New Perspectives on the Avant-Garde in Twentieth-Century Japanese Art
Organizer/Chair: Noriko Murai, Sophia University
This panel seeks to complicate the meaning of the avant-garde in the history of modern
Japanese art. While the avant-garde is typically defined as a praxis of ever-provoking alterity vis-àvis the status quo―whether aesthetic, cultural, social, or political, its history has also been
institutionalized globally as a major “tradition” in modern art. The four proposed papers study thehistorically specific ways in which this contradictory relationship between radicality and marginality
on the one hand, and authority that often invokes the prestige of the West, on the other hand, hasmanifested itself in the visual arts produced in Japan during the twentieth century. Instead ofrevisiting the significance of groups or artists whose works have been well situated in the existingaccount of the avant-garde in Japan, this set of papers will explore subjects, hitherto little discussed
in English, that prompt questions with regards to their declared identifications with, strategic
modifications to, or exclusions from what has been historically understood by the term “avant-garde”
in Japan. The goal of the panel is not to come up with a new or fixed definition of this term. Instead,through a study of the relationship between the artistic vanguard with revolutionary politics(Hirayama), traditional arts (Murai), the vernacular (Kaneko), and the gendered other (Kunimoto),
this panel will open up critical discussions over one of the most often invoked yet amorphousconcepts in the history of modern art in Japan.
1) Mikiko Hirayama, University of Cincinnati“Bourgeois” or “Avant-garde”?: Bourgeois Parliament and the Lives of the Masses (1931) by
Tsuda Seifū
In September 1931, oil painter Tsuda Seifū; caused a sensation in the art world with his
painting, Bourgeois Parliament and Lives of the Masses. Closely affiliated with the leftist milieu,
Tsuda claimed to have produced this painting to raise mass awareness of corruption in politics.
However, no one had expected Tsuda, an established painter aged 52, to submit such a controversial
work to Nikakai, which was known as the pinnacle of mainstream yōga. The authorities found thepainting's title and inscription of a passage by Marx too harmful to public morals and demanded that
Tsuda rename the painting. The art press tirelessly debated whether or not the painting was legitimate
proletarian art. Furthermore, it became known that Tsuda did not give credit to the help he hadreceived from the students at his own art school. This news raised the question of whether or not such“collaborative production” was acceptable in a juried exhibition. Though Tsuda changed the116

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painting's title to New Parliament, he justified his production method, insisting that it was a critiqueof individualism in current art and a reflection of his sympathy to the collectivist approach to art that
the Communists endorsed. And yet, he also asserted that this painting was not proletarian art per seand openly expressed reservations with Communist art theory. This paper highlights a rare case of aclash between politically avant-garde art by a non-Communist artist and the contemporary gadan in
prewar Japan.
2) Noriko Murai, Sophia University
The Avant-Garde Object in the 1950s
This paper identifies a conflicting symbiosis of the avant-garde with mass culture and claims to
tradition at the heart of the so-called “zen’ei ikebana (avant-garde ikebana)” in the 1950s. The
dynamic outpouring of activities in the name of, or in the semblance of, the avant-garde from a fieldof culture rarely associated with such radicalism---ikebana having become a popular institution of“traditional” female self-cultivation in modern Japan---famously led a prominent male critic to mockthe phenomenon as an oxymoronic conundrum, “the avant-garde of five million [women]” led by theauthority of a few male head masters. One focal point of this new praxis of ikebana was the
production of what came to be known as an “obuje,” a Japanese adaptation of the French andSurrealist-inspired concept of the objet that was widely (re)mobilized in various quarters of art at thetime. The paper will focus on the obuje exhibited by the short-lived “Shinsedai Shūdan” (the New
Generation Group, 1951–55). This politically engaged and artistically radicalizing group consisted of
second-generation “heirs” to the modern ikebana movement such as Teshigahara Hiroshi (1927-2001,
son of Sōfū;), Shigemori Kōen (1926-92, son of Mirei), and Kudō; Masanobu (1924-96, son of
Kōshū;). Ultimately unable to dismantle the institutional inertia of the ikebana establishment fromwithin, the abandonment of this collective reveals the socio-cultural force of war-recovering Japan in
the 1950s that selectively tolerated, even promoted, radicalization of the form while closing in on its
more destabilizing elements.

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3) Maki Kaneko, University of Kansas
Being “Japanese” and “Avant-garde” in Post-Occupation Japan
This paper investigates the rise of Munakata Shikō (1903–1975), both in the domestic andinternational art scenes, and the largely neglected associations of his work with “the postwar
Japanese avant-garde art” (sengo Nihon no zen’ei bijutsu) scene in the 1950s. Originally conceived as
the master printer of the Folk Craft Movement in the 1930s, Munakata gained momentum in the mid
to late 1950s, enjoying his popularity domestically as the “Japanese van Gogh.” He also won several
awards in international art exhibitions including the prestigious Venice Biennale. While Munakata’s
art and working method invited criticism from a group of young emerging avant-garde artists andcritics in Japan, who found the works to be old- fashioned and “vernacular,” Munakata’s affinities
with the contemporaneous avant-garde art in Euro-American countries, art brut and abstract
expressionism in particular, were also recognized and contributed greatly to his international anddomestic success. This peculiar confluence of the late 19th-century French and post-1945 avantgarde art discourses in the evaluation of the “vernacular” artist would attest to the entangled situationof the 1950s Japanese art community over the discourse of the “avant-garde,” “Japanese-ness,” andthe future of Japanese art after the defeat and Occupation. Through the investigation of Munakata
Shikō’s trajectory and evaluations of his art both in and outside Japan, this paper will illuminate how
the meaning of the “avant-garde” was contested and conceived within the specific geopoliticalcontext of post-Occupation Japan.
4) Namiko Kunimoto, The Ohio State University
Katsura Yuki and the Zoomorphic Avant-Garde
Recent scholarship has led many to assume that Japanese avant-garde art started in theimmediate postwar moment; yet, many leading artists associated with the postwar avant-garde wereactive both before and after the war. By bringing into question the notion of an historic break at theend of the war, we might instead ask: How did these artists shift their aesthetic and politicalconcerns? What continuities have been overlooked? This presentation examines the work of Katsura
Yuki (1913–1991), a Tokyo-based painter and assemblage artist who often reworked traditional
Japanese themes. Katsura, who has been largely ignored by English-language scholars, maintained acritical position towards the state both during and after the war. She enacted political resistance byrepresenting contentious issues such as self-sacrifice in times of war, the United States Castle Bravo
nuclear test, the representation of gay love, and the status of women in Japan. By experimenting withthe visibility and invisibility of the body through modes of allegory and concealment, I argue that118

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Katsura enacted what Jacques Rancie terms political “dissensus.” Rancie sees genuine art and politics
as those that create new relations between the visible and the invisible, liberating bodies from theirassigned places and breaking with the ‘natural’ order of the sensible. Similarly, by experimenting
with the visibility of the body through allegory and concealment, Katsura reoriented aestheticpolitical sensibility and opened up a space for a wider discourse on gender and avant-garde practicein Japan.
Discussant: Bert Winther-Tamaki, University of California, Irvine

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Session 39: Room 316
Rise, Fall, and Normalization of Manga and Anime Culture in Europe and the United States:
Empirical Findings and Theoretical Models
Organizer/Chair: Marco Pellitteri, Kobe University
The global expansion of Japanese animation and comics (usually called anime and manga
respectively) is a process that started in the mid-1960s and reached its peak in the mid-2000s. The
two most relevant centers of such wide success were and are the United States and western Europe.
This panel’s goal is to provide theory, empirical data and critical insight on the complex inter- andtransnational journeys of anime and manga from Japan to these two foreign macro-contexts. The
panelists and the discussants will conduct an interdisciplinary conversation upon this theme, touching
upon five main dimensions of this long-running phenomenon: industrial production and sales,international flows of cultural products, models of media consumption that characterize the successof anime and manga in the considered contexts, the reasons for the structural ups and downs of an
everlasting expansion, and the process of local appropriation of manga and anime’s imagery andcontents through subcultural practices widespread among young fans. The discussion on thesecomposite dimensions of manga and anime’s impact in the US and Europe is aimed to assess theimportance and balance between the three main stages of their “career” overseas: the initial boom
from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, a following decrease in popularity in the late 1990s and 2000s, anda normalization and standardization of the role of Japanese pop cultures in general (and of manga andanime in particular) in more recent years.
1) Clothilde Sabre, Hokkaido University“Cool Japan” in France: A Massive Plebiscite or a Typical Case of Acculturation?
Japanese animation arrived in France in the late 1970s, followed by manga ten years later, andboth found a dedicated audience, a fact regularly acknowledged by the popular idea that “France isthe second country of manga”. From the editorial success of manga (about 40% of the comics
published in France) to the popularity of Japan Expo, the biggest European event specificallyfocusing on Japanese pop culture and held every year in Paris, all the clues are gathered indeed toprove that a strong fandom exists in France. However, we can wonder whether such success is getting
through the whole French society, and whether we can consider it as an illustration of the “CoolJapan” as it has been analyzed and promoted. This presentation will provide a balanced panorama.
Adopting an anthropological approach and using data from fieldwork and media, the notion of
acculturation will be used as a tool to look at the phenomenon from a broader perspective. Rather
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than a massive plebiscite that leads new people to be interested in Japan, the diffusion of Japanese
animation and manga in France created a range of reactions, from appropriation to rejection, to be
finally integrated to the cultural landscape. Moreover, the new images of Japan provided by manga
and animation are not changing the perception of Japan in France but are rather integrated to a preestablished structure of exotic representations of the country.
2) Akiko Sugawa-Shimada, Yokohama National University
Characters as a Vehicle for Constructions of Identity: Understanding and Use of Anime among
Non-Japanese Audiences
Japanese anime and manga have been localized, consumed and used by non-Japanese young
audiences globally to construct their own culture. Although many scholars have investigated the ways
in which they understand and use Japanese anime and manga since the early 2000s, there are aspectsof their cross-border consumption that have not been fully explored. Based on qualitative researchthrough questionnaires, online correspondence, and/or interviews conducted in the United States,
France and Italy in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively, this presentation will focus on how nonJapanese (young) audiences access Japanese anime and manga, and understand and use them, inorder to contribute to discussing the cross-border consumption of such entertainment forms.
Although their first access to Japanese manga and anime often occurs through illegally translated
works online (“scanlation” and “fansub”), the ways in which they understand and use Japanese animeand manga are very complex. In order to analyze audiences’ understandings and uses of Japanese
anime and manga, two methodologies were used in my research: textual analysis and analysis ofaudiences’ discourses. In the analysis of the favourite characters which most audiences selected,
Japanese representations, aesthetics, and ideologies are emphasized. However, in the audience
research, although proximity/otherness of characters partially facilitates having resonanceto/detachment from the audiences, the most important element for this active audience is balancing
escapism between fantasy and reality (e.g. through the construction of relationships among peers). By
balancing them, they reconstruct their national/ethnic/cultural identities and build solidarity among
their friends.

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3) Marco Pellitteri, Kobe University
A Four-Stage Media Theory of Manga and Anime’s Consumption Models in Europe: Boom,
Crisis, Fragmentation, and Standardization
Besides the United States – taken into account in the first paper of this panel – European
countries are key contexts for the assessment of the cultural and commercial impact of Japanesecomics (manga) and animation (anime) in the media and entertainment systems external to Japan.
This presentation, on the one hand, provides a historical and critical analysis of the arrival andsuccess of manga and anime in the European national contexts; on the other hand, it theoretically
discusses the sociological reasons and the structural stages of their success overseas in relation to thehistorical changes in the consumption models of narrative media from the 1970s to nowadays. In thispaper the cases of Italy, France, Germany, Spain are presented as the main markets in Europe foranime and manga; but also emerging markets, such as Russia, Hungary, Poland, are shortly taken into
consideration. The underlying theory of this presentation is that the success of anime and mangaoverseas was structurally due to their arrival in the European markets in an age dominated by specificmodels of media consumption, and that the crisis of such success which occurred at later stages wasdue to the change of such media consumption models, followed by a (currently ongoing) further“normalization” of anime and manga’s cultural and commercial impact.
Discussants: Dixon Heung Wah Wong, University of Hong Kong and Naohiro Shichijo,
National Institute of Science and Technology Policy

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Session 40: Room 251
Individual Papers 8: Contemporary Japanese Society
Chair: Edward Drott, Sophia University
1) Kaori Takano, Fort Lewis College
Contemporary Strategies to Social Responsibility in the Japanese Business Community
The city of Kitakyushu is located in Fukuoka prefecture, southwestern Japan. The city
implemented a large-scale urban greening movement in the late 20th century. Their efforts wererecognized by The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) when
Kitakyushu was named one of the four “Green growth” model cities in the world. Recent
international research suggested that Japanese business leaders are most concerned with the roles of
their firms in society and their focus tends to be on employees, whereas American business leaders
tend to focus on shareholder interests and put societal concerns secondary. Since Kitakyushu is a
successful socially responsible green growth model city, the author decided to conduct a multiple
case study to better understand the city’s contemporary strategies to social responsibility. Three
multinational corporations based in Kitakyushu were chosen for the case study. The author found that
the Kitakyushu business community is apprehensive about taking advantage of reporting CSR for the
purpose of gaining a competitive advantage. The lack of effective communication channels and thenonexistence of objective evaluation systems, combined with the strong relationship-oriented
approaches of the Japanese business community may invite unnecessary criticism. However, theauthor argues that cultural differences and sociological implications have had a negative impact on
Japanese corporate CSR communication. This case study presents an example of a unique andsuccessful contemporary strategy in Japanese CSR in the context of the globalization era. Therefore,
this research contributes to the fields of sociology, communication, comparative and cultural studies.
2) Kudo Takako, Dokkyo University
Voices From Inside: Perspectives from Japanese Public School Teachers and Foreign National
Students on Educational Support in the Public School System
Regardless of the general impression that Japan is a “monocultural society”, the fact that longexisting ethnic minorities have lived in Japan is also well known. However, since the1990s, Japan has seen a rapid increase of foreign nationals, so-called “newcomers”, coming to makeit their home. According to the Ministry of Justice’s data, 2014, there were 2,476,103 foreign
nationals registered in Japan, which is a number that continues to rise. This case study examines theexperiences of two teachers in a rural public junior high school in Aichi Prefecture who were faced
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with educating language minority students for the first time in the global classroom, a pull-out
program where the foreign national children are provided JSL instruction and learning support. The
aim of this study was to evaluate the relevance of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology (MEXT)’s goals for the JSL program which has been developed and isrecommended for use with language minority students. Interviews with foreign national university
students who went through the public school system are also used to broaden the perspective on thelearning-teaching that goes on these pull-out programs. The voices of the educators and foreign
students from the inside of the classroom point to many gaps between MEXT’s policies for foreign
students’ education and the reality. The inconsistencies discovered in this study signal a need forserious reconsideration of the current JSL and educational policies designed to support the growing
number of foreign children in Japanese public schools.
3) Florian Meissner, Dortmund Technical University
Ending the “Safety Myth”: Failures and Future Challenges of Media Reporting in PostFukushima Japan.
In its final report on the Fukushima Dai-ichi Accident, the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA, 2015) concluded that the root of this man-made disaster was a widespread belief in Japan that
nuclear power was absolutely safe. This belief, popularly called “safety myth,” was not only
promoted by politics and big business, but also by the overwhelming majority of the Japanese mass
media. As a result of this collusive pro-nuclear conglomerate, there was only little public awarenessfor the risks of atomic power in disaster-prone Japan. Consequently, when “3.11” occurred, it turned
out that safety standards and supervision were insufficient and there was no contingency plan forsuch a triple disaster (cf. Kan, 2012). Given the recent comeback of nuclear power in Japan under thelabel of the “world’s strictest safety regulations,” it seems that more than ever a critical public isneeded to counter a new safety myth. This presentation evaluates the state of the Japanese mass
media in post-Fukushima Japan on the basis of a qualitative, theory-building study involving expert
interviews with journalism researchers and japanologists as well as a series of narrative interviews
with Japanese journalists who covered the triple disaster. Acknowledging the need of emic researchon media reporting in Japan (cf. Hayashi & Kopper, 2014), the study includes culture-related issues
like the hybrid character of Japanese journalism between a western and an endogene tradition, thecrucial role of personal relationships between journalists and their sources, as well as the hierarchicalstructure of public communication in Japan.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Dorothea Mladenova, Leipzig University
Shūkatsu: Death Management As an Activity of the Enterprising Self
In 2009 the term shūkatsu was coined for the preparations an individual makes for his own
death. These preparations, as suggested by the Japanese shūkatsu business, may include organizing
your own funeral (from the general choice of a preferred rite to the specific choices of the music
played and the portrait on display), preparing your last will and sorting your insurance papers. Critics
argue that this kind of death management focuses mainly on the administrative, de-individualized
aspects of death and fails to address the psychological and emotional sphere. In this paper I examine
shūkatsu as a (self-)management technology employed by the enterprising self in a neoliberal society.
Rooted in Foucault-inspired governmentality studies, the subject formation of the enterprising self is
one that is willing to optimize itself (its body, health, actions, work, emotions) according to thedemands of the market and an economized society. Because the subject has to make a choice from ahuge range of alternatives, it can be made responsible for its personal failure, even if the reasons for
failure could as well be traced back to the community or the state. This framing makes it possible toview shūkatsu not merely as a singular phenomenon, but as part of a larger societal paradigm.
5) Sookyung Park, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies CANCELLED
A Study on Emotional Labor and Mental Health Measures in Japan
This research aims to consider the relations between emotional labor and mental health inJapan. By focusing on the case of elder care work as emotional labor, this paper tries to understandhow emotional labor is conducted and how workers who manage emotional labor come to faceemotional difficulties. With the development of a service-based society, emotional labor has become
an imperative duty in diverse service sectors that are based on interpersonal relationships. While
managing their emotional labor, workers feel job-related emotional difficulties for various reasons,and this leads to an increase in the number of workers who have mental health difficulties. Althoughmany Japanese workers have been experiencing mental health problems, it is not easy for them to getworker’s compensation to acknowledge their mental health problems and provide help. Nonetheless,compared to the past, the number of workers’ compensation claims is sharply increasing; thus, byimproving relevant legislation and measures, the Japanese government’s policies are catching up to
the actual situation that Japanese workers face and try to swim with the current of the stream.
Therefore, this research points out the importance of workers’ mental health issues due to emotional
labor and suggests preventive and supportive measures for workers who are experiencing mental
health difficulties.
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Session 41: Room 314
Individual Papers 9: East Asian Early Modern History
Chair: Mark E. Caprio, Rikkyo University
1) Astghik Hovhannisyan, Hitotsubashi University
Experiments on Humans in Japan: The Forgotten Trachoma Experiment
In 1943, Dr. Ishihara Shinobu, one of the most celebrated Japanese ophthalmologists, publisheda monograph called Etiology of Trachoma and the Relation Between Trachoma and Inclusion
Blennorrhea (torakōma byōgen narabi ni torakōma hōkatsusei ketsumakuen to no kankei). The book,which was a result of years of painstaking research involving dozens of researchers, was an attempt
to answer extremely important questions about etiology and pathogenesis of trachoma, an eye
infection which can lead to complete blindness. While this research was a major contribution to
medicine, it was also problematic, as it involved more than one hundred experiments on humansubjects. Some of the subjects were intentionally infected with the disease, observed, and then cured.
Although the researchers claimed that all subjects volunteered to participate in the experiment andwere completely cured of the disease afterwards, the credibility of this claim remains uncertain. In
this paper I will examine the cultural and social history of trachoma in Japan, focusing on theattempts to eradicate it. I will discuss the above-mentioned trachoma experimentation, trying to give
several answers about its ethical side and its acceptance in the postwar period.
2) Clarence I-Zhuen Lee, Cornell University
The Doctor’s Gaze in a God’s World: The Interrelation of Medicine and Kokugaku in the Writingsof Ueda Akinari
While discussion of more prominent kokugaku scholars such as Motoori Norinaga (1730–
1801) and Kamo no Mabuchi (1697–1769) will be included in my presentation, I will focus rather on
Ueda Akinari (1734–1803). Known for his literary works Ugetsu Monogatari and Harusame
Monogatari, Akinari is at the same time amedical physician as well as a kokugaku scholar. During theyears when he was most productive as a kokugaku scholar, he was also a devoted physician who
would travel between cities for his patients. While the bulk of my analysis will be on a series of selfreflective notes (Tandai Shoshin Roku) he wrote towards the end of his life, I will show how, in muchof his writings on kokugaku, the phenomenological gaze of the physician is very much implicit in his
observations of the world. This presentation focuses on the relation between medicine and kokugaku
thought in 18th century Edo society. It shows particularly that there is an intimate interconnectedness
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between the gaze of a physician as well as that of a kokugaku scholar vis-à-vis his surroundings. Thisconnection is centered in the concept of mono (objects) as phenomenon that forms the process inwhich experience is (or should be) understood by an individual. Placing the idea of mono in the
background of the generic mixing of literary texts and medical texts, as well as utilizing medical
texts, and intellectual writings of kokugaku, I will show how this emphasis on mono as phenomenon
and symptom guides the understanding of kokugaku theology.

3) Zsofia Ujhazy, International Christian University
Thoughts in Textiles: A Semiotic Approach to Edo Period Kosode Design
The attire of any age is a visual statement directly related to its historical, social and culturalenvironment. It is imbued with elements recording and reflecting the peculiar features of the era.
However, what garments communicate to us is a visually complex, multi-layered non-verbal method,using a “sign system” that differs from culture and age. In this manner, the utilization of clothing as a
research object calls for the understanding of the language it is using. This paper shows the manner inwhich visual codes are applied in the symbolism of Edo period (1603–1868) kosode (小袖) design,
also paying attention to the messages they communicate reflecting the contemporary society andculture. The predecessor of the modern-day kimono, the kosode of the Edo period and its decorative
culture is especially rich in the application of non-verbal symbolic elements. Due to its simple cut, anemphasis had been placed on the development of dye colors and design motifs that carry messages
about both the contemporary urban society and the individual wearer. These garments suggest ahighly visual culture where textile design came to be a way of self-expression, and its meaning could
be “read” in various layers of seasonal and literary allusions, wordplay and puns.
4) Arnel Joven, University of Asia and the Pacific
Medical Traditions in Modern Health Practices in Urban Korea and Japan: Comparing Patterns
in Contemporary Health-Seeking Behaviour in Seoul and Tokyo
Modern health practices in East Asia are influenced by historically-rooted medical traditions
that continue as distinct medical disciplines: Korean Oriental Medicine and Japanese Kampo
Medicine. However, modern Korea and Japan boast of medical modernity with western medical
institutions and professions that has dominated the medical marketplace in both countries for morethan a century. At the same time, twenty-first century health-related institutions such as sports centres,
aesthetic clinics, and organic markets, among others, seem to reinforce the dominance of western127

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oriented modern health practices in both Korea and Japan. However, apart from the presence oftraditional medical disciplines in East Asia, historically-rooted health seeking behaviour andpractices are ever-present, albeit presented in westernised concepts and nuances. What looks like“modern” practices are in fact unconsciously linked to traditional concepts on health, such as balance(yin-yang), food-medicine connection, and activity-health interaction. This paper examines
contemporary health-related practices among young urban Koreans and Japanese as essentially linked
to patterns of centuries-old medical knowledge. While traditional medicine is very strong in theirstrongholds in Daegu, Korea and Nara, Japan, it is in fact difficult to prove its presence in urban
centres, such as Seoul and Tokyo, especially among the youth. Using tools from medical
anthropology, this study looks into contemporary activities and inclinations among college students
and young urban professionals in both East Asian capital cities. Then, this research fleshes out oftendenied or forgotten traditional concepts that are unconsciously preserved through families, schools,
and popular media acting as gatekeepers of medical knowledge.

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SUNDAY AFTERNOON SESSIONS II: 3:40 P.M. – 5:40 P.M.
Session 42: Room 253
Horizons of Cultural Translation: Traversing the Translationscape in Modern Japan
Organizer: Wakako Suzuki, University of California, Los Angeles
Chair: Deguchi Tomoyuki, Tōkai Univeristy
This panel introduces a range of new perspectives on translation and translation history inmodern Japan, especially in relation to the critical analysis of literature, intellectual history, andpolitical science. Thus far, numerous books and articles in the field of translation studies havediscussed how “translation culture” suddenly emerged in the Meiji period with an inundation oftranslated texts in various genres in a new cultural milieu. However, “translation” itself is often
treated as an unproblematic category. This panel presents new work that interrogates the meaning of“translation” in the Meiji context and beyond. By recognizing the complexities of Japanese“translation” and linguistic formations prior to the Meiji Restoration and by paying particularattention to the mutually constitutive transformation of literary and political forms beyond it, we offer
a fresh look at “translation culture” in Meiji Japan. To this end, we illuminate translation practices
from multiple lenses—such as Japan’s shifting position within the sinographic sphere, the practice of
kanbun kundoku, the formation of Japanese vernacular literature, the valorization of neologisms infields such as art and politics, and the status of “translation” as a literary genre. In thinking abouttranslation practices, both diachronically and synchronically from the perspectives of intellectual
history and literature, this panel will present new challenges to the concepts we have often taken for
granted. We hope that with our journey across the translationscapes of Meiji literature and politics,
the audience will have a unique opportunity to communicate beyond the narrow confines of theory
and practice.
1) Miyabi Gotō, Princeton University
Valorization of “Beauty”: Mechanism of Translation in Meiji JapanThe commonly accepted understanding of inter-lingual translation often presupposes two
languages: One to translate from and another to translate into. Instead, I suggest regarding translation
as a mechanism of creating and recreating the linguistic value system. Taking a Japanese word bi forexample, this paper analyzes how this mechanism of translation operated in Meiji Japan (1868–1912)
while being complicit with its nation-building project. The word bi came to be stabilized as a
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translation of beauty, beauté, or schoonheid in the middle of the 19th century, and, since the early
Meiji period, bi began to circulate widely in intellectual discussions. However, this does not meanthat the idea of beauty had not existed in Japan before then. Nor does this imply bi had a clear,
identifiable referent in the early Meiji period. The term bi emerged to participate in the social
network of linguistic currency and began to represent some kind of value in a manner in which it had
not before. What was important for Meiji Japan was to rhetorically pose bi as a goal to achieve sothat the country could be qualified as a modern, civilized nation. The inscrutability of the term's
referent helped to stretch the limit of what it was capable of containing, thus making it easier forusers to utilize it broadly.
2) John Branstetter, University of California, Los Angeles
What Translation Obscures: The Paradigm of Translation and Nakae Chōmin’s Minyaku yakkai
Scholars have offered various interpretations of the differences between Rousseau’s original Du
Contrat Social and the first Japanese translation by Nakae Chōmin in 1882, none of which are verysatisfying. Chōmin’s translation is partial, makes use of somewhat unexpected terminology fortranslating key Rousseauian concepts, and ultimately emphasizes a politics that understands liberty
very differently from the way Rousseau does. In many ways, I contend, Chōmin’s Minyaku yakkai is
as much a critique of Rousseau’s thought as it is a rebuke of the Meiji oligarchy. However, because
scholars have continued to treat Minyaku yakkai primarily as a translation, the critical edge of the text
has been obscured. I argue, on the other hand, that Minyaku yakkai can be better understood byabandoning the paradigm of translation altogether and instead interpreting Chōmin’s text as being
first and foremost a work of polemic. “Translation” is fundamentally a Eurocentric category, and theassumptions that this category carries with it foreclose a wide range of interpretive possibilities whenapplied unreflectively. I conclude that Chōmin’s text can be better understood by treating it as a
response to the external danger posed by the Western powers as well as an attack on the internal
danger that the unreflective assimilation of Western values represented. By contextualizing Chōmin’s
text and understanding it not as a translation but as an argument, I present a view of Minyaku yakkai
that explains the text’s composition and political importance in a new and perhaps more satisfying
way.

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3) Wakako Suzuki, University of California, Los Angeles
Becoming an Adventurous Translator: Morita Shiken’s Translation Strategies
This paper examines the role of Morita Shiken’s translations in the development of Japaneseadventure stories in popular literature and in broadening the use of foreign texts from pedagogicalmaterial to literary entertainment. Morita Shiken, well known for his meticulous translation(shūmitsutai), is considered the king of Meiji translation. Informed by both Chinese studies andEnglish learning, he developed his translation skills in kanbun kundoku. Shiken worked for Hōchisha
and was instrumental in the mass marketing of Yūbinhōchi shinbun. In particular, Shiken translated avariety of novels, including works by Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, and Charles Dickens. Shiken’s
translation of Jules Verne’s Deux ans de Vacances (1888) attracted child readers by constructing analternative reading pattern for them. Shiken’s translation style is categorized as a literal style and thus
represents a faithful translation of the original texts, and it refrained from the free-wheeling use offoreign texts that can be seen in many hon’an adaptations in the Meiji period. However, he madesome omissions and modifications when he translated popular literature such as Jules Verne’s Deuxans de Vacances. In this paper, I explain how the fusion of flexible and rigorous approaches totranslation added a new dimension to Shiken’s translation technique by providing an experimental
arena for him to develop a new literary expression and modern narrative style without constraint. I
argue that his translation style, which is both flexible and meticulous, captured the verisimilitude offoreign adventure stories and paved the way for the evolution of Japanese popular literature.
4) Jordan Smith, Jōsai International University
Translationscapes: Between Translation Practice and Literary Systems In and Out of Japan(ese)The final paper in this panel seeks to develop a theoretical understanding of translation both asa linguistic, philosophical practice and as a system whereby bodies of literature are caused to appear
in a given translationscape. Translationscapes designate partial, skewed constellations of texts
accessible (visible, audible) in a given language. Translationscapes will always offer different,
incomplete portraits of a body of literature; for example, the body of Japanese literature available in
English as compared with Thai, the body of Russian or “Western” texts available in Meiji Japan, or
the oeuvre of Ōe Kenzaburō read in English or Spanish. At the level of practice, the papers in thispanel deal with questions of untranslatables, or concepts that emerge or evolve significantly whentranslated, or the often necessitate neologism or other linguistic creativity in order to accommodate.
At the level of the system, this practice corresponds to the act of text selection and the choices ofregisters in which to translate—practices governed by ideologies that dictate how an other should be,
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should write, should behave. This talk sketches a method of synching dialogues on translation
practice and system by extending the previous three talks—concepts of beauty in Heisei Japan,
Rousseau’s journey in Japanese thought, and the evolution of shūmitsutai—through the lens oftranslationscapes.
Discussant: Kōno Shion, Sophia University132

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Session 43: Room 252
Democracy in Indonesia: Struggles across Time
Organizer/Chair: Shane J. Barter, Soka University of America
The world’s most populous Muslim country, the Republic of Indonesia has had a complex,
mixed experience with liberal democracy. The panels of this paper seek to make sense of thepotential of democracy on one hand, and countervailing pressures such as corruption, armed
resistance, and parochialism on the other. In the first paper, Vishnu Juwono takes an historical look atIndonesia’s first democratic era, highlighting the centrality of anti-corruption measures. Efforts tocurb corruption would ultimately be undone, leading to Sukarno’s more authoritarian style and theend of Indonesia’s first democratic experiment. In the second paper, Shane Barter looks at armed
conflict in Aceh, a province that was mired in war while the rest of Indonesia was experienced ademocratic transition. Barter explores civilian resistance to rebel governance, resistance that playedsome role in ending the conflict and bringing democracy to the province. Finally, Colm Fox examines
the role of ethnic politics in Indonesia, comparing how identity played out under soft authoritarian,transitional, and consolidated elections. Analyzing newspaper articles, Fox shows that ethnic
campaigning actually decreased in the transitional era, expanding with the consolidation of
democratic elections. All told, these papers chart the fall and then return of Indonesian democracy,
pointing to some areas of concern for deepening democracy in this massive country.
1) Vishnu Juwono, University of Indonesia
The End of Parliamentary Democracy and the Demise of Anti-Corruption Measures during the
Post-Revolutionary Era, 1956–1967
After the national election in 1955, it became evident that the influence of Vice President Hatta
was significantly reduced, since only the Islamic Political party Masyumi managed to secure thesecond largest number of seats in parliament. Meanwhile, the Solidarity maker group led by President
Sukarno secured the majority of parliamentary seats through political parties like the Indonesia
Nationalist Party (PNI), the Revival of Religious Scholars (NU) and the Indonesian Communist Party(PKI). This paper will highlight how the parliamentary government collapsed due to both Sukarno
and Nasution’s restlessness regarding what they saw as a corrupt politician and a corrupt politicalparty that made parliamentary democracy dysfunctional and ignored people’s interests. Then, thepaper will outline how the partnership between Sukarno and Nasution to establish a new political
governance structure was underpinned by the army’s more assertive role in politics, called guided
democracy. This paper will then explain how the disunity between Hatta and Nasution resulted in a
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disjointed effort towards governance reform and anti-corruption initiatives that were later dismantled
by Sukarno, with strong support from the solidarity maker group. This paper will draw upon a rangeof primary sources including diplomatic correspondents, memos, and reports from the United
Kingdom (UK) Foreign Commonwealth Office, the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs, and theIndonesian government.
2) Shane J. Barter, Soka University of America
Under a Rebel Flag: Social Resistance under Insurgent Rule in Aceh
The ability of civilians to engage in social resistance is trying in the best of times and is
especially challenging in authoritarian settings. One might think that social resistance is nearly
impossible in conflict areas. Sidney Tarrow emphasizes two major structural factors that condition
the likelihood of sustained social resistance. Writers looking at armed conflicts have prioritizes thefirst factor, threat, while downplaying the importance of the second factor, political opportunity.
Armed conflicts necessarily involve contestation, so while resistance is dangerous, it can also be
surprisingly effective because armed groups are competing for hearts and minds. What forms ofresistance are possible among civilians in armed conflicts? Based on ethnographic fieldwork, thispaper looks at social resistance in Aceh, Indonesia. I examine four forms of civilian resistance against
armed groups: engagement, weapons of the weak, defiance, and combined support and resistance.
The rebels tolerated resistance in part because they could afford to in their strongholds, but also
because they did not want to be seen in the same light as their enemy.
3) Colm Fox, Singapore Management University
Democracy and Ethnic Campaigning in Indonesia
What explains ethnic politics during elections? More specifically, why do electoral candidates
campaign on ethnic platforms in some times and places, but not in others? One
prominent explanation argues that ethnic politics is prevalent in societies with strong ethnic bonds,
weak partisanship, and newly competitive elections. As a result, elections in ethnically diverse
countries undergoing a democratic transition are particularly prone to ethnic politics. Unfortunately,
empirical evidence to support this argument has been mixed. This is partly because no study
has attempted to systematically measure ethnic campaigning through a transition. To rectify this, I
measure ethnic campaigning through multiple elections in the largest and most ethnicallydiverse country to recently consolidate its democracy, Indonesia. Data are drawn from a random
sample of pre-election campaign-related newspaper articles for the 1997 (authoritarian),
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1999 (transitional), and the 2009 and 2014 (consolidated democracy) elections. Each article is thencoded for ethnic and non-ethnic aspects of candidates’ campaigns—the events they engaged in,
the endorsements they sought, and the verbal appeals they made. The newspaper content-analysis issupplemented with qualitative evidence from a year of fieldwork in Indonesia. Contrary
to expectations, the analysis shows a decline in the politicization of religious, indigenous, andregional identities during the 1999 transitional election. Rather, it was a move towards amore candidate-centric electoral system in 2009 that resulted in a considerable increase in thepoliticization of local religious, indigenous, and regional community-based groups.
Discussant: Takeshi Ito, Sophia University

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Session 44: Room 204“Neo-Plural Society” from a Perspective of the International Migration in Southeast Asia andthe Arab Gulf States
Organizer: Masaki Matsuo, Utsunomiya University
Chair: Masako Ishii, Rikkyo University
This panel discusses about migrant receiving societies in Asia, mainly in Southeast Asia and theArab Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), fromthe new concept of “Neo-Plural Society.” J. S. Furnivall coined the concept “Plural Society” todescribe societies in Southeast Asia where different ethnic groups were living separately. This oldfashioned concept has, along with the globalization and the increase of the international labor
migration, revived to describe and analyze societies newly created with citizens and migrants. Not
like in the Europe and North American countries, migrants in Asia are basically treated not asprospective citizens but as temporary residents. Such treatment of migrants in Asia today well fits to“Plural Society,” although, some renovations are required to apply it to globalized Asian societies.
Here “Plural Society” sheds its skin and changes to “Neo-Plural Society.” While migrant receiving
countries in Asia try to keep disparities between citizens and migrants and maintain the unity of thenation, migrants themselves have created new hybrid identities and optimized their life course to live
in receiving countries as non-citizen residents. Sometimes migrant workers entered into private
sphere of receiving countries as domestic workers, most of them are young females in general, andsuffered from violence of employers. These victims of international migration arose antipathy within
the sending countries toward receiving countries, therefore led to dialogues between the two sides.
“Neo-Plural Society” is an arena to describe and analyze how governments both of sending andreceiving countries, host societies and migrants deal with disparity between citizens and migrants,
therefore, how new types of societies with citizens and migrants emerges.
1) Mizanur Rahman, Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Recruiting Migrant Labour in the GCC States: Interplay Between Institutions and Networks
The Gulf countries in the Middle East are one of the largest regions relying on international
labour migrants for economic development. Recruitment constitutes an important part of thismigration of labour. This study addresses the complexity and multiplicity of labour recruitment in the
Gulf countries through a case study of Bangladeshi labour recruitment. This study examines thelabour recruitment to the Gulf, combining networks and institutions to highlight both the operationaland economic aspects of migrant recruitment. This paper reveals how migrant networks and136

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recruitment agencies adapt to the changing practices of recruitment to funnel migrant workers to the
GCC countries and make profits out of the migrant workers in the recruitment process.
2) Masaki Matsuo, Utsunomiya University
Ethnocracy in the Arab Gulf States
Based on oil and migrants, the Arab Gulf States have created a unique system of “Ethnocracy”
that enables governments of AGS to avoid democratic movements and keep the stability ofauthoritarian regimes. Based on discussions of A. A. Mazrui and A. N. Longva, the concept of
ethnocracy in this paper is developed, through labor market analysis, as an explanatory and analyticalframework of political economy to study the resiliency of authoritarian regimes and migranteconomy in the AGS. Some scholars have tried to explain the resiliency of the authoritarian regimesof the AGS focusing on the role of Islam, tribal-cum-patriarchic nature of their society. Aside fromsuch traditionalist approach, others have concentrated relatively new circumstances such as
globalization. Within such globalization models, the rentier state model, regarding oil profit as theprimary element of stability, is the most famous approach. Although, the effects of oil revenue varies
and the rentier state model cannot explain how this variety emerges. The ethnocracy model, focusing
on economic and social disparity between migrants and citizens, explains how governments allocate
oil revenue through labor markets and create stability, therefore how the difference labor market
policies creates the variety of degrees of political stability in the AGS.
3) Naomi Hosoda, Kagawa University and Kyoko Matsukawa, Konan University
Identity and Future Prospects among Second-Generation Asian Youth in the Arab Gulf States
This paper investigates the identity formation and future prospects among second-generation
Asians in the Arab Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United ArabEmirates). These oil-rich monarchical states present us an interesting case in the study of global labor
migration and state control. According to the World Bank data, foreign population now accounts for
15 million, approximately the half of the total population in the region. However, they are treated
only as temporary workers with almost no prospect of acquiring citizenship, regardless of their lengthof stay and economic contribution to the host society. Despite this “temporariness” and segregationfrom the host society, some migrant workers—especially middle-class workers—stay in thesecountries for decades, bringing up their children there. Since these second-generation migrants too
are temporary residents of the countries, they always need to think of going elsewhere (including
going back to their parents’ countries) for education and future job opportunities. The authors have137

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conducted ethnographic research on migrant workers from India and the Philippines, two majorcountries that send workers to the Arab Gulf States. In this paper, we focus on second-generation
Indians and Filipinos and examine their senses of citizenship and belonging in conjunction with theirviews on what educational and career paths they want to pursue.
4) Masako Ishii, Rikkyo University
Formal and Informal Protection for Filipino Domestic Workers in the Arab Gulf States
This paper introduces the formal and informal activities that exist to protect domestic workers
in the Arab Gulf States, by taking the case of Filipino female domestic workers as an example. First,
the paper outlines the main characteristics of Filipina domestic workers in the Arab Gulf State incomparison with those in other main host countries in the Western countries, Hong Kong andSingapore. Second, it examines the official measures that exist for the protection of domestic workers
in the Arab Gulf States. They are international agreements and protective measures put in place byboth sending and receiving governments. Third, it contrasts this with the informal protection
practices of NGOs and the migrant workers themselves. At the same time, it introduces specificexamples of domestic workers who actually sought help to examine how their choice of support andprotection is made. The final section explores the possibilities and limitations of activities for theprotection of domestic workers. By looking into both formal and informal protection measures fordomestic workers, the paper aims to examine how the practices of exclusion and inclusion work on
the actual situation in the Arab Gulf States where their migration policies are based largely on therationale of exclusion and control. While the Arab Gulf States all have similar policy measuresconcerning migrant workers, this paper includes examples taken from countries that this author has
visited during research projects, including Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates(UAE).
Discussant: Akiko Watanabe, Bunkyo University

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Session 45: Room 352
Political Landscapes of the Pure Land: Buddhism and Politics in Wartime Japan
Organizer: Max Ward, Middlebury College
Chair: Robert Tierney, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Historians and religious scholars have recognized the highly politicized roles of Buddhism inmodern Japan, and in particular its mobilization in support of the war effort in the 1930s and 1940s.
However, Buddhism in the wartime period remains understudied, and has been somewhat limited to
exposing the institutional support of state ideology by Buddhist churches. How were Buddhist
teachings revised and appropriated for ideological aims, and what were the means of mediation anddissemination of politicized Buddhist discourse? Can we also discover tensions in the ways
Buddhism was politicized between official Buddhist churches, lay supporters, activists and state
officials? And did the encounter between Buddhism and politics require the sacrifice of Buddhist
faith to the imperatives of political utility? This panel seeks to generate a discussion of these types ofquestions by presenting historical cases of the encounter between Buddhism and politics in wartime
Japan. G. Clinton Godart investigates the role of Nichiren Buddhism among several key figures in theImperial Japanese Navy. John Person analyzes Mitsui Kōshi’s appropriation of Shinran’s teachings
for a theory of nationalism and its influence among right-wing thinkers in the 1930s. Kunihiko
Terasawa explores how Pure Land Buddhist sects revised the teachings of Shinran to produce WarTime Teachings and Doctrines (Senji kyōgaku). Lastly, Max Ward analyzes how Buddhist teachings
informed the “ideological conversion” (tenkō) of hundreds of political criminals in the 1930s.
1) G. Clinton Godart, Hokkaidō University
Nichirenist Navalism: Ogasawara Naganari, Nichiren Buddhism, and the Imperial Japanese Navy
While the support of official Buddhist churches for the military, expansionist, and ideologicalefforts of the Japanese state is now well known, comparatively little is known about the role ofreligion among the higher echelons of the armed forces in pre-war Japan, perhaps with the exceptionof the Nichirenist military thinker Ishiwara Kanji. In comparison to the Army, in the post-war period,
the Imperial Japanese Navy has enjoyed an image of internationalism and technologicalprogressiveness, and has thus been relatively free of scrutiny into its ideological and religious
aspects. This paper examines the role of Nichirenist Buddhist and ideological ideas among key
members of the Imperial Japanese Navy, from around the Russo-Japanese War into the 1930’s. The
focus is especially on vice admiral Ogasawara Naganari (1867–1958), who was active in the Navy
General Staff, was the spokesman and biographer of Tōgō Heihachirō, Imperial Court Councilor, and139

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a key mediator in the opposition to the naval armament limitation treaties. As official historian of the
Sino- and Russo-Japanese Wars, a bestselling author in his own right and nicknamed “Admiral
literary genius,” Ogasawara was one of the key figures in shaping the public image of the Imperial
Japanese Navy in early twentieth century Japan. Ogasawara was also a Nichiren Buddhist, andthrough speeches, writings, and use of modern media, combined Nichirenist Buddhist visions with an
advocacy of Japan as a naval power. This paper thus explores larger questions concerning the role of
Buddhism in shaping dimensions of ideology in interwar Japan.
2) John Person, University at Albany, State University of New YorkFaith in the Ethnos: Shinran and Radical Nationalist Thought in Prewar Japan
This paper considers the role that faith and emotion played in the development of nationalist
identity harbored by radical rightwing thinkers in prewar Japan. More specifically it will examine theworship of the 12th century founder of Pure Land Buddhism, Shinran, among these nationalists. A
cult of Shinran developed among philosophically minded youth in the early 1900s, inspired by theteachings of Pure Land priest Chikazumi Jōkan. Critical of attempts to understand religion throughreason, Chikazumi taught that salvation came not from theory or doctrine, but the personal
experience of revelation. Among Chikazumi’s students was Mitsui Kōshi who developed histeacher’s teaching into a theory of the personal experience of the ethnos felt through language andpassion. Mitsui’s appropriation of Shinran as the basis of a theory of nationalism found aconsiderable following among radical nationalist scholars and students. Significantly, the notion thatthe personal experience of ethnic language and emotions stood at the core of authentic nationalism
served as a foundation from which government deployment of nationalist rhetoric could be criticized.
As Mitsui saw it, his call for Japanese subjects to personally convert to a faith in a nation to which
they already belonged stood in stark contrast to what he perceived as a technocratic, inauthentic
approach to national mobilization enacted by the state. The case of Mitsui reveals the crucial fissuresthat marred the state’s attempts to harness and deploy the rhetorical power of nationalism as it
encountered impassioned testimonies of the personal experiences of the ethnic.

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True Pure Land Buddhism and War Time Teachings and Doctrines (Senji-kyōgaku)
During the Fifteen Year War (1931–1945), the True Pure Land Buddhism (Jōdo Shinshū) sects
actively responded to the Japanese state’s mobilization efforts. For example, the Shinshū-honganjiha established The Center for Research of Japanese Teachings and Doctrines (Nihon Kyōgaku
Kenkyūsho) in 1941, and eventually created The Leading Headquarters for the Wartime Teachings
and Doctrines (Senji-Kyōgaku Shidō Honbu) in 1944. With these efforts, Jōdo Shinshū radicallychanged its individualistic personal faith in favor of social activism, and willingly supported thestate’s war efforts with its own Pure Land teachings. In this paper, I will discuss how Jōdo Shinshū
sects reinterpreted the “new two hold truths” (shinzokunitai), whereby the conventional truth(zokutai), associated with the emperor and kokutai, was elevated above the ultimate truth (shintai),though traditionally the ultimate truth (shintai) is higher than the conventional truth (zokutai).
Furthermore, I will explore how Jōdo Shinshū sects voluntary eliminated a passage of Shinran’s holy
text in regard to Jingi Fuhai (non-worshiping of the emperor and kami) without being forced to by
the government, thus causing a huge controversy within their sect. Finally, I will discuss how
Akegarasu Haya, an influential popular preacher of Shinshū-Otani-ha and student of Kiyozawa
Manshi, became a fervent evangelist for war mobilization.
4) Max Ward, Middlebury College
The Politics of Spiritual De-Politicization: Buddhism and the Rehabilitation of Political Criminals
in 1930s Japan
Over its twenty-year history, the Peace Preservation Law (1925–1945) was used to arrest
thousands of political radicals throughout the Japanese empire for purportedly intending to alter
Japan’s imperial national polity, or kokutai. State officials saw such intentions as resulting from theinfiltration of dangerous foreign ideas such as communism into the Japanese Empire. Consequently
they deemed political radicalism “thought crime” (shisōhan). Although the law was initially used tosuppress thought crime, by the mid-1930s it had developed into an apparatus to reform and“ideologically convert” (tenkō) thought criminals into loyal and productive imperial subjects. In thiseffort, Buddhist prison chaplains assisted incarcerated political criminals with discarding theirdangerous thought, thus infusing “ideological conversion” with tropes of Buddhist salvation andspiritual self-negation. In this paper I explore the use of Buddhism in the Justice Ministry’s efforts toreform political criminals in interwar Japan. I will focus on the writings of Kobayashi Morito andother ex-communists who narrated their “ideological conversion” as a process of self-negation and141

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Buddhist salvation, which culminated in their re-identification with the imperial kokutai. While manyof these converts continued to work for social welfare and reform into the late-1930s, they did so,they explained, not from political conviction but as selfless acts for others.
Discussant: Robert Tierney, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

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Session 46: Room 351
Religion, the Sciences, and the Mystical: Ideas and Networks in Nineteenth and TwentiethCentury Asia and Europe
Organizer: Soumen Mukherjee, Presidency University
Chair: Yoshiko Okamoto, International Christian University
This panel is premised on a basic commitment to an intellectual project: to go beyond theories
of hermetically sealed binaries of the religious/ secular (or profane), or for that matter the religious/
the scientific. Rather, it encourages the panelists to focus on a triadic epistemological entanglement
involving the religious, the scientific and the mystical and/ or the spiritual. The panel will bring
together scholars from a range of disciplines (History, especially intellectual and religious History,
Literature, and Philosophy), and from Germany, India, and Japan exploring, as well as encouraging
discussions, on the above themes against the larger backdrop of global flows of concepts, ideas, andpeople in nineteenth and twentieth century Asia and Europe. Within this larger rubric, the panellists
will engage with a wide array of issues: western engagement with neo-Vedanta and yogic mysticism,and critique of the Freudian framework (Ayon Maharaj); the development of the psy-disciplines inmodern India and the interface with scientific and philosophical traditions in Europe, India, andJapan (Soumen Mukherjee); the Jungian challenge to Cartesian rationalism and the relevance of
Asian traditions of mysticism, supernatural and spirituality (Claudia Richter); and, discourses ofIslamic reform vis-à-vis Sufi mysticism (Sajjad Rizvi). Together, drawing upon specific case studies,
the papers will challenge existing conceptual boundaries and categories, and interrogate the nature ofintellectual networks along both Europe/ India and inter-Asian lines.
1) Ayon Maharaj, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University
The Challenge of the Oceanic Feeling: Romain Rolland’s Mystical Critique of Psychoanalysis
and His Call for a “New Science of the Mind”
In a letter written in 1927, the French writer Romain Rolland asked Sigmund Freud to analyze
the “oceanic feeling,” a religious feeling of oneness with the entire universe. According to David
Fisher and William Parsons, Rolland was encouraging Freud to provide a non-reductive
psychoanalytic explanation of the oceanic feeling. I will argue, however, that Rolland’s intentions inintroducing the oceanic feeling to Freud were much more complex, multifaceted, and critical thanmost scholars have acknowledged. To this end, I will examine Rolland’s views on mysticism andpsychoanalysis in his book-length biographies of the Indian saints, Sri Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda, which he wrote just after he mentioned the oceanic feeling to Freud in 1927. In these143

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biographies, Rolland not only polemicizes against psychoanalytic approaches to mystical experiencebut also encourages psychoanalysts to correct and deepen their superficial conception of the mind by
taking seriously the mystical experiences of both Eastern and Western saints. With this background inplace, I will argue that Rolland’s intentions in introducing the oceanic feeling to Freud in his 1927
letter were irreducibly complex. While Rolland’s manifest intention was, indeed, to encourage Freudto analyze the oceanic feeling from a psychoanalytic perspective, Rolland’s latent intention—lessevident in his letters to Freud than in his biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda—was tochallenge the fundamental assumptions of psychoanalysis from a mystical perspective and to
confront Freud with a mystical “science of the mind” that he felt was more rigorous andcomprehensive than Freud’s psychoanalytic science.
2) Soumen Mukherjee, Presidency University
Conscious Souls: Philosophy, Spirituality, and the Psy-Disciplines in Modern India
Scholars exploring the history of the psy-disciplines, and especially psychoanalysis, have noted
its distinctive cultural variations across the globe. In countries such as India and Japan such processes
were contingent on meticulous cultural adaptations, indeed domestication, since the early twentiethcentury. This paper draws upon this conceptual oeuvre. It argues that much of the history of the psydisciplines in India becomes intelligible not necessarily through the lens of colonial medicine/clinical psychiatry dyad, as existing scholarship preponderantly tend to suggest. Also, unlike scholars
who often see this history independent of other intellectual forces, this paper underscores therelevance of western traditions contra the Freudian framework. This paper draws upon the intellectual
career of two key Indian protagonists of the evolving “sciences of mind”. Both of them also madesignificant forays into philosophy focusing in particular on the idea of “consciousness”, while one ofthem explicitly engaged with the Jungian paradigm. The notion of consciousness also emerged as a
key conceptual problem in the burgeoning intellectual project of an “Indian philosophy” even as suchendeavors also went on to engage with similar exercises in other Asian cultures, e.g. D.T. Suzuki’s
Zen Buddhism. This paper problematizes the idea of consciousness with reference to not only the
yogic and kindred Buddhist traditions, but also to its location in the evolving “sciences of mind”.
Such engagements, at one level, came from different disciplinary backgrounds and, at another level,from thinkers who were polymaths (re)drawing disciplinary boundaries. This paper seeks tounderstand this complex process.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts3) Claudia Richter, Leipzig University
Carl Jung and the Struggle Against Cartesian Rationalism: Seeking Support from Asia
My paper deals with Carl Jung’s interest in Asian philosophical and spiritual traditions in thecontext of his struggle with the Cartesian worldview. I will focus on two aspects specifically: 1) The
perpetuation of German Romantic concerns in Jung and 2) Jung’s reflections on his journey to India
and the nature of his engagement with Eastern “wisdom”. The rationalistic Cartesian worldview,which came to dominate the natural sciences in “the West” after the 19th century, was met withresistance within “the West”. Among its most pronounced enemies was German Romanticism. Afterall, Enlightenment rationalism involved discarding everything that had been dear to German mystics
and thinkers before and after the Enlightenment: the immaterial nature of the soul, the sanctity ofnature, the interconnectedness of every aspect of existence and, to a lesser degree, life after death andthe supernatural. These currents of thought paved the way for Western psychoanalysis and resurface
in Jung. I argue that scholars like Jung turned to the East to find support for their rebellion against
Cartesian rationalism because they met with so much hostility in their own ranks. Jung’s reflections
on his journey to India are especially interesting: they illustrate a heightened self-awareness on thepart of a Western scientist as to what he was actually doing and seeking in the East. My focus on
Jung’s conclusions on his journey will allow me to take a fresh look at the relationship between
Western science and Eastern spiritual traditions beyond the claims of Said’s “Orientalism”.
4) Sajjad Alam Rizvi, Presidency University
Music, Emotions, and Reform in South Asian Islam: Late Eighteenth and Early NineteenthCenturies
This paper explores the “reformist discourse” on “Islamic mysticism (Sufism) and music” inSouth Asia during the late eighteenth and early ninetieth centuries and asks to reconsider sweeping
generalizations. Reform in the Islamicate world has been studied conventionally from the perspectiveof compliance with or deviation from the shariah. This narrative holds that ecstasy is the result of
intoxication that transgresses the boundaries of doctrinal Islam which privileges sobriety. However,this paper argues that shariah was subject to various and/or contested interpretations. The paper
discusses how emotion knowledge, with the circulation of ideas and concepts and the movement of
individuals across the Indo-Persian and Arabic regions, was appropriated by Muslim scholars to
privilege or discourage certain emotional practices and styles. The various ways of conceptualizing
emotions influenced attitudes towards mystical musical practices as Sufi scholars, in this period, weredrawing upon various disciplines - theology, philosophy, medical knowledge and Sufi psychology.
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Thus, they have attributed different emotions to different “subtle centres” such as heart, spirit, souland intellect in their expositions of the mystical concepts of the “subtle body” and the disposition”.
While dealing with the theme of Sufi music, these scholars have discussed emotions such as “joy andgrief” as well as “transitory /fleeting emotional experience”, “stable / established emotional state”,
ecstasy, intoxication and sobriety. The paper argues that the reformist discourse in South Asian Islam
was informed by emotion knowledge and as a result the reformist scholars privileged different
attitudes to mystical practices and emotional styles.
Discussant: Yoshiko Okamoto, International Christian University

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Session 47: Room 251
Individual Papers 10: Traditional Japanese and Chinese Literature
Chair: Matthew Strecher, Sophia University
1) Xiaolin Duan, Elon University
Pray and Play: Pilgrimage and Tourism around West Lake in Medieval to Early Modern China
In medieval China, the mountains that embraced West Lake, a scenic site next to the capital cityof Hangzhou, started to be dotted with numerous temples. The popularization of religious sites
continued through the late imperial China, due to the economic development and the growth of lay
believers. Temple visits were subsequently built into the annual calendar of Hangzhou residents.
Pilgrims from all over the country and also Japan came regularly and usually stayed around for aconsiderable length of time. With the development of both religious and leisure trips, it was difficult
to differentiate the two. Most of the trips recorded had elements of both. This research investigates
the emerging phenomenon of religious sites as they were incorporated into the tourist discourses.
Analyzing travel writings, landscape paintings and temple gazetteers, I explore the interaction
between tourism and pilgrimage from two aspects: how the appreciation of scenic beauty andreligious pursuit redefined each other, and how temples responded to these developments with newagendas including tea making, souvenirs, and accommodations. It argues that the interdependence
between pilgrimage and tourism localized tourists’ attachment to nature and provided temples withnew strategies to attract visitors. In this process, West Lake functioned as a “middle landscape” thatmingled religious and urban space. By traveling around the lake, urban residents acquired
transcendent experiences while monks sought to communicate with lay patrons. This researchcontributes to the discussion on the popularization of religion from perspectives of tourism and placestudies.
2) Ka Ki Alan Ho, McGill University
Pacifying the Silk Roads: A Study of the Dou Family and Their Governance in Hexi in Early
Eastern Han
According to the “Account of the Western regions” in the History of Later Han the connection
between the Western regions “China” was disrupted for 65 years (9 – 73), from Wang Mang’semperorship, until 73, when Emperor Ming of Eastern Han sent a expedition to the Western regions.
However, in other chapters of the History of Later Han, as well as on Dongguan Hanji, it is stated
how in 30 Dou Rong (竇融, 16 BC – 62), an Eastern Han general based in Hexi (河西), appointed aGrand Protector of the Western regions. How can these two, apparently contradictory statements, be
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reconciled? Such reconciliation requires an investigation of the concrete mechanisms of the Dou
family’s power as they managed the affairs of the Western regions from their base in Hexi, thegateway to the Western regions. The Dou family in the Western regions is based on the local network
the family was able to construct a local network after 23, when Dou Rong was appointed as
Commander of the Zhangye dependent state in Hexi by the Gengshi government. The Eastern Han
government allowed Dou Rong to nominate most of the governors in Hexi for about a half-century,
indicating the family’s irreplaceable function in moderating Western regions affairs. Through its
investigation of the Dou family, the paper will explore what it meant to control a peripheral area in aperiod of dynastic transition. It will draw upon received texts as well as archaeologically discovered
texts, sites and artifacts.
3) Ying Huang, Nagoya University
Femininity in Feng Zikai’s and Lin Wenyue’s Translations of The Tale of Genji
As one of the Japanese literary classics, The Tale of Genji has been translated into many otherlanguages, including Chinese. Amongst various Chinese translations, there are two representatives,
one by Feng Zikai (丰子恺), a male painter and translator from Mainland China, and the other by Lin
Wenyue (林文月), a female scholar and translator from Taiwan. Feng’s book was finished in the
1960s and published in 1980, while Lin published hers in 1982. However, due to the separation
between the two regions at that time, the two translations are done without any influence from eachother. They differ in their language styles and therefore affect the way through which the characters
are depicted. This research will focus on the two translations’ texts that depict the same female
figures, investigating how femininity is represented differently through the choices of words. This
research finds that in Feng’s translation, femininity is localized, reflecting the aesthetics and virtuesof ancient China. His characters appear to be more feminized and more mature. On the other hand,
however, in Lin’s translation, femininity embodies the features of the Japanese aesthetic, kawaii,
which prefers someone younger, more delicate and more innocent. Such differences might be resulted
from the political and historical issues of the mainland and Taiwan, such as the reconstruction offemininity under the Mao regime and Taiwan’s colonial history under Japan’s rule.

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ASCJ 2016 Abstracts4) Scott Mehl, Bard College
Sources of Modern Japanese Poetry: Fukuzawa Yukichi
When scholars evaluate Fukuzawa Yukichi’s place in modern Japanese thought, they typicallyoverlook his seminal contribution to modern Japanese poetry, the long geography textbook Sekai
kunizukushi (All the Countries of the World). Part of the reason for this omission is that scholars
disagree over the genre of Sekai kunizukushi: although the text is written in a 7-5 meter and therefore“sounds” like poetry, it has no line breaks and so has the appearance of prose; moreover, it is ageography textbook for schoolchildren and relatively unlettered adult readers, and therefore has apurpose and a subject matter that are not normally associated with poetry. Whatever the genre of
Fukuzawa’s long text, this paper shows that the influence of Sekai kunizukushi explains several
phenomena in the early years of Meiji-era Japanese poetry. The impact of Sekai kunizukushi onschool songs and on other poems about geographical topics is only to be expected. What is more
surprising, Fukuzawa’s geography textbook is a significant intertext for 1882’s Shintaishi shō(Selection of New-Style Poetry), the translation anthology which is commonly taken to be thestarting point of modern Japanese poetry. Through an analysis of the diction and themes of the
Shintaishi shō, this paper argues that Fukuzawa’s geography textbook is a major source text formodern Japanese poetry.
5) Gouranga Charan Pradhan, International Research Center for Japanese Studies
Sensory Narratives as Expression of Spirituality: A Case Study of Hōjōki
Written in the early Kamakura period, Hōjōki (方丈記, 1212), a very short work, maintained its
popularity throughout the history of Japanese literature. Over the last century, many scholars haveproposed multitude of interpretations concerning the religious thoughts of its author, Kamo no
Chōmei, without reaching a definitive conclusion. Notwithstanding its visible Buddhist rubrics,
scholars have identified the work in different ways, from being as an autobiographical memoir to a
Buddhist literary text and occasionally pointing out its Taoist elements. Likewise, Chōmei has beenvariously marked as a mere aesthete, a devoted Buddhist and at times a Taoist recluse. This paper isanother attempt in same direction, but adopts a new approach to ascertain the nature of the religiosityof Chōmei. While keeping prior studies in mind, my attempt in this paper would be to explore thenarratives portraying sensory experiences in Hōjōki, in consideration to the socio-religious milieu ofmedieval Japan. References will also be made to some Buddhist texts of the period that deals withsensory experiences and their corresponding spiritual interpretations. Through close readings, I wish
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Buddhist conception of six internal sense bases that reflect the author’s spiritual volition as a devout
Buddhist.

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