Japan Studies Association

Newsletter
June 2013
During the past several years, The Japan Studies Association has undergone a series ofremarkable developments: Our refereed journal has been expanded and deepened, and will soon
be available online; the JSA Annual Conference will be celebrating its Twentieth Anniversary
with a special program in Honolulu next January; the Freeman Foundation Summer Institute iscurrently hosting its Eleventh consecutive workshop on Japan; and, most importantly, JSA has
received a substantial grant from the Japan Foundation which we hope will have a lasting impact
on college teaching. The web-based distribution of a renewed JSA Newsletter will enable us tokeep you updated on these and other initiatives as they develop.
--Tom Campbell and Andrea Stover, editors

Prestigious Grant Announced for Japan Studies Association
The Japan Studies Association is happy to announce that it has received a substantial grant fromthe Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership, entitled Creating the Next Generation of
Leaders for U.S.– Japan Educational Outreach. The grant will enable JSA to sponsor workshops
and study tours in Japan and three workshops in United States over a three year period. Fay
Beauchamp and Joseph Overton are the Project Directors, with Fay taking the lead in the
project’s implementation while Joe continues to direct JSA’s introductory Freeman Summer
Institutes.
JSA has received funding for the first year of a three year project and will receive JapanFoundation guidance in reapplying for the second and third year. Our long-term goals are tobuild our Japan Studies Association, including our annual meetings, so that college faculty andtheir students expand research and experiential understanding of Japan and its many roles in theworld.
A Site visit for Workshops in Kyoto (2014) and in Hiroshima (2015)
Our first activity is a June 2013 site visit to Kyoto and Hiroshima to plan for six-day workshops
to be held in Kyoto and its environs in 2014 and in Hiroshima in 2015. The participation in thissite visit of our JSA leadership, Tom Campbell, Stacia Bensyl, Jim Peoples and Maggie Ivanova,
as well as Fay, will help us meet the first goal of the proposal: “To develop the capacity ofAmerican college faculty to initiate, plan and implement outreach activities, including
workshops and study tours in Japan and in the mainland of United States.”

Each workshop in Japan centers on its location for its theme. The Kyoto Workshop planned for2014 focuses on the art, architecture, gardens, religions and literature of early Japan as
represented in the old capital. We will be considering themes such as how Chinese influence
was transmitted and transformed by Japanese agency and creativity, and the interplay ofJapanese aesthetics and political power. For our June 2013 site visit, Frank Chance, Associate
Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s East Asia National Resource Center, is both ourconsultant and guide. A specialist in Japanese aesthetics, Frank has led many faculty and student
groups to Japan. The 2015 Hiroshima Workshop will mark the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic
bombings. We have support from the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation which helped us toorganize the 2003 JSA workshop.
Workshops to be hosted by Wichita State University (October 16-19, 2013) and by Belmont
University in Nashville, Tennessee (Spring 2014)
Our first year’s goals also meet the Japan Foundation’s objective “To reach out to faculty inunder-represented regions of the U.S. such as the Midwestern and Southern states.” Board
member Robert Fellepa has been organizing a workshop for October 16-19, 2013 with thesupport of Wichita State University and of William M. Tsutsui, Dean of Dedman College of
Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University and a specialist in modern Japanese
history. For Spring 2014, Ronnie Littlejohn has accepted the responsibility of creating aworkshop in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be working with our JSA leaders John Paine andAndrea Stover who, with Ronnie, teach at Belmont University.
Further information on these workshops, along with application procedures, will be distributed
very soon. These are wonderful opportunities to learn about Japanese culture, and JSA is proud
to be able to offer them to college faculty.

JSA’s 2013 Conference: A Summary Report
The 19th National Japan Studies Association Conference took place on 3-5 January 2013. Ourhost again was Hawai’i Tokai International College in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Following theexample set during the conference’s 18th edition, the opening reception went parallel with a preconference event – a screening and discussion of Aloha Buddha: The Story of Japanese
Buddhism in Hawai’i (2011). Directed by Bill Ferehawk and Dylan Robertson, the film garnered
the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2011 Hawai’i International Film Festival. Oneof the experts interviewed in the film, Dr. George Tanabe, Professor Emeritus of Religion,
University of Hawai’i at Manoa, moderated the post-screening discussion. In response to thekeen interest expressed by conference participants, Dr. Tanabe offered to lead a 3-hour walking
tour of active Japanese Buddhist temples in Honolulu in January 2014. A very extensive
bibliography on the history of Japanese Buddhism in Hawai’i can be found at the film’s website:
http://alohabuddhafilm.com/alohabuddhabibli.html
A strong stream of presentations at the 2013 JSA conference dealt with current affairs andcontemporary politics: discussions of the territorial disputes among Japan, Korea, China andTaiwan – the topic also of the keynote address by Dr. Edward Shultz, Dean of the School ofPacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa; the realities of post-3.11 Japan – postdisaster relief and impact on farming; populism in contemporary Japanese politics; pacifism,arms exports and human trafficking. A second dominant stream of talks explored Japan’s
religious and spiritual traditions: relationships with Korean Buddhism, resonances in Japaneseliterature, theatre and modern architecture; the associations between national parks and sacredsites. A significant body of presentations focused on Japanese aesthetics as reflected in premodern literature and culture and in the context of the country’s modernization; the latter served
as an anchor for the plenary discussion of Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s In Praise of Shadows, moderated
by Andrea Stover and John Paine.
During the general business meeting, JSA’s President Dr. Joseph Overton presented his 2012
report and informed the membership about changes in the Executive Board: Dr. Fay Beauchamp
stepped down as a Vice President in order to focus on securing funding through grant writing for
JSA’s workshops and study tours during 2013-2016. JSA Treasurer Dr. Stacia Bensyl reported
on the financial state of the Association, which is healthy. Dr. Thomas Campbell was voted JSA
Vice President and Dr. Andrea Stover, a new Member at Large. In the context of the
Association’s upcoming twentieth anniversary, Drs. Overton and Ivanova solicited suggestions
for conference activities or themes which members would like to see in 2014. The Executive
Board considered various new initiatives to reinvigorate the organization, including thepossibility of holding a joint conference in Australia in 2015 in collaboration with the Canadianand Australian Japan Studies Associations.
At the closing traditional banquet at the New Otani Hotel, Dr. Ivanova announced the winner ofthe 2013 Paul Varley Award for best graduate student paper presented at the conference: Yuka
Hasegawa, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, for “Discourses of Monozukuri in Japan’s
Knowledge Economy.” The conference participants enjoyed a special shakuhachi musicalpresentation by renowned artist Christopher Yohmei Blasdel.

20th Annual Japan Studies Association Conference
2-4 January 2014, Honolulu, Hawai’i
At its annual conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i in 2014, the Japan Studies Association willcelebrate its twentieth anniversary. Established in San Diego in the spring of 1994, the JSA has
assisted its members – primarily teachers from American two- and four-year colleges anduniversities – in acquiring first-hand knowledge about Japan and infusing it into the curriculumof their home institutions. Through workshops and study-tours, and the professional networking
they enable, JSA’s members have been inspired to engage in curriculum development, design
study-abroad programs, and initiate Japan-focused or comparative research; members share their
new insights through the Japan Studies Association Journal and its annual national conference.
Please join us at Hawai’i Tokai International College in Honolulu in January 2014 to celebrate
twenty years of JSA’s achievements, reconnect with fellow workshop alumni and share yourcontinuous and new pedagogical and research interests in Japan’s literary and cultural traditions,
historical and economic developments, socio-political and religious practices past and present.
We invite proposals for individual presentations, discipline-specific or interdisciplinary panels,
roundtables on pedagogy and teaching innovation, and staged readings from both faculty andgraduate students. The following ideas can serve as useful points of departure:Pre-modern, modern or contemporary Japanese literature and culture, music, theatre,
film;Japanese aesthetics and material culture;

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Historical, social, economic or political perspectives on Japan’s relationships with its
national or regional self, minorities and neighbors in East Asia;
Japan’s religious traditions, sacred texts, art and architecture;
Youth and popular culture in Japan; manga and anime at home and abroad;
Imagining disaster – responding to war and adversity through political and religious
narrative, art, literature and film; post-3.11 Japan – healing and continuous challenges;
Pedagogy, field trips and study tours: teaching Japanese language and culture –reflections and strategies, hurdles and achievements;
Infusing Japanese Studies into the undergraduate curriculum – successful course andprogram development, faculty collaboration and ways to engage with institutional coregoals;New voices in Japanese Studies: graduate student research;
Suggestions for a Japanese literary, historical or theoretical text for a plenary discussion.

We encourage both east-west and inter-Asian comparative approaches and would particularly
welcome contributions by alumni of JSA’s Freeman Foundation intensive workshops on Japan
held between 2002 and 2013. Please contact colleagues with whom you share pedagogical andresearch interests and form a panel or a roundtable; this results in more engaging presentations
and follow-up discussions. We would also welcome your suggestions for a Japanese literary,
historical or theoretical text to provide the focus of the plenary discussion.
Send an abstract for an individual presentation of approximately 250 words or a 500-word
proposal for a themed panel, roundtable or staged reading that contains the names, institutional
affiliation and contact information of all presenters to Maggie Ivanova(Maggie.Ivanova@flinders.edu.au) and Tom Campbell (campbelt3@gmail.com).
The deadline for proposals is 30 September 2013.

Japan Studies Association Journal
JSAJ publishes one volume per year of essays and reviews intended to interest our members andothers who are infusing Japanese material in their courses. This year’s call for papers appears
below. We would especially invite review essays and reflections by former Freeman fellows on
how the Freeman experience has affected their teaching and their thinking about Japan. These
reflections should be both descriptive and analytical, and take into consideration that theaudience is fellow infusers of Japanese material. Length of submissions of any kind is flexible.
JSAJ is a refereed journal indexed in EBSCO. We are in the process of archiving a searchable
version of JSAJ on our publisher’s website. More news about this after it has been completed.
We hope all readers of this newsletter will take a look at the call for papers, and consider
submitting an article to JSAJ. Share you insights with the rest of us! Please do not hesitate toemail John Paine, painestover@gmail.com, with any questions or ideas for articles you may
have.

The Freeman Institute in Hawaii Leads to Study Abroad in Japan:
A Brief Personal Reflection
In 2008, I knew very little about Japanese literature and culture, but I was curious. My
acceptance into the Freeman Institute, a three-week seminar in Japanese culture held at Tokai
University in Honolulu Hawaii changed everything for me. Not only was my time in Hawaii
memorable because of exposure to new ideas, the Japanese language, and wonderful people whoare still part of my life (to say nothing of the beach!), it also initiated opportunities in teaching,studying abroad in Japan, presenting papers at JSA conferences, and developing collegial
relationships in JSA. I am still no expert in Japanese culture or literature, but I am a life-longappreciator who will continue to seek knowledge of a culture that fascinates me, and who willcontinue to pass on what I know and love about that culture to students in my classes.
Just briefly, let me tell you about the Freeman Institute:
In addition to the daily lessons in Japanese and lectures in Japanese culture by experts in politicalscience, art, religion, theater, literature, and history, we also participated in local shrine visits,
Taiko drumming, Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), a Lantern Floating Ceremony at Ala
Moana Beach to honor loved ones who have passed away, a traditional tea ceremony, fine dining
Japanese style, and a mini-Noh play written and performed by Carol Davis, Janine Fujioka, andme! We learned by doing, not simply listening, thereby internalizing the knowledge and making
it our own to keep for life. We also had free time to go to the beach, hike, shop and explore theisland (or islands).That kind of learning leads to more engaged teaching. Since the Freeman
institute, I have broadened my academic career by including Japanese women writers into mymemoir courses, and by including Japanese poets into my poetry classes. But more than that, I
have passed on a spark for appreciating Japanese literature to my students, who have had thepleasure of writing haiku, rengas, and zuihitsu.
Best of all, I was given the opportunity to co-lead a study abroad trip to Japan with mycolleagues Jonathan Thorndike and John Paine. As anyone who travels or studies abroad knows,
there is nothing like actually being in a place to appreciate it. I encourage anyone who is curious
about Japan to apply to the Freeman Institute, and I encourage anyone who has alreadyparticipated in the Institute to keep Japan studies alive in their careers, in JSA, and in their lives.
–Andrea Stover