Japan Studies Association of Canada
24th Annual Conference
August 18-21, 2011
Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Thursday, August 18
2:30-4:00 PhD dissertation workshop (Atrium 306)
Shiho Maeshima, University of British Columbia
Robin O’Day, University of British Columbia
Robert Mamada, University of Hawaii
Sally Hastings, Purdue University
Bill Sewell, Saint Mary’s University
6:00-8:00 Conference icebreaker (Sobey 4th Floor Lounge)(Sandwiches and cash bar)Conference registration begins
Friday, August 19
8:30 Registration opens (Sobey 159)
(Coffee, tea, and light snacks available)
9:00-10:00
Plenary Session (Sobey 160; Chair: Fumiko Ikawa-Smith)
Funatsu Madoka, Cultural Attaché, Consulate General of Japan at Montreal,“Japan’s Response to 3/11”
Refreshment break
10:15-11:45

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Conference Program (Draft)

Panel 1: 3/11 (Sobey 165; Chair: Gregory Wheeler)
Yasushi Miyazaki, Nihon Fukushi University, “Developments and Challenges
for Community Radio in Natural Disasters: Lessons from the Great HanshinAwaji Earthquake (Kobe) and the Great East Japan Earthquake (Sendai)”Joseph DeChicchis, Kwansai Gakuin, “Political Geography and Natural Disaster
Surrealism: March Observations of the Tohoku Earthquake”
Fumiko Ikawa-Smith, McGill University, “Archaeologists and Earthquakes ofPast, Present, and Future”
Panel 2: Digital Japan (Sobey 160; Chair: Teri Bryant)
Ken Coates, University of Waterloo, “Digital Media in Japan”
Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba, “Social Media Grows Up:
The Rise of Social Media in Japan 2010-2011”
Robert Mamada, University of Hawaii, “What Roles Do Web Sites Play inCulture and Business Competition? A Content Analysis of Seventy-Five
Maid Cafés in Japan”
12:00-1:30
Lunch (Sobey 4th Floor Lounge)
1:30-3:00
Panel 3: Pedagogical Issues (Sobey 165; Chair: Yuko Shibata)
Gregory Wheeler, Sapporo Medical University, “‘It’s Part of their Culture’:
Exploring the Myth of Japanese Acceptance of Plagiarism”
Tsuneko Iwai, McMaster University, “The Voice of a Teacher: The Role of theTeacher’s Journal in Action Research”
Norio Ota, York University, “Paradigm Shift and Washback in TJFL”
Panel 4: Issues involving the Prewar Japanese Empire (Sobey 160; Chair: TomWaldichuk)

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Conference Program (Draft)

Sergey Tolstoguzov, Hiroshima University, “Russian-Japanese Relations after
the Russo-Japanese War and World Politics, 1905-1907”
Robert Perrins, Acadia University, “The Environment and Public Health inColonial Manchuria”
William Tait, Carleton University, “Bureaucracy Meets Theology: The Canadian
United Church in Interwar Colonial Korea”
3:30-6:00
Reception (Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery)(Light snacks and cash bar available)
Exhibit: selections from the John Robinson photographic collection (Meiji- andTaisho-era Japan, Korea, China, and along the Trans-Siberian Railway)
Keynote address: Mariko Tamanoi, UCLA, “Sensibility, ‘Categories,’ and theEast Asian Community” (Chair: Norio Ota)
Saturday, August 20
8:30 Registration opens (Sobey 159)
(Coffee, tea, and light snacks)
9:00-10:30
JSAC Annual Business Meeting (Sobey 165; no panels)
Refreshment break
10:45-12:15
Panel 5: The Built Environment (Sobey 165; Chair: Tsuneko Iwai)
Atsuko Hashimoto, Brock University, and David Telfer, Brock University, “AsoFarmland, Kumamoto, Japan: Building Linkages Between Hobbit Homes,
Local Produce and Tourist Wellbeing”
Tom Waldichuk, Thompson Rivers University, “Resilient Rural Places: The
Commodification of Landscapes in Ushiku City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan”
Brian Pendleton, Langara College, “Sukiya Living: Myths and Applications inJapanese Garden Design”

JSAC 2011Conference Program (Draft)

Panel 6: Minority Communities (Sobey 160; Chair: Peter Firkola)
Michael Laver, Rochester Institute of Technology, “Through A Glass Darkly:
Christianity and the Politics of Control in Tokugawa Japan”
Nikita Kovrigin, St. Petersburg State University, “Formation of the Chinese
Community in Japan: Past and Present”
Scott Harrison, University of Waterloo, “Indigeneity and the Cold War in Japan”
12:30-1:30
Lunch (Sobey 4th Floor Lounge)
1:30-3:00
Panel 7: Japan and the Natural World (Sobey 165; Chair: Brian Pendleton)
C.S. Takagaki, University of Toronto, “The Japanese Response to the NaturalDisaster”
Yuzo Ota, McGill University, “Inoue Yōji (1927- ) and Christianity Congenial
to the Japanese: With Special Reference to Religious Significance of Nature
in Japanese Culture”
Yuko Shibata, University of British Columbia, “Cultural Continuity andStrength: Sakura (Flowering Cherry) in Japan and Canada”
Panel 8: Interwar and Wartime Japan (Sobey 160; Chair: Kimie Hara)
Shiho Maeshima, Hosei University, “Constructed/Constructing Bodies in theAge of the New Middle Class: Representations of Everyday Life in theJapanese Interwar Women’s Magazine”
Teri Jane Bryant, University of Calgary, “Marketing Combat: Military Comic
Postcard Propaganda for a Hot War”
Kiyoshi Ueda, Hosei University, “Hiraizumi Kiyoshi (1895-1984):
Sanctification of National History in Wartime Japan and Beyond”
Refreshment BreakJSAC 2011
Conference Program (Draft)

3:15-4:45
Panel 9: Contemporary Society (Sobey 165; Chair: Kiyoshi Ueda)
Robin O’Day, University of British Columbia, “Union is Hope: Organizing
Japan’s Young Irregular Workers into Community Unions”
Satsuki Kawano, University of Guelph, “Scattering Cremated Ashes inContemporary Japan”
William H. Bridges IV, Princeton University, “The Comedy of Survival and theLaw of Death: The Ethics of Laughter in Postwar Japan”
Panel 10: Japan in the Contemporary World (Sobey 160; Chair: ShinjiTakagaki)Peter Firkola, Hokkaido University, “Japanese Recruitment Practices: Before
and After the Global Financial Crisis”
Evgeny B. Kovrigin, Seinan Gakuin, “Evolution of Japan’s Development
Assistance (ODA) to China: From Heyday to Decline”
Kimie Hara, University of Waterloo, “Kanreki from San Francisco: Rethinking
the Japanese Borders in the Shifting Regional Order in East Asia”
6:30 Banquet (Georgian Lounge, Lord Nelson Hotel, 1515 South Park Street)(Cash bar)Presentation of Klaus Pringsheim Award
Keynote address: Yoshino Kosaku, Sophia University, “Nationalism, Patriotism
and Transnational Imagination: Personal Reflections” (Chair: Ken Coates)
Sunday, August 21(No panels scheduled)
Field trips:Halifax Harbor Cruise (late morning)
Pier 21 (early afternoon)