Past Japan@IHJ
Staying Power: Lessons for Japan
Lecturer: Michael A. CusumanoSloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Moderator: Nishiguchi Toshihiro, Hitotsubashi University
Date: Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 7:00 pm-
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
As we continue in an era of innovation, enabled by digital technologies, corporate managers around the world are asking themselves, how can we adapt to rapid changes in technology and markets? Examining in depth the practices of global corporations, Prof. Cusumano will discuss the principles that give firms staying power to cope with unpredictable change.
Michael A. Cusumano: Received a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in the software business as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. He has consulted for more than ninety firms around the world. His major publications include Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People (Simon & Schuster, 1998) and Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (Oxford University Press, 2010). The Japanese translation of Staying Power is scheduled to be published in January 2012 by Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha.
New Japan Architecture: Recent Works and New Trends
Lecturers: Geeta Mehta, Adjunct Professor, Columbia UniversityDeanna MacDonald, Art and Architecture Historian
Moderator: Edward Suzuki, Architect
Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 7:00 pm-
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
Today Japanese architecture remains at the forefront of global trends: pure white cubes, daring forms, technological innovation and, now more than ever, the move towards a more sustainable architecture, in which the techniques and forms of traditional Japanese architecture are informing a whole new generation of cutting-edge design worldwide. Based upon their newly released book New Japan Architecture (Tuttle Publishing, 2011), in this lecture, Dr. Mehta and Dr. MacDonald, will talk about some of the best examples of recent residential, public and commercial architecture in Japan, while tracing the emergence of important future trends.
Geeta Mehta:
Adjunct Professor of Architecture at Columbia University in New York, and Partner of Braden & Mehta Design. Received her Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, and an M.S. in architecture and urban design from Columbia University. Her major
publications include Japan Style (Tuttle Publishing, 2005), Japan Houses (Tuttle Publishing, 2005), Japan Living (Tuttle Publishing, 2008), and Japan Gardens (Tuttle Publishing, 2008).
Deanna MacDonald:
Canada-born art and architecture historian and writer living in Tokyo. Received her M.A. from the Central European
University in Budapest and a Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in medieval and renaissance art and architecture.
Her interdisciplinary research into culture and heritage has produced books on art and architecture in Prague, art in New York and Paris and, most recently, in Japan.
After graduating Harvard University, Edward Suzuki worked for Buckminster Fuller and Sadao Inc., Isamu Noguchi Studio, and Kenzo Tange Associates. In 1977, he founded his own firm and has won many awards, including Japan Architects Association's House of the Year Award and Good Design Award from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry.
The Legends of Tono 100 Years Later:
Fantasy or Lesson for Current-day Japan?
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.31, No.2, 2011.]
Speaker: Ronald A. Morse, CEO, Annapolis InternationalModerator: Uesugi Tomiyuki, Professor, Seijo University; Director, Center for Glocal Studies, Institute of Folklore Studies
Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
In 1910, Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) published The Legends of Tono, the first of over 100 books that serve as the foundation of his folklore studies of Japan. Yanagita, while seeking to identify and preserve the culture and religious traditions of village life as found in Tono, Iwate Prefecture, was also a realist about the impact of modernization on Japan. He saw how modernity transformed a nation into an urban, centralized form of government that changed education, social relations, religion, and much else.
When the Kanto earthquake struck Tokyo in 1923, Yanagita, then in London serving with the League of Nations, rushed home and was shocked at the devastation. The same was true during World War II when he wrote his major study on Japanese ancestor worship. If Yanagita were alive today, he would have pointed to the historical lessons of coastal tsunami warnings that were ignored. Having translated The Legends of Tono into English in 1975 and watched the transformation of Tono over the last 40 years, Dr. Morse will explore the lessons of Yanagita痴 studies for the cultural, environmental and social issues of Japan today.
Ronald A. Morse: Received his Ph.D. in history from Princeton. His publications include Yanagita Kunio and the Folklore Movement: The Search for Japan's National Character and Distinctiveness (New York: Garland, 1990). He is currently editing a book about Yanagita Kunio studies around the world. He has served at a variety of academic and research institutions, ranging from the Library of Congress, Economic Strategy Institute, University of Maryland, Reitaku University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was also a well-known commentator on US-Asian affairs during the height of US-Japan economic tensions in the 1980s and 1990s. For over a decade, he published the "Morse Target---a Guide to Washington痴 Movers and Shakers on Japan."
Before the Big Four:
Competition and Industrial Policy in Japan's Postwar Motorcycle Industry, 1945-70
Speaker: Jeffrey W. Alexander, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Moderator: Fujimoto Takahiro, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo
Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2011, 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
Japan's postwar economic growth and industrial policy have been examined in a variety of studies focusing upon the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the activities of dozens of successful manufacturing firms. While these studies have made critical contributions to the literature of MBA programs worldwide, their preoccupation with success has produced a distinctly one-sided "victor's history.
When examining the oral testimony of the entrepreneurs who headed some of the 200 motorcycle manufacturers who were driven out of business by Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, however, we discover that Japan's postwar industrial community was more complex, better organized, and more ruthlessly competitive than the existing literature indicates. An intensifying price-war, a series of betrayals and broken "gentlemen's agreements," and the impact of industry-driven competition forced several dozen makers out of business before 1970--and reveals that MITI's later effort to prepare Japan's automotive sector to compete in international markets was a virtual afterthought. In this lecture, Dr. Alexander will talk about alternate stories behind the success of Japan痴 postwar motorcycle industry.
Jeffrey W. Alexander: Received his Ph.D. in History from the University of British Columbia. His research explores Japan's history through the eyes of its leading manufacturers. His major publications include Japan's Motorcycle Wars: An Industry History (UBC Press & University of Hawai'i Press, 2008). Currently, he is finalizing his book on Japan痴 beer industry.
Trilateral Cooperation Between the United States, Japan, and South Korea Toward Stabilization of the Korean Peninsula
Speaker: Peter M. Beck, CFR-Hitachi Fellow
Moderator: Soeya Yoshihide, Professor, Keio University
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 7:00pm-
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
China and North Korea's increasingly provocative behavior has created an opportunity for improving trilateral security cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea. Moreover, the current leaders in the three countries make it possible to improve cooperation and coordination over a range of issues, including humanitarian assistance and human rights. After reviewing the record on trilateral cooperation over the past few years, Dr. Beck will assess in this lecture the extent to which further efforts could be made. In particular, he will address the issue of whether it is time to revive or create more formal trilateral institutions, such as the Trilateral Cooperation and Oversight Group (TCOG).
Peter M. Beck is the Council on Foreign Relations-Hitachi Research Fellow at Keio University痴 Institute of East Asian Studies. He also teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. and Ewha Womans University in Seoul. Previously, he was the Pantech Research Fellow at Stanford University痴 Asia Pacific Research Center. He has served as the executive director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and directed the International Crisis Group痴 Northeast Asia Project in Seoul. He was also the Director of Research and Academic Affairs at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C. He has also served as a member of the Ministry of Unification痴 Policy Advisory Committee and as a columnist for Donga Ilbo, Weekly Chosun, and The Korea Herald. He has published over 100 academic and short articles and testified before Congress. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, completed the Korean language program at Seoul National University, and conducted his graduate studies at U.C. San Diego痴 Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.
Photographer, Ishimoto Yasuhiro, 適atsura and Modernism in Postwar Japan
Speaker: Ishimoto Yasuhiro, PhotographerInterviewer: Nakamori Yasufumi, Assistant Curator, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Date: Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 7:00pm-
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: Japanese (no English translation provided)
(C) Ishimoto Yasuhiro, From the series 適atsura (1953-54)
Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
2009.2.17 Gift of the artist in memory of Ishimoto Shigeru
Ishimoto Yasuhiro (b. 1921) is among the most distinguished living photographers. Focusing on Ishimoto痴 Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture (1960), this program will shed light on the nexus between Ishimoto痴 photography, the Bauhaus aesthetics, and architecture in postwar Japan. Putting Ishimoto痴 photography in a historical context, including the so-called 鍍radition debate in the 1950s, this program will explore the impact of Ishimoto痴 photography then and now.
Ishimoto Yasuhiro: Born in San Francisco. Graduated from the Institute of Design in Chicago (currently the Illinois Institute of Technology). His numerous honors include the Young Photo-grapher痴 Contest, Life magazine (1950), and the Japan Photo Critics Association Award (1957). Named by the Japanese Government a Person of Cultural Distinction (1996). His exhibitions have been held widely throughout Japan and the United States. His major publications include Someday somewhere (Geibi Shuppansha, 1958), Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture (Zokeisha and Yale University Press, 1960), and Chicago, Chicago (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1969).
Nakamori Yasufumi, Ph.D.: Assistant Curator of Photography, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. His publications include Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro (Yale University Press, 2010).
Interpreting Japan痴 Mid-century Modernity: Imperial Japan at its Zenith
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.31, No.1, 2011.]
Date: Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, 7:00-8:30pm
Speaker: Kenneth J. Ruoff, Professor, Portland State University
Moderator: Totani Yuma, Associate Professor, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
In 1940, Japan was into the third year of its war with China, and relations with the United States were deteriorating, but it was a heady time for the Japanese nonetheless. That year, the Japanese commemorated the 2600th anniversary of the founding of the Empire of Japan. Characterizing the year was a coexistence of dark and light, of suffering and joy. In looking at these celebrations of Imperial Japan at its zenith and at wartime modernity, e.g. consumer culture and Imperial tourism, Dr. Ruoff will shed new light upon the history of Japan at mid-century.
Having earned a Ph.D. in Japanese history from Columbia University, Dr. Ruoff is widely regarded as the foremost authority on the contemporary Japanese monarchy. After a year as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University痴 Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, he joined Portland State University. He teaches courses on Japanese history, Japanese-American relations, the Japanese-American experience, and modernity. His major publications include The People痴 Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995 (Harvard University Press, 2001) and, Imperial Japan at Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire痴 2600th Anniversary (Cornell University Press, 2010). The Japanese translation of The People痴 Emperor, Kokumin no tenno (Kyodo News Publications, 2003), was awarded the Osaragi Jiro Prize for Commentary in 2004.
Japan's Long "Postwar": Japanese Studies in the U.S. and Japan-U.S. Relations
Date: Thursday, October 28, 7:00 pm
Speaker: Harry Harootunian / Professor Emeritus of History and East Asian Studies, New York University
Moderator: Ochi Toshio / Professor, Niigata University of International and Information Studies
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
*All seats are now filled so that no further reservations can be accepted. Thank you for your understanding.
Having taught at the University of Chicago for 25 years, Professor Harootunian is a noted scholar in the history of Japanese thought. His major publications include Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (University of Chicago Press, 1988), History Disquiet: Modernity, Cultural Practice and the Question of Everyday Life (Columbia University Press, 2000), and Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton University Press, 2000). With a focus on the development of Japanese Studies in the United States under the Cold War, in this lecture he will talk about how and why the 菟ostwar has been used as a cultural trope from the moment war ended, and explore the past, present, and future of Japan-U.S. relations.
How to Save Japan from the Global Financial Crisis
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.30, No.2, 2010.]
Date: Tuesday, July 6, 7:00 pm
Speaker: Hamada Koichi, Tuntex Professor of Economics, Yale University
Moderator: Robert Dujarric, Director, Institute of Contemporary
Asian Studies, Temple University, Japan Campus
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
*This program is organized in cooperation with the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University, Japan Campus
Recent financial crises around the world, such as the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007, the Lehman Brothers shock in 2008, and the current debt crisis of Greece, have all dramatically illustrated the vulnerability of corporate and state financial policies and the strong interdependence of economies. Monetary authorities of major countries counteracted these shocks to prevent adverse effects on their own economies by expanding money supply and real exchange devaluations. In this program, Prof. Koichi Hamada, who was once involved in policy making in Japan, will explain the background of the recent financial crises, his thoughts on the role and the recent policies taken by the Central Bank, and his solution to save the Japanese economy from this current global financial crisis.
Hamada Koichi: Born in 1936, specializes in the Japanese Economy and International Economics. Before going to Yale in 1986, he taught at the University of Tokyo. Prof. Hamada, who earned an LL.B. and M.A. in Economics (University of Tokyo), and M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics (Yale University), has held prominent positions such as the first President of the Economic and Social Research Institute (Keizai Shakai Sogo Kenkyujo), Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government, from 2001 to 2003. He advised the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (Keizai Zaisei Shimonkaigi), a body created to promote administrative reform chaired by former Prime Minister Koizumi. He also served as a member of the external evaluation team of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) Program of the IMF and was a member of an advisory group for the Director General of the WTO. Currently he is conducting research on comparisons of the political economy process of determining monetary policies in Japan and the United States on the Abe Fellowship program.
Robert Dujarric: Born 1961 in Paris. Graduate of Harvard College, holds an MBA from Yale University, Has worked in The First Boston Corporation, and Goldman Sachs. He was a Council on Foreign Relations Hitachi Fellow at RIETI, and Visiting Research Fellow, Japan Institute of International Affairs (Nihon Kokusai Mondai Kenkyusho). Major publications include America痴 Inadvertent Empire (Yale University Press, April 2004, with W.E. Odom).
The Edo Inheritance in Contemporary Japan
Talk by the Eighteenth Head of the House of Tokugawa
Date:
Wednesday, June 9, 7:00 pm
Speaker:Tokugawa Tsunenari, Eighteenth Head of the House of Tokugawa/Former executive vice-president of Nippon Yusen (NYK Line)
Moderator: Bettina Gramlich-Oka, Assistant Professor, Faculty of the Liberal Arts, Sophia University
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
The Tokugawa family served as shoguns during the Edo period, sometimes demonized as a dark ages when Japan adopted sakoku (a policy of national seclusion) and created a police state. Mr. Tokugawa Tsunenari, the eighteenth head of the main lineage of the Tokugawa family, will talk about the Edo period from his perspective as a descendant of the Tokugawa family and as a businessperson who has worked abroad amid the high growth period of the Japanese economy. He will talk about the egalitarian and peaceful nature of society in Edo, the development of an extensive education system for various classes, the significance of kogi (public domain) as a Japanese theory of human society in connection to the meaning of yakunin (public officials) and the sustainable development of this period, a legacy to be rediscovered by contemporary Japan.
Tokugawa Tsunenari: Born in Tokyo in 1940. After graduating from the Faculty of Political Science at Gakushuin University in 1964, he joined the NYK Line, one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Retiring as an executive vice-president in 2002, he became an advisor to the company. In 2003 he established the Tokugawa Memorial Foundation and became its president. He has served as WWF Japan chairman since 2007. Mr. Tokugawa spent two years in London as a student and a total of six years in New York as a businessperson. The English version of his book Edo no Idenshi (PHP Kenkyujo 2007) was published by the I-House Press* as The Edo Inheritance in 2009.
Bettina Gramlich-Oka: Ph.D. in Japanese Studies, Tübingen University, Assistant Professor of Japanese History at Sophia University. Prof. Gramlich-Oka has published on shogunal trade regulations and women of the Tokugawa period, including Thinking Like a Man: Tadano Makuzu (1763-1825) (Brill, 2006). She is the co-editor of the forthcoming volume Economic Thought in Early Modern Japan (Brill), and the guest-editor of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine for the special issue on "Illness and Society in Early Modern Japan."
*The I-House Press is the commercial book imprint of the International House of Japan. It publishes in English various works, including the fruits of the House's program activities as well as revised editions of selected works from the LTCB International Library series, for the purpose of promoting understanding of Japan abroad.
http://www.i-house.or.jp/en/publications/ihousepress/index.html
The Crooked Timber of Cherry: Japanese Cherry Blossoms
in Peace and War
Date:
Wednesday, March 31, 7:00 pm
Speaker: Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Professor, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Moderator: Ota Yoshinobu, Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
Professor Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Ph.D., is William F. Vilas Professor,
Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and occupied
the Kluge Distinguished Chair of Modern Culture at the Library of Congress
in 2009. Her work is focused on various symbols of the Japanese identity
in historical and comparative perspective, such as rice, the monkey, and
cherry blossoms, taken in a broader socio-political context. Her publications
include The Monkey as Mirror (Princeton University Press); Rice
as Self: Japanese Identities Through Time (Princeton University Press,
1993); Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization
of Aesthetics in Japanese History (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
and Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections on Japanese Student Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2006). In this lecture, she will discuss
the processes of the state manipulation of the meaning and aesthetics
of cherry blossoms since the beginning of Meiji to the end of World War
II.
Origins of World War II and the Future of U.S.- Asia
Relations
Date:
Monday, March 29, 7:00 pm
Speaker: James Bradley, Writer
Moderator: Akiyo Okuda, Professor, Keio University
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English & Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Co-sponsors: International House of Japan, Japan Society of Boston, U.S. Embassy
The New York Times No. 1 best-selling author, James Bradley, returns
to Japan to discuss his new book, The Imperial Cruise.
Bradley's current bestseller, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History
of Empire and War (Little, Brown and Company, 2009), documents that
Theodore Roosevelt based U.S.-Japanese relations on race theories he had
studied at Harvard and Columbia Universities and that Roosevelt agreed
a secret treaty with Tokyo to allow Japan to expand into Korea--all without
the knowledge of Congress or the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. The New
York Times wrote, "The Imperial Cruise is startling enough
to reshape conventional wisdom about Theodore Roosevelt's presidency."
James Bradley: An American historian of the Pacific. Studied at Sophia University in Tokyo. President of the James Bradley Peace Foundation, which for a decade has sent American high school students to live and study in Japan and China. Bradley's No. 1 best-seller, Flags of Our Fathers (Bantam, 2000), tells the story of six Americans who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, one of whom was Bradley's father, John Bradley. Clint Eastwood's movie version was released in 2006. Bradley's second book, Flyboys: A Story of Courage (Little, Brown and Company, 2003), details the secret executions of eight American flyboys on the island of Chi Chi Jima. One flyboy survived. His name was Lt. George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States.
Akiyo Okuda: She teaches at Keio University in Tokyo, specializing in American history and literature. She has received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the turn-of-the-century America, especially its racial aspects. Her most recent article, “‘A Nation is Born’: Thomas Dixon’s Vision of White Nationhood and His Northern Supporters,” was published in the Journal of American Culture in September 2009.
Stitching in Modern Times~The Sewing Machine, Women, and Consumers in 20th Century Japan
Date:
Wednesday, March 17, 7:00 pm
Speaker: Andrew Gordon, Professor, Harvard University
Moderator: Shunya Yoshimi, University of Tokyo
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
Having received his Ph. D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard
University, Professor Andrew Gordon taught at Duke University (1984.1995).
He joined the Harvard faculty in 1995. Prof. Gordon served as Director
of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute (1998.2004) and Chair of the Department
of History at the university (2004.2007). Centering upon labor relations
in Japan, he has been engaged in the studies of the modern history of
Japan as well as economic and cultural history. Focusing on the prominent
emergence of consumers in Japan's 20th century history, in this lecture,
Prof. Gordon will discuss the Singer Sewing Machine company's export to
Japan along with a modern concept of the family. He will also discuss
the multi-sided character of modern consumer life that was connected to
and promoted by this American export, touching on the"wartime modernity"
and the postwar ascendance of the Japanese consumer-oriented society.
His publications include The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan:
Heavy Industry, 1853.1955 (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 1985), Labor
and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan (University of California Press,
1991), Postwar Japan as History (editor, University of California
Press, 1993), The Wages of Affluence: Labor and Management in Postwar
Japan (Harvard University Press, 1998), A Modern History of Japan:
From Tokugawa Times to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2003),
and Nihonjin ga shiranai Matsuzaka mejaa kakumei [Matsuzaka's Unknown
Major League Revolution] (Asahi Shimbunsha, 2007).
Shunya Yoshimi: Specializing in Media and Cultural Studies; currently teaching at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo. His major publications include Cultural Turn for the Politics of Cultures (Jinbun Shoin, Kyoto, 2003) and Pro-America, Anti-America: Political Unconsciousness in Postwar Japan (Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo, 2007).
Rethinking Intellectual Legacy of Maruyama Masao
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.30, No.1, 2010.]
Date:
Wednesday, January 27, 7:00 pm
Speaker: Rikki Kersten, Professor, Australian National University
Moderator: Samuel H. Yamashita, Professor, Pomona College
Commentator: Karube Tadashi, Professor, University of Tokyo
Admission: Free (reservations required)
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
Maruyama Masao (1914.1996) has long been considered one of Japan's leading
postwar thinkers, whose ideas helped forge political science as a discipline
in postwar Japan. His intellectual presence continues to resonate in Japan
after his death, notably in the subject areas of liberal democracy, fascism,
the history of political thought in Japan, modernization, war responsibility
discourse, and analysis of Fukuzawa Yukichi.Since Maruyama's passing there
has been a strong, steady outpouring of works assessing or criticizing
his ideas. While this indicates ongoing interest in engaging with his
writings, to what extent does this sustained fascination with Maruyama
indicate a substantive intellectual legacy? In this lecture, Prof. Kersten
will contextualize the various appraisals of Maruyama, and try to elaborate
the nature of his intellectual legacy.
Majoring in the history of political ideas in modern Japan, Prof. Rikki Kersten does research on debates over Japan's war apology issue, historical revisionism and contemporary Japanese politics. After having taught at Sydney and Leiden universities, she joined the ANU in 2006 and served as Dean of the Faculty of Asian Studies until 2008. Her major publications include Democracy in Postwar Japan: Maruyama Masao and the Search for Autonomy (Routledge, 1996) and The Left in the Shaping of Japanese Democracy (co-editor and contributor) (Routledge, 2006)
Specializing in the study of traditional/modern Asian history, the Pacific war, intellectual history and Confucianism, Prof. Samuel H. Yamashita is Henry E. Sheffield Professor of History at Pomona College. His chief publications include Master Sorai's Responsals: An Annotated Translation of "Sorai sensei tomonsho" (University of Hawaii Press,1994) and Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese (University of Hawaii Press, 2005).
Specializing in the history of Japanese political thought, Prof. Karube Tadashi is a professor in the School of Legal and Political Studies at the University of Tokyo. His major publications include Utsuriyuku Kyoyo [Cultivation of Humanity and its Changing Forms] (NTT Shuppan, 2007) and Maruyama Masao and the Fate of Liberalism in Twentieth-Century Japan (I-House Press, 2008).
U.S.-Japan Relations Seen through the Lens of Baseball
The Meaning of Ichiro, Dice-K and Bobby V
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Speaker:
Robert Whiting, Journalist
Moderator: Ikei Masaru, Professor Emeritus,
Keio University
Date & Time: Wednesday, December 2 ,
2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
On the occasion of the publication of the new, updated version of his best-selling You Gotta Have Wa, Mr. Robert Whiting will talk about the recent changes that can be observed in U.S.-Japan relations through the lens of baseball. He will analyze the meaning of the World Baseball Classic, Japanese players such as Ichiro and Daisuke Matsuzaka making their mark in the major leagues, and the role of foreign players/managers in Japanese baseball, with a special focus on Bobby Valentine and Trey Hillman.
Mr. Whiting first came to Japan in 1962. After graduating from Sophia University with a degree in Japanese politics, he worked for Britannica Japan. He has lived in Japan for 31 years. His first book, The Chrysanthemum and the Bat (Dodd Mead, 1977), was chosen by Time as the best sports book of the year. Mr. Whiting is the author of several highly acclaimed books on contemporary Japan, including You Gotta Have Wa (MacMillan, 1989; Vintage, 2009); Tokyo Underworld (Pantheon, 1999), which describes organized crime in Japan and examines the corrupt side of the Japan-US relationship; and The Samurai Way of Baseball (Warner Books, 2005), which describes the impact on U.S. baseball of the outfielder Ichiro of the Seattle Mariners and other Japanese stars.
Article 9, Japanese Pacifism,
and American Militarism
Speaker:
John Junkerman, Film Director
Moderator: Takao Takahara, Professor, Meiji Gakuin University
Date & Time: Tuesday, September 29,
2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House
of Japan
Admission: Free
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
(Please note that Prof. Lee will not be able to attend as a moderator.
Prof. Takao Takahara of Meiji Gakuin University is going to serve as the
moderator instead.)
Born in Milwaukee, the United States, Mr. Junkerman is a leading American
filmmaker attempting to raise public awareness through his films on various
socio-political and historical issues facing Japan and the global community.
His first film was Hellfire;A Journey from Hiroshima (1986).
A co-production with John Dower, the noted historian, it is based on his
interviews with Iri and Toshi Maruki, Japanese artists known for their
Genbaku no zu (Hiroshima Murals); paintings dealing with the aftermath
of the atomic bombing, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988.
His Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times (2002) gives
viewers a rare opportunity to listen to and reflect on the critical discourse
of Noam Chomsky, one of the most important public intellectuals and political
dissidents of our time.
Introducing his film Japan's Peace Constitution (2005), in this
lecture/discussion meeting Mr. Junkerman will talk about the Constitution’s
Article 9 within the broad context of Japanese pacifism and American militarism.
Pink Globalization
Rethinking Japan’s Cute/Cool Trek
Across the Pacific
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.29, No.2, 2009.]
Speaker:
Christine R. Yano, Professor, University of Hawaii
Moderator: Masayuki Tadokoro, Professor, Keio University
Date & Time: Monday, June 1, 2009,
7:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: Free
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
In the late 2000s, Cool Japan has become not only a culture industry force,
but also a governmental concern. This presentation takes a critical look
at one aspect of Japan's "cool" moment--what she calls "pink
globalization" or cute culture in its transnational consumption.
Focusing on Hello Kitty as an iconic site of pink globalization, Prof.
Yano examines numerous global appropriations of the product and the range
of meanings given to it, thereby highlighting the practices, hierarchies,
and meanings of the highly commodified “contact zone” of Japanese
goods outside of Japan.
With a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii, Prof. Christine R. Yano is a noted scholar who specializes in popular culture and national identity in Japan. Her books include Tears of Longing (Harvard University Press, 2002), Crowning the Nice Girl (University of Hawaii Press, 2006), and Airborne Dreams (Duke University Press, forthcoming). She is currently working on a book manuscript on Japanese cute culture, as well as conducting ongoing research on Pan American World Airways in postwar Japan.
What I’ve Learned from Japanese Photography
Speaker:
Leo Rubinfien, Photographer
Moderator: Yoshitaka Mouri, Associate Professor, Tokyo
University of the Arts
Date & Time: Thursday, April 23,
2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Banquet Room, International House of Japan
Admission: Free
Language: English (no Japanese translation provided)
Mr. Leo Rubinfien is an acclaimed photographer and essayist, who served
as guest co-curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's 2004 retrospective
of the work of the great Japanese photographer Shomei Tomatsu. Mr. Rubinfien's
work is in the permanent collections of major museums in America, Europe,
and Japan, while his writings on photographers of the 20th century are
regarded as important texts in the field. His exhibition "Wounded
Cities," currently on view in the United States, addresses the psychological
impact of terrorism on people in cities throughout 
the
world. His books include A Map of the East (David R. Godine and
Thames & Hudson, 1992), Shomei Tomatsu / Skin of the Nation
(Co-author with Sandra S. Phillips and John W. Dower, San Francisco MoMA
& Yale University Press, 2004), and Wounded Cities (Steidl,
2008). In this lecture/discussion meeting, he will give a talk on Japanese
and Western photography from a comparative perspective, with special attention
to the work of Tomatsu. ©Shomei
Tomatsu
