2004 I-House Public Programs

Lecture
Peace and Human Rights Education in an Age of Global Terror

  • Lecturer: Betty Reardon
    Founding Director Emeritus, Peace Education Center
    Teacher’s College, Columbia University
  • Date & Time: Thursday, November 25, 2004 7:00 pm
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan

Betty Reardon

Having received her M.A. in history from New York University and an Ed.D. in international education from Columbia University, Professor Reardon is an esteemed, action-oriented scholar in the realm of peace and gender studies. While teaching at Columbia University, she has served as Director for the International Institute on Peace Education and as academic coordinator for the Hague Appeal for Peace Global Campaign for Peace Education. Due to her longtime dedication to peace activities in all parts of the world, including her commitment to the resolution of military violence in Okinawa, she was awarded honorable mention by the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education 2001. Her current teaching is in the peace education certificate program offered at the Teachers College Tokyo campus. Professor Reardon has authored and edited many books on peace education and human security, including Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility (Teachers College Press, 1988), Education for Human Dignity: Learning & Rights and Responsibility (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), Sexism & War System (Syracuse University Press, 1996), and Tolerance: The Threshold of Peace (UNESCO, 1997).

A Talk By Nancy Kassebaum Baker

  • Lecturer: Nancy Kassebaum Baker
    Former United States Senator from Kansas
  • Date & Time: Monday, November 15, 2004 7:00 pm
  • Venue: Reception Room, International House of Japan
  • Language: English only

Nancy Kassebaum Baker

As the daughter of Kansas Governor and 1936 Republican Presidential nominee Alfred M. Landon, Ms. Nancy Kassebaum Baker grew up in a political family. After receiving an M.A. in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan, Ms. Kassebaum Baker entered public life in Washington in 1975 where she took a job as an aide to Kansas Senator James B. Pearson. When Pearson retired in 1978, she successfully vied against eight other candidates for his Senate seat and served as a Republican in the United States Senate for 18 years. During her tenure, she was the first woman to chair a major U.S. Senate Committee — Labor and Human Resources — and was a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations with a focus upon African issues. Currently resident in Japan with her husband, United States Ambassador Howard H. Baker, Jr., she is engaged in a variety of cultural and educational activities furthering friendly and cooperative relations between the United States and Japan.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the International House of Japan and the Asiatic Society of Japan.

International House of Japan / Japan Foudation
Asia Leadership Fellow Program

A Public Symposium
Acting Asian:Contradictions in a Globalizing World

  • Date & Time: October 26 (Tue) & 27 (Wed), 2004 6-9pm
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan

The Asia Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP) invites you to listen to and interact with intellectuals from seven Asian countries who will address some of the most urgent issues confronting Asians in today’s world. Reacting to mounting contradictions in the globalization process, Asian countries are redefining and asserting their identities, spontaneously and self-consciously. Each year, the ALFP invites distinguished intellectuals from Asian nations to spend two months in Japan and collaborate on concerns crucial to Asia. The Program encourages dialogue among the Fellows with a view to generating new ideas and visions for the region during, and even after, the Program. The present Fellows, for some weeks now, have been working on the theme of “Identity, Security and Democracy,” by engaging in seminars, workshops, personal study and field trips. This symposium presents to the Japanese public their individual works, highlighting common concerns as well as differing perspectives.

  • Tuesday, October 26
  • “Changing Roles of Women On and Off Stage”
    Lecturer: Faye Chunfang Fei (China), Professor, English Department/ Director of American Studies Program, East China Normal University
  • “Indonesian Islamic Fundamentalism: Challenge to Democracy”
    Lecturer: Jamhari (Indonesia), Executive Director, Center for the Study of Islam and Society, State Islamic University (PPIM-UIN, Jakarta)
  • “Creating the South Asian Women: A Perspective from Sri Lanka “
    Lecturer: Chandrika Sepali Kottegoda (Sri Lanka), Founding Member and Director, The Women and Media Collective
  • “English, Education, and Filipino Identity “
    Lecturer: Karina Africa Bolasco (Philippines), Publishing Manager, Anvil Publishing, Inc.
  • Wednesday, October 27
  • “Child Labor in Vietnam: A Challenge to Development “
    Nguyen Van Chinh (Vietmam), Senior Lecturer, Department of Ethnology/ Deputy Director, Center for Asian-Pacific Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi
  • “Questioning the Quality of Growth in Japan “
    Kusago, Takayoshi (Japan), Associate Professor, Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration, Hokkaido University
  • “Quality of Life: A Bhutanese View”
    Kinley Dorji (Bhutan), Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Kuensel

Lecture
On Translation

  • Lecturer:  Edward Seidensticker Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
  • Date & Time: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 7:00 pm
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
  • Language: English only
  • This lecture is being co-sponsored by the International House of Japan and UC Berkeley Japan Alumni Association.

Edward Seidensticker

Dr. Edward Seidensticker is acknowledged as one of the finest of translators from the Japanese. His versions of the works of Kawabata Yasunari, Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, the Lady Murasaki Shikibu are, indeed, themselves literature. Snow Country, The Makioka Sisters, The Tale of Genji, these translations and many more can be said to have called world attention to Japanese literature, and Kawabata himself said that if Seidensticker had not translated his novels he would not have won the Nobel Prize.

Beginning his career as an interpreter during the Pacific War, Mr. Seidensticker joined the State Department as a translator, and then taught successively at Stanford, Michigan, and Columbia Universities. In this lecture he will discuss the issues and the problems that he has encountered in his nearly fifty years of translating Japanese novels and stories into English. He will talk about the process, how he chooses his subject, and the comparative ease or difficulty of his authors as well as many other subjects and questions.

Lecture
Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World

  • Lecturer: Theodore C. Bestor
    Professor of Anthropology and Japanese Studies Harvard University
  • Date & Time: Thursday, July 22, 2004 7:00 pm
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
  • Language: English only

Theodore C. Bestor

Professor Bestor, who received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University, is a noted scholar in social anthropology and Japanese studies, and past president of the Society for Urban Anthropology and the East Asian Studies Section of the American Anthropological Association. Professor Bestor has spent more than a decade doing fieldwork at fish markets and fishing ports in Japan, North America, Korea, and Europe, especially with a focus on how economic transaction is embedded in social institution. Based on this perspective, he discusses the complex mechanism of Tsukiji, the world’s largest marketplace for seafood, and its global reach. Recently, he has just published a book entitled Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World (University of California Press, 2004). His major publications include Neighborhood Tokyo (Stanford University Press, 1989) and Doing Fieldwork in Japan (co-edited with Patricia G. Steinhoff and Victoria Bestor; University of Hawaii Press, 2003).

Lecture
Japan’s New Cultural Diplomacy
– A Personal View with a Historical Perspective

  • Kazuo Ogura, President, The Japan Foundation
  • Wednesday, June 16, 2004 7:00pm
  • Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
  • Language: English with simultaneous Japanese Translation

Kazuo Ogura

Mr. Ogura joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs upon graduation from the University of Tokyo in 1962. He earned a graduate degree in economics from Cambridge University during his first two years of diplomatic training. The major posts he held prior to serving as ambassador in three countries-Viet Nam (1994-95); Korea (1997-99) and France (1999-2002)-included Director General of Cultural Affairs Bureau, Director General of the Economic Affairs Bureau, and Deputy Minister. Known as a diplomat/scholar-he was a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo and currently is a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University-Mr. Ogura has authored a number of monographs, articles and books on a wide range of subjects from trade issues to contemporary history. Among them are: “A Call for a New Concept of Asia,” Japan Echo (Volume XX, Number 3, Autumn 1993); “Japan’s Asia Policy, Past and Future,” Japan Review of International Affairs (Volume 10, No.1, Winter 1996); “Has Japan Changed Enough?,” GAIKO FORUM (June 2000); Pari no Shu On-rai (Zhou Enlai in Paris. Chuo Koron-sha, 1990); To-zai Bunka Masatsu (Cultural Friction between East and West. Chuo Koron-sha, 1992) and Chugoku no Ishin, Nihon no Kyoji (Dignity of China, Pride of Japan. Chuo Koron-shin-sha, 2001). Mr. Ogura joined the Japan Foundation as its seventh president in October last year.

Report on American after school activities and open discussion
Education Reform through After School Programs

  • Speaker:
    Keijiro Kawakami, 2002-03 US-Japan Foundation Media Fellow / TBS
    Yoichi Akashi, Professor of Educational Sociology, Chiba University
  • Date & Time: Monday, March 29, 2004
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
  • Language: Japanese only
  • For further details of the program, please visit our Japanese website.

Presentations by Nitobe Fellows on their Research Overseas

  • Date & Time:Thursday, March 18, 2004
    16:30-18:00 Presentations/18:00-19:00 Reception
  • Venue: International House of Japan
  • Language: Japanese only

The International House of Japan initiated the Nitobe Fellowships for Japanese Social Scientists in 1976 for the purpose of providing Japanese social science scholars with an opportunity to engage in advanced studies at overseas institutions. Named in honor of the late Dr. Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933), this program aims at fostering a new generation of potential leaders in the broad area of the social sciences. This program is currently supported by the Japan Foundation, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Asia Center of Japan and the Kikawada Foundation. As of February, 2004, 159 fellowships have been granted and presently eight fellows are conducting their research abroad.

The following four fellows, who returned to Japan in the past year, will present their research and talk about their experiences overseas as Nitobe Fellows. Outlines of their presentation will be available on this website. The presentations will be in Japanese with no English translation.

[2001-02 Fellows]

  • TAKESADA IWAHASHI, Associate Professor, University of Tokyo (Environmental Law & Policy, Administrative Law); Lewis & Clark College, Northwestern School of Law (U.S.A.); The mechanism to make decision-makers to take environmental value into consideration
  • ITARU NEMOTO, Associate Professor, Kobe University (Labour Law, Seafarers Law); Ruhr-Universitat Bochum (Germany); The legal regulations of homeworker in Germany
  • HARUHISA NISHINO, Lecturer, Chiba University (Econometrics, Time Series Analysis, Statistics) ; London School of Economics and Political Science (U.K.); Nonstationary and long-memory time series

[2001-02 Fellows]

  • YASUHIKO KARASAWA, Associate Professor, Ritsumeikan University (Socio-cultural history of China, 14-20 centuries); UCLA (U.S.A.) ; Civilizing process in late imperial China: Ordinary manners and education of the elite
  • [Moderator]
    TAKASHI KATO, Executive Director, Seikei Gakuen; Professor, Seikei University (Nitobe Fellow 1979-81)

A report in Japanese by Midori Iijima (Associate Professor, Rikkyo University; Latin American Studies, History / Ibero-African Relations; Central American University, El Salvador) is printed in Kokusai BunkaKaikan Kaiho, Vol.14, No.2, Autumn 2003.

Lecture
Rethinking “Japan”: Frontiers and Minorities in Modern Japan

  • Lecturer: Tessa Morris-Suzuki Professor, Australian National University
  • Date & Time: Friday, February 27, 2004 7:00 pm
  • Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Having received a Ph.D. from the University of Bath, Tessa Morris-Suzuki holds a chair in Japanese history at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. She has done in-depth research on the social effects of technological change and on issues of national identity in modern Japan. She is currently engaged in a collaborative research project on border controls in Asia and has just started to write a series of articles entitled “Enduring Freedom” in the journal “Sekai” published by Iwanami Shoten. Her books include Showa: An Inside History of Hirohito’s Japan (Athlone, 1984), Beyond Computopia: Information, Automation and Democracy in Japan (Kegan Paul International, 1988), A History of Japanese Economic Thought (Routledge, 1989), The Technological Transformation of Japan (Cambridge University Press, 1994), and Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (M.E. Sharpe, 1998). This lecture will examine the modern history of Japan’s frontiers, and consider their impact on the lives of minority communities in Japan. Japan is often seen as an “island nation” whose frontiers are determined by geography. But a closer look at Japan’s frontiers suggests that they are products of history, and have changed repeatedly in response to political changes in East Asia. An exploration of the impact of changing frontiers on the lives of minority groups such as Ainu, Okinawans and Koreans in Japan is important to understanding the contemporary significance of Japan’s frontiers in the twenty-first century world of global human mobility.