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Conference Schedule Traffic and Diaspora: Political,
Economic, and Cultural February 25th &
February 26th, 2005 Registration: * * Panel participants & Paper descriptions: Eiichiro Azuma (plenary speaker) Between Two Empires: Interpreting a transnational dimension of Japanese Migrant Experience in North America Azuma's paper will probe the meanings of "transnationalism" and "diaspora" in the history of Japanese migration to North America before the Pacific War. In particular, he will examine the possibilities and limitations of these conceptual categories as analytical frames for studies of Japanese transmigrants, who attempted to negotiate but not transcend the tight grips of the two commanding nation-states: Japan and the United States. Instead of abstract theoretical formulations, Azuma's discussion will draw from concrete examples and empirical data that have derived from his own archival research and close readings of primary source materials produced by the migrants themselves. "Authenticity" panel Christine Yano (chair)
"Inventing Jazztowns and Globalizing Local Identities in Japan" In Blue Nippon, I argued that jazz artists and aficionados developed a variety of musical and discursive strategies to authenticate a foreign art form performed and appreciated by Japanese. Here I investigate the ways in which local governments and citizens' groups (mainly in Yokohama and Kobe) have used jazz to authenticate their local identities and their place in a national narrative of internationalization (kokusaika). The appropriation of jazz -- hailed by so many as the quintessential global music -- as an integral element of local identities is indicative of a number of important themes in contemporary Japanese experience: the quest to define distinctive local identities; the centrality of cosmopolitan experience to that process of local, indigenous identity formation; and the concomitant aesthetic, social, and institutional legitimization of an art once regarded as emblematic of cultural imperialism and the annihilation of indigenous social and aesthetic values. Jane Park "Stylistic Crossings: Visions of the Techno-Oriental Future in Anime and US Cyberpunk Cinema" This paper looks at the different ways in which "cyberpunk" themes and motifs appear in Hollywood cinema and Japanese animation. More specifically, it compares how feature anime films such as Akira and Ghost in the Shell and US cyberpunk films such as Blade Runner and The Matrix depict the relationship between human and machine, and ultimately re-defines the category of the "human" with respect to issues of national, racial, and sexual difference. It uses a comparative approach to analyze the texts and contexts of these films, drawing on social science, historical, and literary models from Film and Media Studies, Asian American Studies, and Postcolonial Studies. What is "real" Japanese hip-hop? In this paper, I discuss a some Japanese rappers' approach to authenticity, one that emphasizes performance skills in nightclubs, the so-called genba or "actual site" of the Japanese rap music scene, and which suggests a way of understanding an emerging politics of transnational popular culture. Using musical examples, I show how this perspective can help us understand what may seem paradoxical, namely, how can youth be both Japanese and hip-hop?
"Communities" Panel Lili Kim (Chair)
"Japan's Modern Jazz Coffee shop as Cultural Space" During the 1960s and early 1970s, Japan‰s /jazu kissa/, or jazz coffeeshops, served as a cultural magnet for aspiring artists, writers, and intellectuals. This paper situates the /jazu kissa /in its contemporary historical context while examining it as a vital cultural institution in which American, specifically African American, music was introduced to an entire generation of Japanese university students. I will discuss the ritualistic listening behavior of customers and ask what type of community is forged when a group of strangers sits together in darkness and silence, listening to the sounds of jazz blasted from oversized speakers. "Good bye, America: the origin and failure of anti-imperialist movement by Japanese emigres in the United States around World War II." This paper examines the nature of the the anti-war anti-imperialist movement by Japanese emigres in the United States and discusses reasons for its failure from different perspectives: ideological, racial and cultural and political. The reasons include: why they were affiliated with the American Communist Party; how they perceived a parallel between American racism toward Asians and Japanese racism toward Asians; and why they had to leave the United States after World War II. The paper attempts to evaluate a significance of their thinking in a confluence of American, Japanese and Chinese histories.
Lon Kurashige "Socialism, Sociology, and the Japanese Problem: The Case of E. A. Ross" E. A. Ross was a pioneer scholar in American sociology who captured broad attention in 1900 both for his sympathies to radical socialist ideas and antagonism against Japanese immigration. This paper seeks to connect Ross's conception of Japanese immigrants with that of his vision of American workers and the working classes, while grounding such a linkage in the exigencies of the newly professionalizing social sciences in the US. The goal is to complicate the definition of Japanese immigrant community by situating it within a complex web of relations to other communities in the social order of turn-of-the-century America.
"Return" panel Davinder Bhowmik (chair) Gary Y. Okihiro "Acting Japanese." Reflections
on the condition of diaspora in the Americas, specifically
the U.S., Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru, along with the shifting meanings
of "Japanese" as differentiated by subject positions,
place, and time. Joshua Roth "The Meanings of Mixture: Japanese Brazilian Adoption of Japanese Cultural and Linguistic Idioms in Contexts of Return" Most Japanese Brazilians did not speak Japanese fluently before going to work in Japan, and many remained largely unable to communicate after several years living there. Many, however, have begun to mix more and more Japanese into their everyday speech. What are the social consequences of this mixture, and what does is signify about Japanese Brazilian identification in contexts of "return"? David Mura Sex, Sci-Fi and Internment: One Sansei's Journey Using readings from his memoir, fiction and poetry, Mura will explore how Japan has affected his own work on the themes of sexuality and, more recently, science fiction. He will then suggest ways his own experiences with Japanese culture, given his status as a sansei or third generation Japanese American, both mirror and differ from that of mainstream American culture. Finally he will touch on his work with African American writer Alexs Pate and how his consideration of other people of color has changed his understanding of the internment and what it means to be a Japanese-American. |
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