MAJLS NEWSLETTER
Midwest Association for Japanese Literary Studies
No. 6 (Fall, 1997) Edited by Eiji Sekine
MAJLS, 1359 Stanley Coulter Hall, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN 47907
765.494.2258 (tel); 765.496.1700 (fax); esekine@purdue.edu (e-mail)
[MAJLS Newsletter Sponsor: FLL Purdue University]
The 1997 conference at Michigan will spotlight the fundamental question of the relationship between literature and history, particularly as that relationship is formulated in the contemporary critical movement called "the new historicism." This approach emphasizes the historical situatedness of literary texts as opposed to the old school that regards them as autonomous entities possessing intrinsic and universal value. In the new historicist formulation, literature embodies the sociopolitical and material circumstances of its production. The objective of the conference is to examine this school's applicability and potential use in the pedagogy of Japanese literature and culture.
To understand Japanese literature as a historically situated sociocultural practice is to recognize its difference as the product, until the nineteenth century, of a non-western, specifically Asian (or Sino-Japanese) cultural development, and thereafter, with Japan's entrance into a still larger Euro-centered world, as a complex field of struggle among competing ideologies. The new historicist approach would locate the Japanese literary text among liberatory discourses challenging the heretofore Eurocentric character of the literary studies institution in the US academy. It would set the Japanese text in dialogue with the global interdisciplinary discourses of gender and sexuality, ideology, colonialism and postcolonialism in the humanities today. And it would reexamine the premodern in the context of the ongoing critique of the postmodern, or Japan's apparent transformation of itself into its western other. The panels will engage these issues both through theoretical discussion and readings of texts in a variety of periods and genres. We are pleased to announce the special participation of nine distinguished colleagues from Japan at this conference.
Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen
Conference Chair
For registration form and more information, e-mail MAJLS97@umich.edu.
THE NEW HISTORICISM AND JAPANESE LITERARY STUDIES
October 24-26, 1997 at University of Michigan
The Hussey Room at the Michigan League (911 N. University)
| Friday, October 24, 1:00-2:50 p.m. | ||
| (PRE) (POST) MODERNISM AND AESTHETICS | ||
|
Spatiality in Teika's Poetry, Rikyu's Architecture, and Heidegger's Polis |
Takeyoshi Nishiuchi, Bowdoin College | |
|
(Post)modernity and Premodernity: Kasane, Montage, and Dialectics in Haiku |
Takao Hagiwara, Case Western Reserve University | |
|
Festival and Form in Ichikawa's Film Yukinojo henge (An Actor's Revenge) |
Stephanie DeBoer, Indiana University | |
| The New as Violence and the Hermeneutics of Slimness | Michele F. Marra, University of California, Los Angeles |
| Friday, 3:00-4:50 p.m. | ||
| SEXUALITY, GENDER, AND POWER | ||
|
Izumi Kyoka's Jouissance: Dangerous Women and Deadly Words |
Nina Cornyetz, Rutgers University | |
|
Staging Female Suicide on Otokoyama: New Historicist Readings of Power and Gender in the No Theater |
Steven T. Brown, University of Oregon | |
The Limits of Sexual Aggression in Heian Literature or, Genji, At Least, Was Not A Rapist |
Margaret H. Childs, University of Kansas | |
| Meshudo and the System of Sexuality in The Tale of Genji and Other Heian Texts | Kimura Saeko, Tokyo University |
| Friday, 5:00-6:30 p.m. | ||
| REPRESENTATIONS | ||
|
The Depiction of Non-Japanese in Natsume Soseki's Novels |
Handa Atsuko, Tokyo Gakugei University | |
Counter-Orientalism and Textual Play in Akutagawa's "The Ball" (Butokai) |
David Rosenfeld, University of Michigan | |
Challenging the Field of Classical Japanese Literature Cultural Production: Iwasa Miyoko's "Through the Eyes of a Court Lady" (Nyobo no me) |
Lynne K. Miyake, Pomona College | |
| Meshudo and the System of Sexuality in The Tale of Genji and Other Heian Texts | Kimura Saeko, Tokyo University |
| Saturday, October 25, 9:00-11:50 a.m. | ||
| Histories IN (OF) THE TEXTS: Panel I | ||
|
連歌興行に見る一揆精神の変遷 (Reading the Shifting Trends in the Spirit of Popular Collectives in Renga Meetings) |
Tsurusaki Hiroo, President, Tezukayama Gakuin University | |
Reading the Court in "Courtesan": Historicizing the Yuujo in Muromachi Tales |
Sarah M. Strong, Bates College | |
A Wife's Discourse: Dazai's Viyon no tsuma and the Revision of Civil Law |
Richie Sakakibara, University of Michigan |
| Saturday, 9:00-11:50 a.m. | ||
| Histories IN (OF) THE TEXTS: Panel II | ||
|
貿易史のなかの『源氏物語』及び権力とジェンダーの問題 (Gender, Power, and Continental Trade History in The Tale of Genji) |
Kawazoe Fusae, Tokyo Gakugei University | |
和学者千蔭と写楽の正体 (The Painting of the National Learning Scholar Katoo Chikage and the Identity of Sharaku) |
Suzuki Jun, The National Institute of Japanese Literature | |
The Textual Condition of Miyamoto Yuriko's "The Family Koiwai" (Koiwai no ikka) |
Heather Bowen-Struyk, University of Michigan |
| Saturday, 1:30-2:00 p.m. |
| CONFERENCE DEDICATION |
Remembering Robert Lyons Danly, 1947-1997, Professor of Japanese Literature, University of Michigan |
| Saturday, 2:00-3:50 p.m. | ||
| LITERARY HISTORY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY | ||
|
Escaping the Impasse of the Discourse on National Identity: Hagiwara Sakutaroo, Sakaguchi Ango, and Nishitani Keiji |
James Dorsey, Dartmouth College | |
Sino-Japanese Writing (Kambun), Japanese Literary Histories, and Japanologists |
John Timothy Wixted, Arizona State University | |
A Historiography of the Blind: The Location of History and Ecstasy in Ooe's Story of the Emperor |
Hosea Hirata, Tufts University | |
|
Creating A Japanese Literature for the World: The Nobel Prize Speeches of Kawabata and Ooe |
Ann Sherif, Oberlin College |
| Saturday, 4:00-5:00 p.m. | ||
| KEYNOTE SPEECH | ||
History, Psychoanalysis and the Japanese Script |
Karatani Koojin, Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature, Kinki University/Columbia University |
| Sunday, October 26, 9:00-10:00 a.m. | ||
| KEYNOTE SPEECH | ||
Literature as History/History as Literature |
Komori Yooichi, Professor of Japanese Literature, Tokyo University |
| Sunday, 10:10 a.m.-1:00 p.m. | ||
| (PRE) (POST) MODERNITY AND FICTION | ||
|
物語の方法と日記文学：『更級日記』を中心に (Monogatari Narrating and Memoir Literature: The Case of Sarashina nikki) |
Itoo Moriyuki, Hirosaki University | |
Tsubouchi Shooyoo's Negotiations in The Essence of the Novel (Shoosetsu shinzui) |
Atsuko Ueda, University of Michigan | |
Cultural Ambivalence and Sexuality in Shooyoo's The Character of Modern Students (Toosei shosei katagi) |
James Reichert, Stanford University | |
| Goodbye, Shoosetsu, and Hello Again, Monogatari? The Validity of Restoring Contextuality in Prose Writing | Atsuko Sakaki, Harvard University | |
Authoring Shishoosetsu from left to right |
Mizumura Minae, Author |
Sponsors of the Conference: The Japan Foundation; The Association for Asian Studies; The University of Michigan (Center for Japanese Studies; College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; Department of Asian Languages and Cultures; Horace H. Rackman School of Graduate Studies; International Institute; and Office of the Vice-President for Research)
II Membership/Subscription
The association's membership provides:
Subscription: $20.00 (North American members); $30.00 (members from outside the region). Please send the membership and your check (payable to MAJLS) to the MAJLS address. All MAJLS annual meeting panel participants must become a member in order to present.
Name: _____________________________ Mailing Address: ____________________________________ City__________________State __________ Country_____________________________ Zip ________________________________ Tel: ________________________________ Email: ______________________________ Institution: ___________________________ Status: ( ) Regular ( ) Student ( ) Institution If you are a student, indicate the year in which the free copy you would like was published: 19( ) |
Next year's MAJLS annual meeting will be held at Oberlin College, OH and chaired by Professor Ann Sherif. More information will be announced in the next MAJLS Newsletter (Spring, 1998).
"Ga/Zoku Dynamics in Japanese Literature," PMAJLS, vol. 3 (Summer, 1997) will be published very soon. This volume discusses the issue of the dynamics in the construction of Japanese literary texts represented by the ga/zoku distinction. It includes the following contributors: Ueno Chizuko (keynote address), Watanabe Kenji (major address), Ibi Takashi (major address), Kigoshi Osamu (major address), Rebecca Copeland, Sally Hastings, Elaine Gerbert, Naomi Fukumori, Fumiko Togasaki, Stephen Miller, Carole Cavanaugh, Atsuko Sakaki, Livia Monnet, Yoshiko Yokochi Samuel, Roger Thomas, Lawrence Marceau, Elizabeth Lillehoj, Joshua Mostow, Sarah Strong, Eileen Mikals-Adachi, Margaret Key, Sara Langer, and Aiko Okamoto MacPhail.
This volume, as well as back issues--"Poetics of Japanese Literature," (1993), "The Desire for Monogatari" (1994), "Japanese Theatricality and Performance" (1995), and "Revisionism in Japanese Literary Studies" (1996)--can be purchased at the cost of $10 each by non-members ($7 for members). Inquiries and orders should be sent to the MAJLS office.
*MAJLS Newsletter Sponsor: FLL, Purdue University