JSA Professional Development Workshop at Hendrix College
Living With Godzilla: Challenge, Tribulation, Resilience, and Transformation in Heisei Japan
April 12-14, 2018
The film Shin Gojira (New Godzilla, Toho Studios 2016) reboots the famous franchise begun in 1954 with a new version of the creature which embodies the constantly evolving array of threats and challenges (both foreign and domestic) that have visited Japan since 1989 and the beginning of the Heisei period. At the end of the film the monster is left immobilized in the center of Tokyo, contained but a constant presence to which the Japanese people will just have accommodate themselves.
Join us in exploring Heisei Japan with an eye towards identifying the key events, trends, changes and continuities of the reign of Emperor Akihito. Speakers will address various topics including history, politics and culture. Participants will also have the opportunity to engage in the legacies of the Japanese American internment experience.
The workshop is hosted by Hendrix College, William M. (Bill) Tsutsui, President.
Spaces still available, registration deadline has been extended.
The film Shin Gojira (New Godzilla, Toho Studios 2016) reboots the famous franchise begun in 1954 with a new version of the creature which embodies the constantly evolving array of threats and challenges (both foreign and domestic) that have visited Japan since 1989 and the beginning of the Heisei period. At the end of the film the monster is left immobilized in the center of Tokyo, contained but a constant presence to which the Japanese people will just have accommodate themselves.
Join us in exploring Heisei Japan with an eye towards identifying the key events, trends, changes and continuities of the reign of Emperor Akihito. Speakers will address various topics including history, politics and culture. Participants will also have the opportunity to engage in the legacies of the Japanese American internment experience.
The workshop is hosted by Hendrix College, William M. (Bill) Tsutsui, President.
Spaces still available, registration deadline has been extended.
Speakers include:
William Tsutsui, President and Professor of History at Hendrix College. The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, the Meh of Times: The Heisei Economy, Almost in Retrospect. A specialist in the business, environmental and cultural history of modern Japan, he is the author or editor of eight books, including Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (1998), Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (2004), and Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization (2010). He was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 2000 and the William Rockhill Nelson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005.
Karl Kim, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawaii. Disaster Governance, Governance Disaster: Government Response in Shin Gojira. Karl Kim is professor of Urban and Regional Planning and the director of the Graduate Program in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Hawaii. He holds faculty appointments at the Center for Korean Studies and the School of Architecture and serves as the Executive Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which develops training courses for first responders, emergency managers, and others involved in risk reduction and resilience.
Michael Strausz, Professor, Texas Christian University, Changing LDP, Changing Japan: the Evolution of Politics in Heisei Japan. Michael Strausz is associate professor of political science. His book manuscript on Japanese immigration policy is currently under review. He has published book chapters and articles in journals including Foreign Policy Analysis, Pacific Affairs, and International Relation of the Asia-Pacific. He graduated from Michigan State University’s James Madison College and earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has lived in Japan for a total of 3 years, most recently as a Japan Foundation Fellow at the University of Tsukuba.
Nathaniel Smith, Professor, University of Arizona, Recalibrating the Right in Heisei Japan. Nathaniel M. Smith is a cultural anthropologist and assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona. His primary research focus is far right-wing activism in contemporary Japan, based on ethnographic fieldwork since 2005. In addition to doctoral training in anthropology, Smith holds an MA in East Asian Studies from Yale University, an MA in International Relations from Waseda University, and a BA in Foreign Language from the Department of Comparative Literature and Foreign Language at UC Riverside.
Barak Kushner, Professor, University of Cambridge, Japan’s “Endless Postwar” and its relations with East Asia. Barak Kushner is University Reader in modern Japanese history in the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. He has written Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice, (Winner of the American Historical Association's 2016 John K. Fairbank Prize), Slurp! A culinary and social history of ramen - Japan's favorite noodle soup (awarded the 2013 Sophie Coe Prize for Food History), and The Thought War - Japanese Imperial Propaganda. His current research focuses on The Dismantling of Japan's Empire in East Asia: De-imperialization, Postwar Legitimation and Imperial Afterlife, (Routledge 2017).
Stacia Bensyl, Professor, Missouri Western University, Art in the Barracks—Creativity in the Japanese American Incarceration Camps. Stacia Bensyl is Professor and Chair of English and Modern Languages at Missouri Western State University. A post-colonialist and Irish literature specialist by training, she received her M.A. from University College Dublin and her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Her current work centers on small literary magazines published in the Japanese American incarceration camps. She is a contributor to the Densho Encyclopedia, the digital resource for Japanese American WWII and incarceration history, and has completed the manuscript for an anthology of writing published in camp literary magazines.
Paul Dunscomb, University of Alaska Anchorage. The Crisis in Japanese Professional Baseball and the Nature of Change in Heisei Japan. Paul Dunscomb is Professor of East Asian history and Chair of the Department of History. He is the author of Japan’s Siberian Intervention, 1918-1922: “A Great Disobedience Against the People,” and Japan Since 1945 for the Key Issues in Asian Studies series. He has generated a body of work trying to take the Heisei period from the province of journalism, economics, and political science and analyze it historically.
William Tsutsui, President and Professor of History at Hendrix College. The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, the Meh of Times: The Heisei Economy, Almost in Retrospect. A specialist in the business, environmental and cultural history of modern Japan, he is the author or editor of eight books, including Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (1998), Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (2004), and Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization (2010). He was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 2000 and the William Rockhill Nelson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005.
Karl Kim, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawaii. Disaster Governance, Governance Disaster: Government Response in Shin Gojira. Karl Kim is professor of Urban and Regional Planning and the director of the Graduate Program in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Hawaii. He holds faculty appointments at the Center for Korean Studies and the School of Architecture and serves as the Executive Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which develops training courses for first responders, emergency managers, and others involved in risk reduction and resilience.
Michael Strausz, Professor, Texas Christian University, Changing LDP, Changing Japan: the Evolution of Politics in Heisei Japan. Michael Strausz is associate professor of political science. His book manuscript on Japanese immigration policy is currently under review. He has published book chapters and articles in journals including Foreign Policy Analysis, Pacific Affairs, and International Relation of the Asia-Pacific. He graduated from Michigan State University’s James Madison College and earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has lived in Japan for a total of 3 years, most recently as a Japan Foundation Fellow at the University of Tsukuba.
Nathaniel Smith, Professor, University of Arizona, Recalibrating the Right in Heisei Japan. Nathaniel M. Smith is a cultural anthropologist and assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona. His primary research focus is far right-wing activism in contemporary Japan, based on ethnographic fieldwork since 2005. In addition to doctoral training in anthropology, Smith holds an MA in East Asian Studies from Yale University, an MA in International Relations from Waseda University, and a BA in Foreign Language from the Department of Comparative Literature and Foreign Language at UC Riverside.
Barak Kushner, Professor, University of Cambridge, Japan’s “Endless Postwar” and its relations with East Asia. Barak Kushner is University Reader in modern Japanese history in the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. He has written Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice, (Winner of the American Historical Association's 2016 John K. Fairbank Prize), Slurp! A culinary and social history of ramen - Japan's favorite noodle soup (awarded the 2013 Sophie Coe Prize for Food History), and The Thought War - Japanese Imperial Propaganda. His current research focuses on The Dismantling of Japan's Empire in East Asia: De-imperialization, Postwar Legitimation and Imperial Afterlife, (Routledge 2017).
Stacia Bensyl, Professor, Missouri Western University, Art in the Barracks—Creativity in the Japanese American Incarceration Camps. Stacia Bensyl is Professor and Chair of English and Modern Languages at Missouri Western State University. A post-colonialist and Irish literature specialist by training, she received her M.A. from University College Dublin and her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Her current work centers on small literary magazines published in the Japanese American incarceration camps. She is a contributor to the Densho Encyclopedia, the digital resource for Japanese American WWII and incarceration history, and has completed the manuscript for an anthology of writing published in camp literary magazines.
Paul Dunscomb, University of Alaska Anchorage. The Crisis in Japanese Professional Baseball and the Nature of Change in Heisei Japan. Paul Dunscomb is Professor of East Asian history and Chair of the Department of History. He is the author of Japan’s Siberian Intervention, 1918-1922: “A Great Disobedience Against the People,” and Japan Since 1945 for the Key Issues in Asian Studies series. He has generated a body of work trying to take the Heisei period from the province of journalism, economics, and political science and analyze it historically.
Registration Deadline Extended!
The Japan Studies Association invites applications from faculty members based at community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and universities. Those who are not East Asian or Japan specialists are especially encouraged to apply.
Participants will be expected to make use of materials and discussion to structure class materials.
The program fee schedule:
For out-of-the-area participants
Registration includes two nights lodging (Thursday and Friday) at the Hilton Garden Inn, Conway, Arkansas (group code is JSA), with breakfast: Registration also includes two light lunches, reception on Thursday night, dinner on Friday night, and JSA Membership.
$500 (single room) or $475, if already JSA member.
$385 pp (for those planning to share a twin room) or $360, if JSA member.
Free pick-up at airport may be possible based on arrival times. At the moment the plan is to have a van available to pick people up at 2:30, 4:30, and 6:30 on Wednesday, April 11. Let us know when you're coming in and we will try to make arrangements. Free transportation between hotel and meeting rooms at Hendrix College.
For local participants with no hotel stay: $200 or $175, if already a JSA member. The registration fee includes two lunches and the Thursday reception. Dinner on Friday optional for an additional $20.
The Japan Studies Association invites applications from faculty members based at community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and universities. Those who are not East Asian or Japan specialists are especially encouraged to apply.
Participants will be expected to make use of materials and discussion to structure class materials.
The program fee schedule:
For out-of-the-area participants
Registration includes two nights lodging (Thursday and Friday) at the Hilton Garden Inn, Conway, Arkansas (group code is JSA), with breakfast: Registration also includes two light lunches, reception on Thursday night, dinner on Friday night, and JSA Membership.
$500 (single room) or $475, if already JSA member.
$385 pp (for those planning to share a twin room) or $360, if JSA member.
Free pick-up at airport may be possible based on arrival times. At the moment the plan is to have a van available to pick people up at 2:30, 4:30, and 6:30 on Wednesday, April 11. Let us know when you're coming in and we will try to make arrangements. Free transportation between hotel and meeting rooms at Hendrix College.
For local participants with no hotel stay: $200 or $175, if already a JSA member. The registration fee includes two lunches and the Thursday reception. Dinner on Friday optional for an additional $20.
The Workshop Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn, Conway, Arkansas
Direct line: 501-329-1444
Toll Free: 1-877-STAY-HGI
Book online at www.conway.hgi.com
Direct line: 501-329-1444
Toll Free: 1-877-STAY-HGI
Book online at www.conway.hgi.com