Twenty-fifth Anniversary Japan Studies Association Conference
January 3-5, 2019

The Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach Hotel
Honolulu, Hawai'i


Established in San Diego in the spring of 1994, the JSA has assisted its members – primarily teachers from American two- and four-year colleges and universities – to acquire first-hand knowledge about Japan and infuse it into the curriculum of their home institutions. Through workshops and study-tours, and the professional networking they enable, JSA’s members have been inspired to engage in curriculum development, design study-abroad programs, and initiate Japan-related or comparative research, an outlet for which they have found both in the organization’s Japan Studies Association Journal and its annual national conference.

In January 2019 we will meet again in sunny Honolulu to share our continuous and new pedagogical and research interests in Japan’s literary and cultural traditions, historical and economic developments, sociopolitical and religious past and present. We invite proposals for individual presentations, discipline-specific or interdisciplinary panels, roundtables on pedagogy and teaching innovation and staged readings.

Keynote Speaker: Andrew Gordon, Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History at Harvard University. "Remembering Japan’s 2011 Disaster:  The Challenge and Opportunity of Digital Archives.”

Andrew Gordon's teaching and research focus is primarily on modern Japan. He has written extensively on Japanese social history, with a focus on labor and also on modern consumers.  His most recent monograph is Fabricating Consumers: The Sewing Machine in Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2011). He has recently published several articles on the historical context of Japan's so-called "lost decades," 1990s through the present.  The fourth edition of his textbook, A Modern History of Japan (Oxford University Press) will appear in the spring of 2019.

Keynote Speaker: Alisa Freedman, Professor of Japanese Literaute and Film, University of Oregon. "From Cold War Coeds to Pioneering Professors: The Forgotten Story of
Japanese Women Who Studied in the United States, 1949-1966"

Alisa Freedman's interdisciplinary work investigates how the modern urban experience shapes cultural production, gender roles and human subjectivity. She uses literature and visual media to provide a deeper understanding of society, politics, and economics. She has served as the Resident Director of Oregon Univsersity's  study abroad program in Tokyo and as Director of Undergraduate Studies for East Asian Language and Literature.
 Submitting an abstract or a panel proposal

Abstracts for an individual presentation (approx. 250 words) or proposals for a themed panel, roundtable or staged reading (approx. 500 words) should be submitted via JSA’s website: http://www.japanstudies.org  by Monday, 24 September 2018 Please make sure that you include the name(s), institutional affiliation and contact information for each presenter along with individual presentation titles.

We would also welcome your suggestions for a Japanese literary, historical or theoretical text to provide the focus of the now traditional general discussion session.

For more information, please contact the Conference Program Co-Chairs:

Prof. Andrea Stover, Belmont University: [email protected]
Prof. Paul Dunscomb, University of Alaska Anchorage: [email protected] 
The following themes can serve as useful points of departure:
​
  • Hokkaido, Ainu culture, and the "pioneer" legacy of Japanese settlers;
  • Okinawa: identity, history and culture; 
  • Cultural memory: historical perspectives, enduring challenges, possibilities for the future;
  • The legacy of Fukushima and nuclear futures -- healing and persistent challenges;
  • Pre-modern, modern or contemporary Japanese literature and culture;
  • Performance traditions and contemporary practice: music, theater, film, live arts;
  • Japanese aesthetics and material culture;
  • Historical, social, economic or political perspectives on Japan’s relationships with its national self and neighbors;
  • Multicultural identities in Japan;
  • Japan’s religious traditions, sacred texts and architecture;
  • Youth, popular and participatory culture in Japan; manga and anime; fan arts;
  • Pedagogy, field trips and study tours: teaching Japanese language and culture – reflections and strategies, hurdles and achievements;
  • Infusing Japanese Studies into the undergraduate curriculum – successful course/program development, faculty collaboration and ways to engage with institutional core goals;
  • New voices in Japanese Studies: graduate student research.

We encourage both east-west and inter-Asian comparative perspectives and would particularly welcome contributions by alumni of JSA’s Freeman Foundation intensive workshops on Japan (2002–2016) and participants in the Wichita and Belmont workshops, both funded by a generous grant from the Japan Foundation. We also welcome presentations by participants in the 2014 Kyoto, the 2015 Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the 2017 Okinawa workshops.  We recommend you contact colleagues with whom you share pedagogical and research interests and form a panel or a round table as this results in more engaging presentations and follow-up discussion.
Graduate Student Awards

Annually, JSA offers one or two graduate student scholarships. To be eligible, students must be enrolled full time in a graduate program in any content area related to Japan and must have a paper accepted for the 2019 conference. Please submit a complete copy of your paper with your proposal form, making sure that “Graduate Student” appears clearly both on the first page of your paper and on the proposal form. The successful applicants will be notified in October when acceptance letters are sent out to all conference participants.

Click here for more information.
The Venue: The Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach Hotel 

The Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach Hotel is located at 175 Paoakalani Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96815, USA. It is in the center of Waikiki, only a couple of blocks away from its world famous beach. Visit the hotel's website at: http://www.hyattplacewaikikibeach.com/.

JSA has reserved a block of rooms for conference participants at competitive prices: $184 (plus tax) per night for either a single or double room. Free breakfast and internet are included. The $15 "daily resort fee" is also waived when you use the group code.

Click here to access the conference accommodation page.

Click here for arrival information and maps​.
The submission portal is now open.