Japan Studies Association 32nd Annual Conference
January 7-9, 2026
(Wed. - Fri.)
The Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach Hotel
Honolulu, Hawai'i
Conference Theme: Navigating Post Post-War Japan in Today's World
There's a whole generation of Japanese who never experienced Showa Japan. Yet, Showa
remains the frame of reference for too many of us. We need to start exploring the implications of
these generational shifts and the correspondingly different experiences for Japan and the
Japanese. The JSA invites paper and panel proposals from scholars seeking to examine how
Japanese are navigating post post-war Japan and defining themselves, their places within
Japanese society, and Japan’s place in the world in the in the Heisei and Reiwa eras. We also
welcome proposals regarding the history, politics, culture, society, philosophy, art or literature of
Japan or pedagogy for introducing these things to students. Proposals from graduate students
and/or faculty based in Japan are especially welcome.
The deadline for conference submissions is December 5th. Early bird registration will close November 17, 2025.
There's a whole generation of Japanese who never experienced Showa Japan. Yet, Showa
remains the frame of reference for too many of us. We need to start exploring the implications of
these generational shifts and the correspondingly different experiences for Japan and the
Japanese. The JSA invites paper and panel proposals from scholars seeking to examine how
Japanese are navigating post post-war Japan and defining themselves, their places within
Japanese society, and Japan’s place in the world in the in the Heisei and Reiwa eras. We also
welcome proposals regarding the history, politics, culture, society, philosophy, art or literature of
Japan or pedagogy for introducing these things to students. Proposals from graduate students
and/or faculty based in Japan are especially welcome.
The deadline for conference submissions is December 5th. Early bird registration will close November 17, 2025.
Keynote Presentation
"How the planet's tastes turned Japanese (and what that means for you)"
Matt Alt
Manga and anime, video games and virtual idols, City Pop and cozy lit: Japan's pop culture is ascendant around the globe, drawing more attention to the nation than ever before. Japan's "fantasy-industrial complex" produces escapes with planetary pull, but the reasons why they resonate with fans may surprise. In the 1990s and Aughts, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the West, economically, socially, and demographically; the products that it produced began answering questions Western consumers hadn't yet thought to ask. Now, the planet has caught up, and Japan is transforming yet again: from the cutting edge into an unlikely oasis from the ceaseless disruption unfolding in the outside world. Join Matt Alt, author of "Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World" for a presentation and discussion about how the world's tastes turned Japanese -- and what that means for Japan Studies educators going forward.
"How the planet's tastes turned Japanese (and what that means for you)"
Matt Alt
Manga and anime, video games and virtual idols, City Pop and cozy lit: Japan's pop culture is ascendant around the globe, drawing more attention to the nation than ever before. Japan's "fantasy-industrial complex" produces escapes with planetary pull, but the reasons why they resonate with fans may surprise. In the 1990s and Aughts, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the West, economically, socially, and demographically; the products that it produced began answering questions Western consumers hadn't yet thought to ask. Now, the planet has caught up, and Japan is transforming yet again: from the cutting edge into an unlikely oasis from the ceaseless disruption unfolding in the outside world. Join Matt Alt, author of "Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World" for a presentation and discussion about how the world's tastes turned Japanese -- and what that means for Japan Studies educators going forward.
Keynote Panel
"Japanese Popular Culture Studies: Perspectives from the Field"
Matt Alt
Bill Tsutsui
Alisa Freedman
Our panel will discuss the past, present, and future of the field of Japanese popular culture studies from various perspective, including those of journalists and insiders in Japan's culture industries, researchers, teachers, project leaders, editors, and fans. Topics include major developments and turning points in the field, changes in access and globalization, and rewards and challenges of teaching and researching Japanese popular culture.
"Japanese Popular Culture Studies: Perspectives from the Field"
Matt Alt
Bill Tsutsui
Alisa Freedman
Our panel will discuss the past, present, and future of the field of Japanese popular culture studies from various perspective, including those of journalists and insiders in Japan's culture industries, researchers, teachers, project leaders, editors, and fans. Topics include major developments and turning points in the field, changes in access and globalization, and rewards and challenges of teaching and researching Japanese popular culture.
Special Plenary Session
"1950s Japanese Culture and Its Legacies: Music, Mobility, and Cultural Exchange"
Dr. Alisa Freedman
Dr. Jayson Chun
Scott Kikkawa
"1950s Japanese Culture and Its Legacies: Music, Mobility, and Cultural Exchange"
Dr. Alisa Freedman
Dr. Jayson Chun
Scott Kikkawa
Matt Alt is a Tokyo-based writer, translator, and co-founder of the entertainment localization company AltJapan Co. Ltd. For more than twenty years, he helped top Japanese video game, manga, anime, and toy creators being their visions to global audiences. Today, he uses that long experience inside Japan’s “fantasy-industrial complex” to bring a unique perspective to world events. Matt co-hosted NHK World’s award-winning Japanology Plus television series from 2015 to 2022. He is a co-author (with Hiroko Yoda) of Yokai Attack: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide (2011, Tuttle) and the author of Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World (2020, Crown). His writing can be found in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Wired, and more.
Dr. Jayson M Chun is a Professor of History at the University of Hawaii – West O‘ahu, where he specializes in East Asian popular culture and the transnational history of entertainment across the Asia-Pacific region. His research examines how popular culture crosses borders and connects audiences throughout Asia and beyond. He is the author of A Nation of a Hundred Million Idiots?: A Social History of Japanese Television 1953 – 1973, a book on Japanese television and has published articles on J-pop and K-pop. He is the co-editor of The Pop Pacific (https://blog.iias.asia/pop-pacific), a blog dedicated to transnational popular culture.
Dr. Alisa Freedman is a professor of Japanese literature, cultural studies, and gender at the University of Oregon. Her books include Japan on American TV; Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road; Women in Japanese Studies: Memoirs from a Trailblazing Generation (collection of 32 memoirs); Introducing Japanese Popular Culture (edited textbook featuring 42 trends); annotated translation of Kawabata Yasunari’s The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa; and Modern Girls on the Go: Gender, Mobility, and Labor in Japan (coedited volume). She has published numerous articles for academic and general interest publications, literary translations, and academic skills guides. She is the Faculty Fellow of a residence hall and enjoys presenting at cultural festivals, anime cons, reading groups, and other public events.
Scott Kikkawa is the author of Kona Winds, Red Dirt, Char Siu and Sporting Girl (forthcoming in 2026), all from Bamboo Ridge Press, noir detective novels set in postwar Honolulu. He has contributed to Akashic Books’ Honolulu Noir anthology (Chris McKinney, editor). His short stories have appeared in Bamboo Ridge: The Journal of Hawai‘i Literature and Arts, the Colin Conway-edited anthology A Bag of Dick’s and the Frank Zafiro-edited anthology Tattered Blue Line. His essays have appeared in The Hawai‘i Review of Books and Kyoto Journal. Kikkawa has been honored with an Elliot Cades Award for Literature, and his short story “Joe Sukiyaki” from A Bag of Dick’s was selected as one of the “Other Distinguished Stories of 2021” in the 2022 Best American Mysteries and Suspense anthology. His first two novels, Kona Winds and Red Dirt, are among Honolulu Magazine’s “Essential Hawai‘i Books You Should Read: The Next 134”. His work was recommended in the 2024 New York Times piece “Read Your Way Through Hawai‘i.” He is a columnist and associate editor for The Hawai‘i Review of Books. Currently a federal law enforcement officer, the New York University alumnus lives with his family in Honolulu.
Dr. Bill Tsutsui is Chancellor and Professor of History at Ottawa University. He is the author of Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan, Banking Policy in Japan: American Efforts at Reform During the Occupation, Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters, and Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization, as well as numerous essays on modern Japanese history. He has also edited Banking in Japan, In Godzilla's Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage (with Michiko Ito), A Companion to Japanese History, The East Asian Olympiads, 1934-2008: Building Bodies and Nations in Japan, Korea, and China (with Michael Baskett), and Oceanic Japan: The Archipelago in Pacific and Global History (with Stefan Huebner, Nadin Hee, and Ian Jared Miller). Dr. Tsutsui serves on the boards of the Association for Asian Studies, the US–Japan Council, and the Japan–US Bridging Foundation. In 2020 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Japan–US Friendship Commission and a Panelist on CULCON (the US–Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange). In 2020-2021, he was the Edwin O. Reischauer Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations at Harvard University.