Michigan Talks Japan

UM Center for Japanese Studies

Michigan Talks Japan is a new podcast from the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. In it, Prof. Allison Alexy talks with leading scholars doing research on Japan about their work, their backgrounds, and their recommendations in the field. Crossing academic disciplines and time periods, the podcast highlights new and exciting scholarship in Japanese Studies. More at: https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast/

Episodes

  1. 07/23/2021

    Claire Maree

    In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Claire Maree, an Associate Professor and Reader at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. Dr. Maree is a linguist examining the reproduction, negotiation, and contestation of identities in language, particularly in media, as well as the interconnection of gender and sexuality in everyday language practices. Our conversation today centers on her newest book, Queerqueen: Linguistic Excess in Japanese Media, which examines popular celebrities who speak as gay or queer people. Topics of discussion include: onê kotoba, Miwa Akihiro, Matsuko Deluxe, vulgarity and self-censorship, the term "queer" in Japan, women's language as spoken and written, Osugi and Peeco, text on screen in TV shows, makeover shows, the koseki system and discrimination, LGBT booms in Japan, legal rights for same-sex partnerships, linguistic research methods, text on screen outside of Japan, and the incredible work librarians do. Please note, this episode includes and discusses language – both in English and Japanese – that some listeners might find explicit or offensive. This episode includes clips of commercials, one featuring Miwa Akihiro and the other with Matsuko Deluxe. Please explore the podcast's homepage for more links with examples of text-on-screen and censorship that Dr. Maree discusses. You can find her on Twitter @ClaireMareeUoM. Michigan Talks Japan is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan.

    1h 20m
  2. 06/18/2021

    Vyjayanthi Selinger

    In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Vyjayanthi Selinger, a scholar of Japanese literature and culture. Her research examines literary representations of conflict in medieval Japan, using conflict as the key node to examine war memory, legal and ritual constraints on war, Buddhist mythmaking, and women in war. Our conversation centers on two articles she has published recently. First we discuss “War Without Blood? The Literary Uses of a Taboo Fluid in the Heike monogatari,” published in Monumenta Nipponica in 2019, and “The Rāmāyana and the Rhizome: Textual Networks in the Work of Minakata Kumagusu” published in Verge: Studies in Global Asias in 2021. Topics of discussion include: blood as symbol and taboo, The Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari), Buddhism and bodily pollution, research methods and surprises, literary representations of law, Hachinoki (Noh play), the Rāmāyan in Japan, translation, homology and adaptation, Chinese translations of Latin, doctoral requirements for training in language and theory, and Lady Triệu in Watchmen (TV show). Dr. Vyjayanthi Selinger is the Stanley F. Druckenmiller Associate Professor of Asian Studies at Bowdoin College. Her first book, Authorizing the Shogunate: Ritual and Material Symbolism in the Literary Construction of Warrior Order, explores how texts from fourteenth century Japan harnessed symbolic understandings of authority to evoke order and contain rupture.  If you're interested in learning more about her work, please watch her presentation in the Japanese Studies and Antiracist Pedagogy Project. You can find her on Twitter @jayselinge, where she would be especially happy to discuss the TV show Watchmen and the character Lady Triệu. Michigan Talks Japan is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan.

    1h 10m
  3. 04/02/2021

    Jolyon Baraka Thomas

    In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Jolyon Baraka Thomas, whose research focuses on religion as it intersects with media, freedom, education, and capitalism. The conversation centers on his book Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan. Topics of discussion include: State Shintō, religious freedom, the Meiji Constitution, the Allied Occupation of Japan, tools of American empire, rhetoric and practices of freedom, development studies, anti-Black racism in Japan and in Asian Studies, education, inequities, DEI rhetoric and practices. In the course of our conversation, which occurred before the murders in Atlanta and subsequent attention to ongoing violence toward Asian and Asian American people, Dr. Thomas referenced a few public materials highlighting racism and anti-Black racism in Japan, Asian Studies, and the United States. We have gathered them here, in case listeners might want to explore them further (in the order they appear in our conversation): Petition to the AAS Board of Directors in Support of Black Scholars of Asia#BlackInTheIvoryNHK's animated video trying to "explain" Black Lives Matter protestsAAS Roundtable on "Asian Studies and Black Lives Matter"The podcast Japan on the Record has a series of episodes focused on these issues, starting in June 2020.Dr. Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. You can find him on twitter @jolyonbt. Michigan Talks Japan is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan.

    1h 6m
5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Michigan Talks Japan is a new podcast from the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. In it, Prof. Allison Alexy talks with leading scholars doing research on Japan about their work, their backgrounds, and their recommendations in the field. Crossing academic disciplines and time periods, the podcast highlights new and exciting scholarship in Japanese Studies. More at: https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast/