Michigan Talks Japan

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Grace En-Yi Ting, an Assistant Professor in the Gender Studies Programme at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Ting specializes in queer/feminist approaches to Japanese literary and cultural studies, with an emphasis on women writers in the modern period and girls’ culture. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled "Minor Intimacies: Queerness, the Normative, and the Everyday in Contemporary Japan," examining femininities and queer potentialities within literary and subcultural representations of daily life in post-1980’s Japan. Our conversation centers on her article "Ekuni Kaori’s Tears in the Night: The Brilliance of Queer Readings for Japanese Literary Studies," published in the Journal of Japanese Studies. Topics of discussion include: shojo and girls culture, pleasure, queer desires, the novel "Kirakira Hikaru," homonormativity, activism and public scholarship, bad attitudes, feminist killjoys, social media, overlaps and disconnections between Asian Studies and Asian American Studies, and tensions surrounding sharing work publicly.

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.

This episode includes and discusses language – both in English and Japanese – that some listeners might find explicit or offensive.

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 (a Noh play), the Rāmāyan in Japan, translation, homology and adaptation, Chinese translations of Latin, requirements for language and theory, and Lady Triệu in Watchmen (TV show).

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Gabriella Lukács, an anthropologist whose research focuses on analog and digital media, which she theorizes as a continuum. The conversation centers on her new book "Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy." Topics of discussion include: digital labor, online entrepreneurship, labor in the academy, net idols, bloggers, influencers, careers on YouTube, "expert" advice online, Japan's gendered labor market, what is recognized as labor, extracting profit from workers who aren't being paid, the gaps and overlaps between online and IRL, and doing research with celebrities.

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 this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Suma Ikeuchi, whose research focuses on migration, ethnic studies, religion, and science & technology studies. Our conversation centers on her book, Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora, published in 2019 by Stanford University Press. After we recorded this, the book was awarded the 2020 Francis L. K. Hsu Book Prize by the Society for East Asian Anthropology.

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Charlotte Eubanks, whose research focuses on material culture, performance studies, and ethics, with a focus on Japanese and Buddhist literature from the medieval period to the present. The conversation centers on their new book "The Art of Persistence: Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan." Topics of discussion include: settler families in Hokkaido, art, sketching, life histories, art and books for children, war guilt and responsibility, and research methods for art historians.

This short episode is the trailer for our second season. Rather than talking with a scholar, Allison Alexy briefly explains changes the production team has made in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and newly public conversations about racism, inequity, and exclusion in Japanese Studies (as a discipline), in the academy more generally, in the US, and in Japan. We are grateful to all of our listeners, welcome your reactions, and look forward to sharing upcoming episodes.

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Morgan Pitelka, whose research examines late medieval and early modern Japan, with a focus on the samurai, tea culture, ceramics, cities, and material culture. The conversation centers on a new book he is writing centered on Ichijōdani, the headquarters of the Asakura warlord family. Topics of discussion include: the Sengoku or Warring States period; the destruction of Ichijōdani; material culture and political history; kawarake, simple pinched bowls; collaboration and archaeology and history; ceramics and everyday culture; lacuna surrounding violence in Japanese history; students' interests in Japanese Studies; and popular culture and video games about history.

Dr. Pitelka is professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina. He is the chair of the Department of Asian studies and co-editor of the Journal of Japanese Studies. You can find him on twitter @mpitelka.

Content warning: This episode includes a brief, general description of sexual violence at minute 33 of the recording.

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Meghen Jones, whose research focuses on the history of ceramics, modern art, and craft theory in Japan and in international perspective. The conversation centers on her new book "Ceramics and Modernity in Japan" co-edited with Louise Allison Cort and an exhibition she is co-curating about the tea bowl in Japan and beyond. Topics of discussion include: genres and styles of Japanese ceramics such as raku, shino, and oribe; wabi aesthetics; tea bowls in art and use; the influence of Japanese ceramics globally and in the US; Dr. Jones' visit to the studio of artist Tsujimura Shirō; and finding and using digital media in art history.

Dr. Jones is an associate professor and Division Chair of Art History within the School of Art and Design at Alfred University. You can find her on twitter @MeghenJones and on instagram @meghen_jones.

Please check out the image gallery of pieces mentioned in this episode on the podcast homepage.