Fall 2017 Biography Brown Bag Series

The editors of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly and directors of the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have announced their Fall 2017 schedule of Biography Brown Bags.

If you’re in Hawai’i, don’t miss this exciting line-up of speakers here to talk about life writing. Each event listed below is held from noon to 1:15 p.m. Thursdays in Kuykendall Room 409 at UH Mānoa. Bring your lunch and enjoy!

Sept. 14: Noenoe K. Silva, a contributor to The Hawaiian Journal of History, on ‘Elua Maka Kila: How Joseph Kānepu’u and Joseph Poepoe Contributed to the Life of ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i

Sept. 21: Daven Chang on Composing Mele for Community

Sept. 28: Kyle Kajihiro on Mehameha Wale No O Pu’uloa, I Ka Hele A Ka’ahupāhau: Lonely Was Pu’uloa when Ka’ahupāhau Went Away

Oct. 5: Virgie Chattergy on Pinay: Culture Bearers of the Filipino Diaspora

Oct. 12: Carla Manfredi on Little House in the Bush: Afterlives of Vailima

Oct. 19: Patricia Steinhoff on her UH Press book, Destiny: The Secret Operations of the Yodogō Exiles

Oct. 26: Otto Heim on Pacific Ghost Stories: John Kneubuhl and Oral History

Nov. 2: Sandra Bonura, on her UH Press book, Light in the Queen’s Garden: Ida May Pope, Pioneer for Hawai‘i’s Daughters, 1862–1914

Nov. 9: Lauren Nishimura on Hawaiian Ancestry: Positioning Indigeneity in the Na’i Aupuni Biographies

Nov. 16: Kim Compoc on American Tutelage Gone Awry: Antonio Taguba, Filipino Americanism, and the Critique of Torture

Nov. 30: Anna Feurstein on The Animal That Therefore I Am Not: The Politics of Animal (Auto)biography from Black Beauty to Cat Internet Videos

See flyer below or visit CBR’s Facebook page for more details.

Read Biography archives at Project MUSE

Review of Japanese Culture and Society, vol. 28 (2016)

Distributed for Jōsai International Center for the Promotion of Art and Science, Jōsai University

From The City of the Future (1960) in this issue. Kikutake Kiyonori, Marine City, 1971. Drawing with felt-tip pen, 64 cm x 64 cm. Photo by Jean-Claude Planchet. Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris France. © CNAC/MNAM/Dist.RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Courtesy of Kikutake Architects.

The Review of Japanese Culture and Society, volume 28 opens with an editors’ introduction:

…“Japanese design” possesses one of the most recognizable profiles, albeit one with multiple personalities. Notions of minimalism, Zen, wabi-sabi, and cute are often ascribed as inherent attributes of Japanese design. This profile operates  across media and disciplines, from graphic design to architecture and interiors, product and furniture design, and fashion and newer industries like interaction or experience design. On the one hand, we hear of “Zen minimalism” associated with architecture, interiors, and the simple lines and matte surfaces of sophisticated product design, and on the other hand, a sort of frenetic hyper-cute sensibility associated with youth culture and digital design.
Design and Society in Modern Japan: An Introduction, by Ignacio Adriasola, Sarah Teasley, and Jilly Traganou

DESIGN AND SOCIETY IN MODERN JAPAN

Japan’s Industrial Arts: Present and Future (1917) (translated by Penny Bailey)
by Yasuda Rokuzō

Industrial Arts and the Development of Japan’s Industry (1932) (translated by Penny Bailey)
by Kunii Kitarō Continue reading “Review of Japanese Culture and Society, vol. 28 (2016)”

Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 34, no. 2 (2017)

From this issue’s color insert. Kannangat Bhagavathi at Muchilot Kavu, Valapattanam, Kannur District, January 2015. (Photo: Filipe Pereira)

The fall 2017 issue of the Asian Theatre Journal includes the following works:

TRANSLATIONS

Borrowing the Fan: An Example of Actable Plays (Zhezixi) for the Kunqu Stage
translated and introduced by Dongshin Chang

A Monk and a Nun Commit a Sin Together: Feng Weimin’s Play and Its Three Transformations
translated and introduced by Antonio Leggieri

ARTICLES

Identity Politics in Okinawan Kumiodori: Mekarushi and Hana no Maboroshi (Vision of Flowers)
by Ruth Forsythe

Drenched in Victory, Facing Drought: Staging Transitions in Myanmar’s Performing Arts
by Catherine Diamond

Ritual Liminality and Frame: What Did Barbosa See When He Saw the Theyyam?
by Filipe Pereiran

The Hall of Superabundant Blessings: Toward an Architecture of Chinese Ancestral-Temple Theatre
by Xiaohuan Zhao

Zhang Huoding: A Popular Jingju Star with Young Chinese
by Qinghuan Huang

Continue reading “Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 34, no. 2 (2017)”

Interview: Language Documentation & Conservation editor Nick Thieberger

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In the fall of 2005, linguistics professor Kenneth L. Rehg and UHM Foreign Language Resource Center director Richard Schmidt planned a meeting with the goal of advancing language documentation and associated activities as a legitimate subfield of linguistics. In the spring, 28 linguists gathered at the East-West Center from as far east as Japan and as far west as New England, and as far south as Australia. As a result of this meeting, the journal Language Documentation & Conservation launched in June 2007.

From the outset, LD&C has been an open access journal because, as founding editor Rehg writes, “In many communities where vulnerable and endangered languages are spoken, any amount charged for a subscription is too much.” In the past decade, the journal has provided 340 articles comprising 10 volumes, totaling more than 661,000 downloads. Below, current editor Nick Thieberger discusses the benefits of being an online-only journal and what’s in store for LD&C as it enters its second decade.

You’ve been with Language Documentation & Conservation since the beginning, starting as the Technology Review Editor and then taking over from founding editor Kenneth L. Rehg in 2011. Can you share with us how LD&C got started and your current work leading the journal?

For background on how LD&C began, please see the recent article by our founding editor. The role of editor involves coordinating production, doing initial assessments of contributions (sometimes with the help of the Editorial Board), finding reviewers, maintaining the website, and updating the Facebook page.

Dr. Nick Thieberger (R) plays audio of the Koita language near Port Moresby to Koitabuan E’ava Geita (L). Picture: Rachel Nordlinger. This image was first published in the Pursuit article, “Islands of language enter virtual reality.”
Dr. Nick Thieberger (R) plays audio of the Koita language near Port Moresby to Koitabuan E’ava Geita (L). Picture: Rachel Nordlinger. This image was first published in the Pursuit article, “Islands of language enter virtual reality.”


In Prof. Rehg’s “The Founding of Language Documentation & Conservation” (Vol. 11), he notes that one of the goals of the journal was to “focus … on topics that do not readily find a home in other journals.” How is LD&C unique from other journals in your field?

Issues around language documentation and revitalization have become increasingly relevant in the past decade or two. With the increased focus on language endangerment, more attention is being paid to creating good records of as many different performances and speakers as possible. Performance includes narratives, dialogues, songs, multi-participant events as well as good old-fashioned elicitation.

The journal Language Documentation & Conservation provides a venue for exploring new methods in creating language records and in using records for language revitalization. It is unique in its scope and in the quality of its contributions (peer-reviewed since the first issue in 2007). A topic of particular current interest is the ‘collection overview’ which presents a guide to a set of primary language records, allowing readers to identify its extent and the context in which it was created. We hope that such overviews will become more common in our discipline.

LD&C was designed to be an electronic-only, open access journal, which was uncommon when you launched the journal in 2006. Why was this important then, and why does it remain relevant now?

LD&C has been committed to providing open access from its inception. As so many of the languages that are the focus of language documentation efforts are spoken in small communities, we want to ensure that the research we publish is fully accessible to anyone with Internet access. We ensure longevity of access by lodging all LD&C content in the University of Hawai‘i’s digital repository, linked from our website.

Online publication allows us to produce articles quickly and to embed media to illustrate examples in the papers. It also allows authors to add material incrementally over time.

We encourage subscription, which is free, so that readers can be informed twice a year about new content, which we upload four times a year.

Photo taken at UH Manoa, with a sign that reads "Lose your voice, and you lose your culture."
LD&C Editor Nick Thieberger took this photo at the University of Hawai‘i and posted it on the journal’s Facebook page.


Where is LD&C going next?

We have published a couple of volumes that allow incremental addition of new material over time, taking advantage of the non-book format of online publication. SCOPIC is a volume that will provide a series of papers in the next few years. In the pipeline now is a grammar that will be published incrementally in what would have been called fascicles in the past.

With 11 volumes and 13 special publications now available, is there an issue that you’re particularly proud of?

With 340 articles produced it is hard to choose among them. However, the most popular article has been download over 60,000 times (see the statistics here).

Do you have any advice for academics interested in submitting to LD&C?

Take advantage of the possibilities offered by online publishing. Include media as examples of phenomena discussed in the article, include corpus materials that allow readers to check your analysis and to potentially carry out their own reanalysis of the data.

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About the Journal

Language Documentation & Conservation is a free open-access journal on issues related to language documentation and revitalization. The journal is sponsored by the National Foreign Language Resource Center.

Submissions

Instructions for submission can be found on the Language Documentation & Conservation‘s website.

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The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 29 no. 2 (2017)

Featured art in the new issue of The Contemporary Pacific by Selwyn Muru: On 9 June 2017, 135 years after government troops invaded and violently decimated the Māori settlement of Parihaka (and at the time this issue of the journal was about to go to press), a Crown apology was finally offered to the people of Parihaka. The gesture is more than symbolic: an additional deed of reconciliation, legacy statement, ongoing relationship agreements with local and national government, a development fund, and legislation are being put in place to ensure that the Crown’s commitment is legally binding. Parihaka Papakainga Trust Chair Puna Wano-Bryant’s declaration of a “new dawn” echoed sentiments expressed at the time of Parihaka’s founding. The cover image depicts two important prophets, peacemakers, and leaders of nonviolent resistance in this story: Te Whiti o Rongomai, who helped establish Parihaka with Tohu Kakahi, and their colleague Riwha Titokowaru, who was blind in one eye, and who was arguably “the best general New Zealand has ever produced” (James Belich, in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand).

This issue of The Contemporary Pacific features a dialogue, “Losing Oceania to the Pacific and the World,” political reviews, the work of artist Selwyn Muru, book and media reviews, and the following articles:

  • Climate Change and the Imagining of Migration: Emerging Discourses on Kiribati’s Land Purchase in Fiji by Elfriede Hermann and Wolfgang Kempf
  • Charting Pacific (Studies) Waters: Evidence of Teaching and Learning by Teresia K. Teaiwa

Continue reading “The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 29 no. 2 (2017)”

Biography Vol. 40 No. 1 (Winter 2017)

Jaya Daronde, Relationship, oil on canvas. From Caste Life Narratives, Visual Representation, and Protected Ignorance in this issue. Copyright and reproduced courtesy of the artist.

This special issue of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly focuses on Caste and Life Narratives. From the guest editors:

Life narratives ranging from autobiographies and biographies to blogs and pictorial art have historically played a vital role in both the affirmation as well as interrogation of caste identities. However, serious study of life narratives in relationship to caste is still relatively underdeveloped. The scholarship on caste (or the varna-jati complex) is vast, as is the study of life narratives as a genre—it is the conjunction of the two that especially merits sustained scrutiny. The study of caste is animated by a Critical Caste Studies that takes its bearing from Dalit Studies, a lively area of scholarly endeavor in recent years, in order to explore diverse phenomena within the varna-jati complex. The scrutiny of life narratives in conjunction with caste promises to expand the scope of inquiry into life narratives by bringing new cultural contexts into the discussion and by enabling the formulation of new theoretical questions of genre. Such an investigation contributes to the study of caste by directing attention to fresh archives and by making available for analysis in powerful ways questions of identity. The critical work of studying caste in conjunction with life narratives is most pertinent with regard to India but includes the South Asian diaspora as well as other countries such as Japan.

— Editors’ Introduction: “My Birth Is My Fatal Accident”: Introduction to Caste and Life Narratives by S. Shankar and Charu Gupta

Literary Lives

Continue reading “Biography Vol. 40 No. 1 (Winter 2017)”

Trans-Humanities, vol. 10, no. 3 (2017)

Trans-Humanities volume 10 issue 2 features the following scholarly works:

Articles

SF, An Aesthetics of Thought Experiments Exploring Otherness: With a Focus on Stanislaw Lem’s SF Solaris (1961)
by Do-Hoon Bok

Connection Between the Worlds Reorganized into New Media: Focused on Dramaworld
by Soohwan Kang

An Institutional Approach to the Reception of Nam June Paik in French Art Museums During the 1970s: Contexts, Characteristics, and Meanings
by Ilmin Nah

Temporary Autonomous Zone and a Subject Outside the Law
by Jongju Park

A Study on the Rights of Returnees and the Return of Soviet Koreans in Sakhalin Through Difficulty at Remaining Life Written by In Muhak
by Namseok Kim

Reading Lord Jim Based on Slavoj Žižek’s “Fantasy” and “Spectre”
by Sunhee Jung


Find the full text of the issue at Project MUSE


About the Journal

Trans-Humanities publishes materials that expand humanities research to include contemporary cultural and sociological phenomena and to open an academic and discursive space for trans-boundary and multi or trans-disciplinary approaches and communications, not just in the humanities but also the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the arts. Sign up to receive free email alerts, when new content posted.

Subscriptions

Subscribe online at: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/t-trans-humanities.

Philosophy East and West, vol. 67, no. 3 (July 2017)

This quarter’s journal of comparative Eastern and Western philosophies includes the following scholarly works:

Articles

The Strong Case for Vegetarianism in Pātañjala Yoga
by Jonathan Dickstein

Heidegger and Mullā Sadrā on the Meaning of Metaphysics
by Muhammad U. Faruque

The Prescriptive Dialectics of Li 禮 and Yi 義 in the Lienü zhuan 列女傳
by César Guarde-Pazo

Sūksma and the Clear and Distinct Light: The Path to Epistemic Enhancement in Yogic and Cartesian Meditation
by Gary Jaeger

Continue reading “Philosophy East and West, vol. 67, no. 3 (July 2017)”

Korean Studies, vol. 41 (2017)

Map of Koryŏ dynasty, from Koryŏ: An Introduction in this issue.

This year’s issue of Korean Studies includes a special section focusing on the middle kingdom Koryŏ.

Koryŏ, Korea’s middle kingdom in that it is lodged between Silla and Chosŏn, is the least studied era of Korea’s history. And yet it offers intriguing insights into Korea’s long tradition as the Koryŏ state participated actively in international events while at the same time building internal institutions in response to its own unique experiences. The collection of papers that follows introduces both these international and domestic themes, providing a nuanced understanding of both Koryŏ and Korea.

–Edward J. Shultz, Koryŏ: An Introduction

Special section

Timeline of Koryŏ dynasty in its chronological context from Koryŏ: An Introduction in this issue.

Koryŏ: An Introduction
Edward J. Shultz

Early Koryŏ Political Institutions and the International Expansion of Tang and Song Institutions
Jae Woo Park (Pak Chaeu)

Interstate Relations in East Asia and Medical Exchanges in the Late Eleventh Century and Early Twelfth Century
Oongseok Chai (Ungso˘k Ch’ae)

Koryŏ ’s Trade with the Outer World
Kang Hahn Lee (Yi Kanghan) Continue reading “Korean Studies, vol. 41 (2017)”

China Review International, vol. 22, no. 2 (2015)

This issue of China Review International: A Journal of Reviews of Scholarly Literature in Chinese Studies opens with one feature and includes 15 reviews.

FEATURE

Herself an Autobiographer: Writing Women’s Self-Representation in the Qing (Reviewing Binbin Yang, Heroines of the Qing: Exemplary Women Tell Their Stories) Reviewed by Xu Ma

REVIEWS

Sarah Allan, The Heir and the Sage: Dynastic Legend in Early China, reviewed by Paul R. Goldin

Paul Bevan, A Modern Miscellany: Shanghai Cartoon Artists, Shao Xunmei’s Circle, and the Travels of Jack Chen, 1926–1938, reviewed by Hal Swindall

Susanne Bregnbæk, Fragile Elite: The Dilemmas of China’s Top University Students, reviewed by Chongmin Yang Continue reading “China Review International, vol. 22, no. 2 (2015)”

U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal, no. 51 (2017)

Distributed for Jōsai International Center for the Promotion of Art and Science, Jōsai University

The U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal number 51 is a special issue commemorating the journal’s 50 previous issues.

We are honored to publish the fifty-first issue of the U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal (USJWJ)—complete with special features to commemorate the previous fifty issues—and to launch a new phase in our history. Founded in 1988, USJWJ is the world’s oldest scholarly journal devoted to the study of gender and Japan. We are a peer-reviewed, biannual publication, available in print and online, that promotes scholarly exchange on social, cultural, political, and economic issues. We encourage comparative study among Japan, the United States, and other countries, and feature articles about women’s lived experiences and media representations. Our mission is to foster the work of young researchers and to ensure that the achievements of established scholars are not forgotten.
— Alisa Freedman,
Editor’s Note [Free to Access on MUSE]

It features the following scholarly works including:

  • Building a Feminist Scholarly Community: Fifty-One Issues of U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal [Free to Access on MUSE]
    by Jan Bardsley
  • The Benefits and Lessons of Two Decades with U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal
    by Sally A. Hastings
  • Maiden Martyr for “New Japan”: The 1960 Ampo and the Rhetoric of the Other Michiko
    by Hiroko Hirakawa
  • Image-Makers and Victims: The Croissant Syndrome and Yellow Cabs
    by Aki Hirota
  • Nagai Michiko and Ariyoshi Sawako Rewrite the Taikō
    by Susan Westhafer Furukawa
  • Right Here, Right Here
    by Shibasaki Tomoka
  • Shibasaki Tomoka’s Literature of Location
    by Kendall Heitzman
  • Heisei Murasaki: What Women Poets Have Found during Japan’s Lost Decades
    by Jordan A. Y. Smith

Continue reading “U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal, no. 51 (2017)”

Interview: Asian Theatre Review editor Kathy Foley

Later this year, Asian Theatre Journal editor Kathy Foley will step down from her post, which she’s held since 2004, and pass the baton onto current area editor, Siyuan Liu. Foley is a distinguished scholar, performer and director based out of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has been engaged with the journal since “before it was born.” This summer, Foley shared with us the history of ATJ and highlights from her tenure with the journal.

Learn more about Foley in the recent “Founders of the Field” feature by Margaret J. Caldiron in ATJ Vol. 34, No. 1. A specialist in wayang golek (Indonesian rod puppets), Foley also shared her knowledge with the Asian Art Museum in this short video.

Kathy Foley leads a performance class at the University of Malaya during a Fulbright Senior Scholar grant in 2014. Students rehearse the wilderness scene from the Layla and Majnun story in Mughal Miniatures. (Photo courtesy of Kathy Foley)

Asian Theatre Journal launched in 1984 with an article written by you and, 20 years later, you took over the editorship from Samuel L. Leiter. Can you tell us about your history with the journal and what lead you to become editor of ATJ?

When I was a graduate student at UH and the East-West Center, I and my peers started a mimeographed Asian Theatre Reports, which brought together recent field research of graduate students studying Asian theatre. When East-West Center offered to upgrade this publication, James Brandon suggested instead a full peer-reviewed journal and went to UH Press with his proposal. Thus, in some ways, I feel I have been with journal since before it was born. To have followed in the footsteps of editors James Brandon with Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak and Samuel Leiter—giants of our field—is an honor.

How has Asian Theatre Journal evolved over the years? And what issues are particularly relevant now?

As editor my quest has been to publish fundamental research. Arts and humanities in the American and European University often remain focused on the West—what happens in New York, London, Berlin, Paris is touted as “theatre.” Japan, China, and Singapore, as they developed economic clout, have gotten attention, but I want us to see that Dili and Naha are equally important; that more than the doings of the elite need attention. We need larger vistas. Aesthetic biodiversity, past and present, is important for humans. Art makers mount stages to expand our possibilities as a species. This journal is about widening visions—my own and I hope of readers, too.

In your first editor’s note, you wrote, “Knowledge is crossing oceans and leaping across generations. We are a joint community of teachers and learners.” Today, in addition to articles and translations, the journal features sections on “Emerging Scholars” as well as “Founders of the Field.” How would you describe your approach to editing ATJ?

Jim Brandon started ATJ with a focus on “traditional” forms. As Samuel Leiter came, contemporary play translations and papers by “Emerging Scholars” got space. During my time there has been increasing focus on urban contemporary forms and China has mushroomed. This is not because I dictate it—it comes with the “trends” of trans-national scholarship; gender issues, sexualities, postcolonial thrusts come from what is transpiring in both grad seminars and in the world. We definitely have become more global—graduate student cohorts and assistant professors hail from across the globe.

Kathy Foley (center) performs wayang golek sunda with the clown Semar (light face and black body) and his sons (Astrajingga behind Semar and Petruk facing him). Her puppetry graduate students Michael Schuster (foreground) and Shae Uisna (behind Foley) assist along with UCSC gamelan players. (Photo courtesy of Kathy Foley)

Siyuan Liu and David Jortner edited “Founders of the Field”; it was initially just a way to do more than just mark death of a single important Asian theatre scholar (Andy Tsubaki from University of Kansas). I suggested we talk to our forerunners while they were still around about how/why our field was formed. This “Founders” series ballooned, while seemingly “about” individuals, it really asks more—what is the evolving place of Asian theatre studies in the academy? How did World War II and the Occupation jumpstart our field by creating Japanist besotted with kabuki? How did the 1960s era give Southeast Asian or South Asian theatre focus? How has China after Mao allowed new studies? Looking at lineages is germane to our discipline—the guru, the sensei, the sifu—is “built in” to our training. The 10-week quarter or even the five-year PhD does not work in the same way. That Founder project asked, where do we come from and where are we heading? The next editor may not continue the series on actions and interactions, but will still keep a finger to the pulse.

This year, you pass the editorship onto Siyuan Liu. Looking back on a dozen years at the helm, is there an issue that you’re particularly proud of?

I think that some of the themed issues—Shakespeare in Asia, Kyogen, Malaysian Theatre, Women in Asian Theatre—have been useful, not only because they had good articles, but many of those editors have gone on to bigger editing jobs better prepared. Siyuan Liu, himself, became seasoned as an editor with the “Founders” and is now ready to do the whole.

Colleague Margaret J. Coldiron characterizes your scholarly work as “detailed, accessible, and passionate.” After ATJ, what’s next for you?

After ATJ I’m ready to focus on my own writing. I have so much research I have never really processed while performing, raising kids, administrating, and editing. James Brandon told me when I was a graduate student that single-point focus (then, the dissertation) was something I would seldom experience again. He was right. But Jim actually did his most important writing on kabuki after he passed off ATJ, I hope to follow his example and watch my “to do” list shrink.


About the Journal

Asian Theatre Journal is dedicated to the performing arts of Asia, focusing upon both traditional and modern theatrical forms. It aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge throughout the international theatrical community for the mutual benefit of all interested scholars and artists. It is the official journal of the Association of Asian Performance.

Subscriptions

Single issue sales and annual subscriptions for both individuals and institutions available here.

Submissions

Asian Theatre Journal welcomes articles on Asian theatre and on the relations and mutual influences between Asian and Western theatre. Find submission guidelines here.