Michigan Talks Japan

Claire Maree

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Claire Maree, [https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/359280-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, [https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190869618.001.0001/oso-9780190869618] 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 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Pm8wbXPN0] and the other with Matsuko Deluxe [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLCMZzgp4pM]. Please explore the podcast's homepage [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast] for more links with examples of text-on-screen and censorship that Dr. Maree discusses. You can find her on Twitter @ClaireMareeUoM. [https://twitter.com/ClaireMareeUoM] Michigan Talks Japan [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast] is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs] at the University of Michigan. [https://umich.edu]

Vyjayanthi Selinger

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Vyjayanthi Selinger, [https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/vselinge/index.html] 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,” [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/734128] published in Monumenta Nipponica in 2019, and “The Rāmāyana and the Rhizome: Textual Networks in the Work of Minakata Kumagusu” [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/vergstudglobasia.7.1.0247#metadata_info_tab_contents]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, [https://brill.com/view/title/23695] 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 [https://youtu.be/1FK1z9-_Sgg] Project. You can find her on Twitter @jayselinge, [@jayselinge] where she would be especially happy to discuss the TV show Watchmen and the character Lady Triệu. Michigan Talks Japan [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast] is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs] at the University of Michigan. [https://umich.edu]

Gabriella Lukács

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Gabriella Lukács, [http://www.anthropology.pitt.edu/people/gabriella-lukacs] 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. [https://www.dukeupress.edu/invisibility-by-design] 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. Dr. Gabriella Lukács is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.  Her earlier book, Scripted Affects, Branded Selves [https://www.dukeupress.edu/scripted-affects-branded-selves]analyzes the development of a new primetime serial, a so-called “trendy drama,” as the Japanese television industry’s response to developments in digital media technologies and market fragmentation.  Michigan Talks Japan [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast] is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs] at the University of Michigan. [https://umich.edu]

Jolyon Baraka Thomas

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Jolyon Baraka Thomas [https://jolyon.thomasresearch.org], 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. [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo36844848.html] 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 [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b4bfbc04611a03c91f4073a/t/5ee7c49ff4ba336b5504f551/1592247459710/AAS+Petition+-+Support+Black+Scholars+of+Asia+-+6.15.20.pdf] * #BlackInTheIvory [https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BlackintheIvory&src=typeahead_click] * NHK's animated video trying to "explain" Black Lives Matter protests [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/10/national/nhk-video-black-lives-matter/] * AAS Roundtable on "Asian Studies and Black Lives Matter" [https://www.asianstudies.org/jobs-professional-resources/aas-digital-dialogues/asian-studies-and-black-lives-matter/] * The podcast Japan on the Record [https://www.asianstudies.org/jobs-professional-resources/aas-digital-dialogues/asian-studies-and-black-lives-matter/] has a series of episodes focused on these issues, starting in June 2020. Dr. Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies [https://rels.sas.upenn.edu/]at the University of Pennsylvania. You can find him on twitter @jolyonbt. [https://twitter.com/jolyonbt] Michigan Talks Japan [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast] is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs] at the University of Michigan. [https://umich.edu]

Suma Ikeuchi

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Suma Ikeuchi, [https://www.sumaikeuchi.com] 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, [https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=30006] published in 2019 by Stanford University Press. After we recorded this, the book was awarded the 2020 Francis L. K. Hsu Book Prize [https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2020/020110/award-distinction] by the Society for East Asian Anthropology. Dr. Suma Ikeuchi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies [https://www.eastasian.ucsb.edu] at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  You can find her on Twitter at @prof_suma [https://twitter.com/prof_suma]. Michigan Talks Japan [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs/podcast] is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies [https://ii.umich.edu/cjs] at the University of Michigan. [https://umich.edu]