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• New Books on Japan: "The Translocal Island of Okinawa: Anti-Base Activism and Grassroots Regionalism"

  • When
    May 26, 2025
  •  
    8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  

  Monday, May 26, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET
  Tuesday, May 27, 2025 | 9:00-10:30 AM JST | 10:00-11:30 AM AEST | 12:00–1:30pm NZST
  
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  The Translocal Island of Okinawa: Anti-Base Activism and Grassroots Regionalism (Bloomsbury, 2024)

  Presenter: Shinnosuke Takahashi, Senior Lecturer in the Asian Languages and Cultures, Victoria University of Wellington

  Discussant: Grant Jun Otsuki, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthroplogy, University of Tokyo

  Moderator: Simon Avenell, Professor of History, Australian National University

  The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Shinnosuke Takahashi, who will be speaking about his new book The Translocal Island of Okinawa: Anti-Base Activism and Grassroots Regionalism (Bloomsbury, 2024). The Translocal Island of Okinawa reveals the underrepresented memories, visions, and actions that are involved in the making of Okinawan resistance against its subordinated status under the US-Japan security system beyond the narrowly defined political, cultural and geographical borders of locality. As Okinawa's base politics is a problem deeply rooted in the context of East Asia, so is the history of the people's protest movement. The issue examined in this book is the arbitrary distinction of scale between 'local', which tends to be employed for a particular territory demarcated by a cohesive culture, and 'regional', a larger area that consists of myriad localities. Locality, Shinnosuke Takahashi argues, is neither self-evident, fixed, nor homogenous but is established through historical processes that involve interaction, conflict, and negotiation of individuals and communities across territorial and cultural boundaries. The concept of Okinawa as a translocal island offers a new way to understand locality in the context of Okinawan activism as a product of multiple cultural and human flows, as opposed to the conventional way of framing the local community as fixed, internally cohesive, and rigidly bordered. It makes an exciting contribution to the field of modern Japanese and East Asian studies by stimulating discussions on the richness and scale of local civic activism that is increasingly becoming a key political feature of the East Asian region. Grant Jun Otsuki (Tokyo) will serve as interlocutor.

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• Research Exchange Seminar #4: 『帝国大学の朝鮮人：大韓民国エリートの起源』（慶應義塾大学出版会、2021年）を語る ("Koreans in the Imperial University: The Origin of South Korean Elites")

  • When
    June 10, 2025
  •  
    9:00 PM - 10:30 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  

  Tuesday, June 10, 2025 | 9:00-10:30 PM JST | 8:00-9:30 AM ET | 1:00 AM-2:30 PM BST
  
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  Research Exchange Seminar #4 

  『帝国大学の朝鮮人：大韓民国エリートの起源』（慶應義塾大学出版会、2021年）を語る

  A Discussion of Koreans in the Imperial University: The Origin of South Korean Elites (Keio University Press, 2021)

  
  

  Presenters:

  鄭鍾賢（仁荷大学校副教授）Jeong Jong-Hyun, Associate Professor, Inha University (author)

  渡辺直紀（日本女子大学名誉教授）Watanabe Naoki, Professor, Musashi University (translator)

  Moderator:

  茶谷さやか（シンガポール国立大学准教授）Sayaka Chatani, Associate Professor, National University of Singapore

  
  

  『帝国大学の朝鮮人：大韓民国エリートの起源』の著者、鄭鍾賢さんと翻訳者の渡辺直紀さんをお迎えし、本の紹介や韓国での読者の反応などをお聞きします。渡辺先生のご厚意でMJHA初の日韓通訳つきで行います！

  「제국대학의 조센징: 대한민국 엘리트의 기원, 그들은 돌아 와서 무엇을 하였나?』 의 저자 정종현 씨와 번역자 와타나 베 나오키 씨를 모시고 책 소개와 한국 독자들의 반응 등을 들어봅니다. 한일 통역이 있음.

  We are pleased to welcome Mr. Jeong Jong-hyeon, author of Koreans in the Imperial University: The Origin of South Korea's Elite (Keio University Press, 2021), along with the book’s translator, Mr. Naoki Watanabe. They will introduce the book and share insights on readers’ responses in South Korea. Thanks to the kind support of Mr. Watanabe, this will be the first MJHA event to feature Japanese–Korean interpretation.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• New Books from Japan #9: "The Age of Korean Cinema: Colonial Representations Created by Imperial Japan"

  • When
    July 01, 2025
  •  
    8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
  • Location
    Zoom

  Tuesday, July 1, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 AM ET | 8:00-9:30 PM JST
  
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  New Books from Japan #9:

  朝鮮映画の時代: 帝国日本が創造した植民地表象

  The Age of Korean Cinema: Colonial Representations Created by Imperial Japan

  
  

  Presenter: 梁仁實 (Yang Insil, Iwate University)

  Discussant: Jonathan Glade (University of Melbourne)

  
  

  In Imperial Japan, many filmmakers, cinema works, and information traversed across the empire. Korean films were screened and “Chosen mono” was produced in the "inner territories." Who watched these Korean films and Korean productions, and how were they perceived? As the war intensified, Korean dialogue was replaced by Japanese, and “respectable imperial subjects” began to appear on the screen. How did the thoughts of directors, actors, cinema operators, and audiences overlap and differ between Koreans and Japanese?

  帝国日本では多くの映画人や作品、情報が往来し、内地でも朝鮮映画が上映され「朝鮮物」が作られた。こうした朝鮮映画や朝鮮物は誰に観られ、いかに考えられていたのか。戦時色が強まるにつれ、セリフは日本語に、スクリーンには「立派な皇国臣民」が登場するようになる。監督や俳優などの製作者、映画館経営者、観客の思いは、朝鮮人と日本人でいかに重なり、異なったのか。

  
  

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