Assistant Professor in Modern Literary and Media Cultures of Japan in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies

Job #JPF02851
East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies / College of Letters & Science – Humanities and Fine Arts / UC Santa Barbara
Apply now: https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02851/apply
View this position online: https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02851

POSITION OVERVIEW
Position title: Assistant Professor
Salary range: A reasonable estimate for this position is a range of $82,200 – $111,800. Applicants that currently hold a senate faculty position at another UC campus should be aware of the policies governing intercampus faculty hiring & transfers. These policies can be found at UCOP APM 510-18.
Percent time: 100%
Anticipated start: July 1, 2025 or later

APPLICATION WINDOW
Open date: October 21, 2024
Next review date: Friday, Nov 22, 2024 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.
Final date: Monday, Jun 30, 2025 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

POSITION DESCRIPTION
We seek a scholar trained in Japanese literature from the late nineteenth century to the present whose research and teaching address the contemporary transmedial context of literature as well as the global reach of Japanese literature, media, and popular culture. Applicants should focus on the modern and contemporary periods, but should be able to speak to the historical depth that informs the contemporary world. We would be interested in a focus on cultures of creativity, material culture, and/or formal aspects of verbal and textual production, especially as they moved from primarily book/paper-based formats to film and radio, television and anime, and more recently to the internet and social media production spaces. We are particularly interested in scholars who engage with questions of racial and social justice—for example, work by or about ethnic Koreans in Japan and within the Japanese empire, bilingual works as expressive of immigrant experience, or narratives of Japanese biracial experiences—and who employ digital methodologies in ways that open new questions for literary studies. We are also interested in candidates whose work can complement existing strengths in the department and in the Division of Humanities
and Fine Arts more broadly, especially translation and border crossing, critical bibliography, media studies, and/or gender and sexuality studies.

The successful candidate will be asked to teach courses in English on modern and contemporary Japanese literature and media, including their cultural and social impacts in Japan and across the globe; survey courses on nineteenth through twenty-first-century Japanese literature; and advanced language classes in Japanese focused on readings related to their research interests.

The department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research,
teaching, and service.

QUALIFICATIONS
Basic qualifications (required at time of application)
The minimum requirement to be considered for this position is the completion of all requirements for a Ph.D. except the dissertation at time of application. The
Ph.D. may be in any field in the humanities with research specialization in Japanese literature.
Additional qualifications (required at time of start)
Ph.D. at the time of appointment.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
Document requirements
– Curriculum Vitae – Your most recently updated C.V.

– Cover Letter
– Statement of Contributions to Diversity – Statement addressing past and/or potential contributions to diversity through research, teaching, and/or
service.
– Writing Sample – 15-25 Pages

Reference requirements
3 letters of reference required
Please arrange to have three letters of recommendation submitted via UC Recruit.
Apply link: https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02851
Help contact: rebeca_adam@ucsb.edu

ABOUT UC SANTA BARBARA
The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. For the University of California’s Affirmative Action Policy please visit: https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4010393/PPSM-20. For the University of California’s Anti-Discrimination Policy, please visit: https://policy.ucop.edu/doc/1001004/Anti-Discrimination.

As a condition of employment, you will be required to comply with the University of California Policy on Vaccination Programs, as may be amended or revised from time to time. Federal, state, or local public health directives may impose additional requirements.

JOB LOCATION
Santa Barbara, CA

Event: Animism Today on 10/21-22

Next Monday and Tuesday (October 21 and 22) four prominent scholars from Japan will come to UCSB to address the topic of “Animism Today” in popular culture, traditional culture, and contemporary arts, also in conversation with members of the UCSB community. The term “animism” is used in Japan with positive connotations as a way to describe widespread forms of Japanese religiosity and, to an extent, Japanese cultural identity.
For full information, please see the event page on the Religious Studies website.
At Rob Gym Room 1005 (in the low building to the left before the entrance to Rob Gym).
Monday afternoon features four papers addressing various aspects of animism by Hirafuji Kikuko, MInato Chihiro, Koizumi Bon, and Matsumura Kazuo. See the program below for more information.
On Tuesday, there will be eight brief presentations by UCSB colleagues:
9:30–12:00 Roundtable Rethinking “Animism” and Related Phenomena (“paganism,” polytheism, idolatry, materiality of religion, secularization, etc.)
We will have presentations from Claudia Moser (History of Art and Architecture), Amit Shilo (Classics), Ranjani Atur (Ph.D., Religious Studies UCSB; Classics, University of Minnesota); and Rudy Busto, Thomas Carlson, Will Ellison, Fabio Rambelli, and Christine Thomas (all from Religious Studies)
Organized by Kikuko Hirafuji (Kokugakuin University), Fabio Rambelli, and Christine Thomas (UCSB).
Sponsors:
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology Open Laboratory for Emergence Strategies (ROLES), The University of Tokyo
Kokugakuin University (Tokyo)
UCSB Virgil Cordano OFM Chair in Catholic Studies
UCSB International Shinto Foundation Chair in Shinto Studies
UCSB Department of Religious Studies

Prof. Thomas Mazanec Appointed East Asia Editor of JAOS

Prof. Thomas Mazanec was recently appointed to serve as the East Asia section editor of JAOS (Journal of the American Oriental Society). Founded in 1842, the AOS is the oldest learned society in the United States devoted to a particular field of scholarship, and its associated Journal is known as one of the premiere publications in the study of premodern Asia and North Africa.

The first issue for which Prof. Mazanec served as editor (144.3) is now online.

Prof. Howard Chiang Publishes New Book

Prof. Howard Chiang, the Lai Ho & Wu Cho-liu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies, has a new book out—Sinophone Studies across Disciplines: A Reader, edited with Shu-mei Shih, from Columbia University Press. Congratulations!

Description

Sinophone studies—the study of Sinitic-language cultures and communities around the world—has become increasingly interdisciplinary over the past decade. Today, it spans not only literary studies and cinema studies but also history, anthropology, musicology, linguistics, art history, and dance. More and more, it is in conversation with fields such as postcolonial studies, settler-colonial studies, migration studies, ethnic studies, queer studies, and area studies.

This reader presents the latest and most cutting-edge work in Sinophone studies, bringing together both senior and emerging scholars to highlight the interdisciplinary reach and significance of this vital field. It argues that Sinophone studies has developed a distinctive conceptualization of power at the convergence of different intellectual traditions, offering new approaches to questions of plurality, hierarchy, oppression, and resistance. In so doing, this book shows, Sinophone studies has provided valuable conceptual tools for the study of minoritized and racialized communities in diverse global settings. Essays also consider how the rise of China has affected Sinophone communities and the idea of Chineseness around the world, among other timely topics. Showcasing cross-fertilization and diversification that traverse and transcend conventional scholarly boundaries, Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines gives readers an unparalleled survey of the past, present, and future of this inherently interdisciplinary field.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines, by Howard Chiang and Shu-mei Shih
Part I: Interdisciplinary Conjunctions
1. The Question of Chinese Empire, by Shu-mei Shih
2. Stonewall Aside: When Queer Theory Meets Sinophone Studies, by Howard Chiang
3. Written Out: Dance and the Sinophone, by Emily Wilcox
4. Cantonese Opera and Sino-Soundscape in North America, by Nancy Yunhwa Rao
5. Ann Hui, Hainan, and the Sino-Vietnamese War: A Sinophone Inter-Asian Recasting of Boat People’s Transpacific Refugee Critique, by Brian Bernards
6. Sinophone Affects: Kyle Dargan’s Anagnorisis and the Poetics of Infrastructure in Chan Tze Woon’s Yellowing, by Lily Wong
Part II: Theories, Methodologies, Controversies
7. Geocritical Sinophone and Transgressive Community, by Yinde Zhang
8. Sinophone Postloyalism, by David Der-wei Wang
9. Parasite: Conceptualizing a Sinophone Approach and Ethics, by E. K. Tan
10. Queer Hong Kong as a Sinophone Method, by Alvin K. Wong
11. Enjoy Your Sinophone!, by Chien-heng Wu
12. The Lure of Diaspora and Sinophone Malaysian Literature in Taiwan, by Wai-Siam Hee
13. Conditions of Theory in Taiwan: Americanism and Settler Colonialism, by Shu-mei Shih
Part III: Places of Differentiation
14. Chinese Settler Colonialism: Empire and Life in the Tibetan Borderlands, by Carole McGranahan
15. Beyond Musical, Political, and Linguistic Boundaries: The Influence of the Hong Kong Rock Band Beyond in the PRC in the 1990s and Its Legacy, by Nathanel Amar
16. Translanguaging as a Transcultural Marker in the Italian Sinophone Play Tong Men-g, by Valentina Pedone
17. From Multilingualism to Mandarin: Chinese Singaporeans as a Sinophone Community, 1945–1990, by Jason Lim
18. Adaptation and Identity Building Among the Ethnic Chinese Communities in Vietnam: A View from Ritual Transformation in Popular Religion, by Tho Ngoc Nguyen
19. The Misconstrued Reader: Contemporary Sinophone Literature in Thailand, by Rebecca Ehrenwirth
Contributors
Index

Jin Young Lim publishes new book The Dao of Flow

Announcement:

New Book Announcement! The Dao of Flow: A Journey to Discover the Ancient Wisdom of Water by Jin Young Lim, PhD student at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, is now published by Penguin Books! For more information about the book or to pre-order, check out Amazon!

About the Book:

Jin Young Lim was studying ancient philosophy when he delved into a philosophical investigation of his life to date – from his humanitarian work in Fukushima to studying in Tokyo, becoming a yoga teacher and Taijiquan instructor, and co-founding a non-profit in the Himalayas before moving to Beijing as a Schwarzman Scholar. Along the way, Jin Young met scholars, teachers, artists, philosophers, farmers, social workers, and spiritual leaders. In this book, he weaves classical texts into his experiences with Taijiquan, Daoism and Zen, tea, agriculture, conservation, art, history, geography, politics, and social economics. He captures his physical, intellectual, and spiritual journey in a series of incisive reflections, vignettes, and anecdotes that make it accessible in simple terms. Through these stories, Jin Young constructs a philosophical framework of Daoist principles that he calls ‘The Dao of Flow’ ― a way of continuous transformation based on embodying, flowing, and regulating water. These same three principles recurred as patterns in the lives of his role models or ‘walking flowers’ – those who ‘walk the flow’ and do so beautifully and naturally like flowers. This book is an invitation to discover the wisdom of water and provides readers with a novel spiritual map to deeper harmony with oneself and the world.

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Natalya Rodriguez Receives Fulbright U.S. Student Award for 2024-2025

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We are pleased to announce that Natalya Rodriguez, a doctoral student in EALCS, has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to conduct her dissertation research, “Threatened Threads: Weaving Values in Heritage Textile Production in Okinawa, Japan,” while affiliating with the University of the Ryukyus for the 2024-2025 academic year. Congratulations, Natalya!

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