The Japanese translation of Sabine Frühstück’s book, Playing War (University of California Press, 2017) is now out from Jinbun Shōbo, Kyoto, 2023. 『「戦争ごっこ」の近現代史—児童文化と軍事思想』
Category: People in the Department
New Book by Professor William Fleming: Strange Tales from Edo
New Book by Professor William Fleming: Strange Tales from Edo: Rewriting Chinese Fiction in Early Modern Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2023).
Strange Tales from Edo paints a sweeping picture of Japan’s engagement with Chinese fiction in the early modern period (1600–1868). Large-scale analyses of the full historical and bibliographical record—the first of their kind—document in detail the wholesale importation of Chinese fiction, the market for imported books and domestic reprint editions, and the critical role of manuscript practices—the ascendance of print culture notwithstanding—in the circulation of Chinese texts among Japanese readers and writers.
Bringing this big picture to life, Fleming also traces the journey of a text rarely mentioned in studies of early modern Japanese literature: Pu Songling’s Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio). An immediate favorite of readers on the continent, Liaozhai was long thought to have been virtually unknown in Japan until the modern period. Copies were imported in vanishingly small numbers, and the collection was never reprinted domestically. Yet beneath this surface of apparent neglect lies a rich hidden history of engagement and rewriting—hand-copying, annotation, criticism, translation, and adaptation—that opens up new perspectives on both the Chinese strange tale and its Japanese counterparts.
Hanne Deleu Publishes Book Chapter: “Sagas of Swords, Scrolls, and Dolls: Japanese Humanitarian Aid to Belgium”
Congratulations to graduate student Hanne Deleu for publishing her book chapter “Sagas of Swords, Scrolls, and Dolls: Japanese Humanitarian Aid to Belgium” in the edited volume titled Humanitarianism and the Greater War, 1914–24. Click the image above or the citation below to read her work.
Citation:
Deleu, Hanne. “Sagas of Swords, Scrolls, and Dolls: Japanese Humanitarian Aid to Belgium.” In Humanitarianism and the Greater War, 1914–24, edited by Elisabeth Piller and Neville Wylie, 51–68. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526173256. Hanne Deleu_Sagas of Swords, Scrolls, and Dolls: Japanese Humanitarian Aid to Belgium_2023
Back from Summer Internships
During the summer of 2023, the first cohort of graduate students served as Interns in Japanese institutions. These Internships were generously funded by the Ogawa Gift Fund and UC Santa Barbara’s Graduate Division.
Hanne Deleu, second-year PhD student in EALCS, reports that “as an Intern for the Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University (JAH-Q), I helped the journal’s editors with increasing their outreach to a larger and more diverse academic community around the world, proofread submissions, updated the journal’s website, and assisted with preparing the journal’s next editions. In turn, this Internship provided me with the opportunity to expand my professional network in Japan, gave me access to archival materials crucial for my dissertation project, and allowed me to hone my editing skills. I can’t more highly recommend to other students such an opportunity to delve into the professional side of academia, learning about and contributing to the production of a journal at the interface of the Japanese and international academic worlds.”
Raymond Katsuki Chung, second-year PhD student in EALCS, interned at the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, a museum in Tokyo dedicated to the memorialization and study of the American firebombing air raids on Tokyo during World War II. Raymond reports that he was delighted to “assist with expanding the museum’s accessibility to non-Japanese speaking visitors, translate exhibition placards from Japanese, and provide guided English-language tours to a diverse population of visitors. I also moderated a Summer Vacation special event for schoolchildren and participated in planning meetings for Japanese university student trainees organizing their own temporary exhibits. I gained valuable insights on how knowledge might be presented to the general public in a non-academic setting and was honored to work under the direction of Director Yoshida Yutaka, a leading historian of World War II.”
Li-Ting Chang wins ASPAC-Mori Graduate Student Paper Prize in Asian Studies
EALCS Ph.D. student Li-Ting Chang, recently won the 2023 ASPAC-Mori Graduate Student Paper Prize in Asian Studies for her article on Taiwan. Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC) is one of the regional affiliates of the Association for Asian Studies. According to its website, the purpose of the award is to “recognize extraordinary graduate student scholarship… in any discipline in any area of research pertaining to Asian Studies.” Congratulations, Li-Ting!
CHIN 3 student Daniel Badilla wins Second Place in Chinese Language Teachers’ Association in California Chinese Speech Contest
Congratulations to CHIN 3 student, Daniel Badilla, who won Second Place in the 47th annual Chinese Language Teachers’ Association in California (CLTAC) Chinese Speech Contest in the college level beginning Chinese division on April 25, 2023. More than 361 students participated in the speech contest virtually this year, and Daniel really stood out as a result of his dedication in practice. Congratulations!
