Donald Keene Center Events Calendar
Fall 2002
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• Please check this site for calendar updates.
• All events at Columbia are free and open to the public.
• Unless otherwise indicated, all of the programs listed below take
place at Columbia University, 116th Street between Broadway and
Amsterdam Ave.
• To view a campus map,
click here. |
October 3 & 4 (Thursday & Friday)
Workshop: New Perspectives in the
Study of Shinto
Coordinated by Professor Ryuichi Abe
(Kao Associate Professor of Religion & Department Chair,
Columbia University)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam
Ave.)
October 3: 2:00 PM-6:00 PM; October 4: 9:00 AM-5:30 PM
International workshop with scholars from Japan, Europe, and
the U.S.
This two-day workshop will be
sponsored jointly by the Donald Keene Center of
Japanese Culture, the
International Shinto Foundation (ISF), and the
Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at
Columbia University. The workshop simultaneously
serves as ISF's 7th International Symposium.
The goal of this workshop is twofold. One is to
stimulate further exchange on Shinto and
Shinto-related issues among scholars working in
diversified, interdisciplinary fields of Japanese
and religious studies. The other is to historicize
Shinto in its political, social, and cultural
contexts. This workshop will encourage the
participating scholars to look at new fields of
study and develop new research methods in
wide-ranging academic disciplines.
RSVP required (limited
seating)
Call 212-854-5036 or e-mail
donald-keene-center@columbia.edu by
September 30th if you plan to attend.
Please note that parts of this workshop will be
conducted in Japanese. |
October 16 (Wednesday)
Lecture: Modern Japanese Literature: One Hundred Years of
Solitude
Genichiro Takahashi (Novelist)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam
Ave.)
6:30 PM
Lecture to be given in Japanese with
English translation
Reception to follow
Genichiro Takahashi is one of Japan's leading
postmodern writers. He has published numerous
novels, short stories, and essays over the past two
decades. His first novel, Sayonara, Gyangutachi
(Sayonara, Gangsters, 1982), won the Gunzo
Literary Award for First Novels. In addition, his
Yuga de kansho-teki na Nippon-yakyuu (Japanese
Baseball: Elegant and Sentimental) won the
Mishima Yukio Award in 1988, and his Nihon
bungaku seisui shi recently received the Itoh
Sei Literature Award. His other works include
Pengin mura ni hi wa ochite (Sunset in
Penguin Village, 1989), Wakusei P-13 no
himitsu (The Secret of Planet 13, 1990),
and Gosutobasutazu (Ghostbusters,
1997).
In this talk, Mr. Takahashi will be reading from his
first published novel, Sayonara, Gyangutachi.
He will also be commenting on Japanese literature
from the turn of the 20th century to the present.
Mr. Takahashi is a
Visiting Fellow of the Donald Keene Center,
under a program supported by the
United States-Japan Foundation. |
October 21 (Monday)
Screening of Lily Festival
(Yurisai) and Q&A Session with the Film's Award-winning
director Hamano Sachi
Roone Arledge Cinema,
Lerner Hall, Columbia University (115th St. & Broadway)
» Campus Map
7:00 PM
 Directed
by HAMANO Sachi
Starring Yoshiyuki Kazuko, Mickey Curtis, Shoji
Utae, Shirakawa Kazuko
Japan 2001. 100 min. In Japanese with English
subtitles
The novel this movie is based on is Lily Festival
(Yurisai), a caustic and brightly humorous
portrayal of the sexuality of elderly women. Written
by MOMOTANI Hoko, a resident of Hokkaido, it won the
Hokkaido Newspaper Literary Prize in 1999, and was
published in book form by Kodansha in 2000.
The heroines of the story are seven women who range
in age from 69 to 91. When an elderly ladies' man
moves into their old-fashioned apartment building, a
tremendous commotion ensues. Utterly unlike a
typically reticent Japanese man, this old fellow
charms the women with graceful gestures and eloquent
rhetoric. That these ladies are all taken in by this
smooth-talking old fellow is due to the special
circumstances of the elderly, which are different
from the environment in which they fell in love in
their youth: "The men die earlier, so when you get
to this age, there are hardly any left." "It's not
enough that they just be alive; they should be sexy
too."
 The
women of this film are bold and overflowing with
energy. In Japan, desexualized 'cute old ladies'
sometimes appear as an ideal representation of the
aged, but the residents of Lily Festival's
apartment building are not pent up by the image of
the 'old lady.' Once the gray-haired dandy has shown
them the possibilities of sexuality, they
dauntlessly break out of their shells and begin to
act. This film portrays the lively reawakening of
the sexual energies of old women who had been
shackled by both oppression of women and
discrimination against the elderly.
HAMANO Sachi had always wanted to work as a
director. But in the 1960s, when she tried to get
into the world of film-making, the Japanese movie
business was a male-dominated society, and there
were almost no studios willing to hire women as
potential directors. However, in 1968 Hamano
succeeded in finding work as an assistant director
in independent production companies, and in 1971 she
debuted as a director. In 1984 she founded her own
production company, Tantansha. Since then, working
as both producer and director, she has released over
300 low-budget adult films portraying sexuality from
women's perspectives, becoming one of the most
popular and respected filmmakers in this genre.
Throughout her career Hamano has maintained her
philosophy of celebrating the sexuality of her
heroines but not degrading their images, and her
recent independent films have been widely supported
in Japan by women's and grass-roots groups. In 1998
she produced In Search of a Lost Writer (Dainanakankai
hoko: Ozaki Midori o sagashite) which depicted
the life and work of the forgotten female writer
OZAKI Midori (1896-1971). Funding for this film was
provided in part by donations from over 12,000 women
from all over Japan. Hamano was awarded Japan's 4th
Women's Culture Prize for Lost Writer in
2000; that same year she encountered MOMOTANI Hoko's
novel on elderly sexuality, Lily Festival (Yurisai),
and determined to adapt it for the screen. The
resulting feature film, completed in 2001, has been
screened throughout Japan, and by invitation at film
festivals elsewhere in Asia, North America, and
Europe, including the International Tokyo Women's
Film Festival, the Montreal International Film
Festival, and the International Women's Film
Festival in Turin, Italy, where it was awarded
Second Prize in the Dramatic Features category. |
November 12 (Tuesday)
Lecture - demonstration: Aizome
Ken'ichi Utsuki (of
Aizenkobo, a leading establishment of traditional indigo
dyeing in Kyoto)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam
Ave.)
6:00 PM
 Kenichi
Utsuki was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. He took
an early interest in fabrics, influenced by his
grandfather who was a textile merchant and amateur
painter. Early on he also learned the art of tea
ceremony from his grandmother. Mr. Utsuki studied
mathematics at Nihon University, and earned a
bachelor's degree in English from Kyoto Sangyo
University. He learned the skill of Japanese indigo
dyeing with natural dyes from his father, and has
gone on to promote this traditional craft with his
own improvements. His works have been displayed in
museums, including the following works in the
permanent collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum
in London: Stencil dye of Japanese pure indigo Noren
"Momokuri Sannnen Kaki Hachinen" (2/1995); Stencil
dye of Japanese pure indigo Noren "Haru mata Kaeru"
(10/1996); Japanese pure indigo paper with pure gold
scroll "Setsugetsuka" (6/1997).
Aizenkobo is an indigo-dyeing workshop that has been
in operation for three generations. Aizenkobo
produces and promotes indigo handicraft work using
the traditional Japanese method. Its "eggplant" blue
is impossible to reproduce with artificial chemical
pigments. Various items, from clothing to
tapestries, are displayed in the shop.
Natural indigo has been considered a valuable blue
dyeing material for centuries. It can be extracted
from the fiber of several different plants. In
Japan, the only useable indigo plant is polygonum,
which is well-known for its outstanding deep color.
Fermented polygonum, the dye pigment, is called
"sukumo." In addition to the "sukumo," wheat husk
powder, limestone powder, lye ash, and sake are also
mixed into the vats to complete the liquid dye. Then
for approximately a week, the dye naturally begins
to ferment until it reaches its usable state. Indigo
threads and materials—specifically cotton and
linen—are generally soaked and dried 15 to 20 times.
Silk, on the other hand, must be soaked and dried 40
to 45 times. This is the only way to deepen the
color. The dyed thread and materials are sun-dried,
which is when the deep indigo blue appears most
strongly on the fiber surface. Indigo also
strengthens the material. Indigo dyeing is
considered one of the most beautiful dyeing
techniques known to man. Indigo dyed materials
soften with use, and the quality of the color's
richness increases with time.
(Text from
http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/people/utsuki/index.html)
Mr.
Utsuki will also participate in the following
activities in the Princeton, NJ area:
1) Japanese Indigo Dyeing (Aizome)
Lecture-demonstration
Place: Princeton University, 202 Jones Hall (phone:
609-258-5722 for more information)
Date & Time: Friday, November 15th, 2:00p.m.-5:00pm
2) All-day indigo workshop
Place: Montgomery Center for the Arts, 124
Montgomery Road, Skillman, NJ
Date & Time: Saturday, November 16th, 2002, from
10:00 a.m.
Fee $150.00. To register, phone 609-921-3272. |
November 14 (Thursday)
Lecture and slide presentation:
Against the Grain: An Aesthetics of Japanese Popular Prints,
1915-1960
Kendall Brown (Professor of Art
History, California State University, Long Beach)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam
Ave.)
6:00 PM
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Eyebrow Pencil by Ito Shinsui,
1928
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Most studies of modern Japanese art privilege the
avant-garde and marginalize that which is too
overtly commercial, sentimental or traditional.
Those few examinations of conservative modern
artistic movements tend to focus on biography or
social context, thus avoiding the presumably dubious
issue of aesthetics. This talk will attempt to
elucidate and account for the concepts of beauty
active in the modern prints known collectively as
Shin hanga.
Co-sponsored by the
Ukiyo-e Society of America, Inc. |
November 20 (Wednesday)
Lecture: The Iconography of Ships
and the Problem of 'Isolation' in the Later Edo Period
Timon Screech (School of Oriental
and African Studies, University of London and Sainsbury
Institute; Visiting Professor, New York University)
612 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University (118th St. &
Amsterdam Ave.)
» Campus Map
6:00 PM
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Drawing of Japanese boat with the mast
down (from Kaempfer's Japan: Tokugawa
Culture Observed)
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The Tokugawa regime foreswore ocean-going ships
early in the 17th century. International trade was
thus entirely in the hands of foreigners, mostly
Chinese and Dutch, but these merchants were of
course working for their own, not the shogunate's,
advantage. In the 1780s, the Tokugawa therefore
determined to construct a fleet. This is a forgotten
but fascinating moment. Their huge dilemma was how
these ships should look. They could not be too
visibly outlandish, but at the same time a
Japanese-style vessel would not stay afloat in high
seas. They compromised and produced a prototype, the
'Ship of the Three Countries' (Sangoku-maru).
It sank. |
Co-sponsored by the
Department of Art History and Archaeology
December 6 (Friday)
Workshop: Buddhist Literature and
Emaki
Organized by Professor Shunsho Manabe
(President & Professor of Esoteric Buddhist Art, Hosen
Gakuen College; Visiting Fellow of the Donald Keene Center*)
403 Kent Hall, Columbia University (116th St. & Amsterdam
Ave.)
10:00 AM - 5:30 PM
RSVP required (limited seating)
Call 212-854-5036 or e-mail
donald-keene-center@columbia.edu by December 2 if
you would like to attend.
This workshop will explore a broad range of issues related
to works of literature, emaki (picture scrolls), and
other forms of art that emerged in Japan from Buddhist
influences from the Heian and Kamakura periods. Professor
Shunsho Manabe and leading scholars from Columbia and other
academic and art institutions will participate.
Workshop
Schedule
Each participant will give a 30-min.
presentation, which will be followed by a
15-min. discussion. (presentation titles
TBA)
Morning Session
(Moderator: Prof. Ryuichi Abe)
• 10:00 am-10:45 am: Shunsho Manabe
(Hosen Gakuen College)
• 10:45 am-11:30 am: TBA
• 11:30 am-12:15 pm: Yukiko Shirahara
(Seattle Asian Art Museum)
• 12:15 pm-1:00 pm: Melissa McCormick
(Columbia University)
• 1:00 pm-2:30 pm: Lunch Break
Afternoon Session
(Moderator: Prof. Melissa McCormick)
• 2:30 pm-3:15 pm: Ryuichi Abe (Columbia
University)
• 3:15 pm-4:00 pm: Masako Watanabe
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• 4:00 pm-4:45 pm: Samuel Morse (Amherst
College)
• 4:45 pm-5:30 pm: Concluding Discussion
drawings by Prof.
Manabe |
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