Donald Keene Center Visiting Fellows

Spring 2001

KORE-EDA Hirokazu (Film Director)

One of Japan's most promising young film directors, Mr. Kore-eda came to international attention in 1995 when Maboroshi, his first narrative feature film, was screened at the Venice Film Festival and awarded the Ozella D'oro. The film was shown at more than twenty film festivals and won numerous awards. His second narrative feature, After Life (1998) also received wide acclaim. Mr. Kore-eda recently completed his third film, Distance, a featured entry at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Born in 1962, Mr. Kore-eda received his B.A. degree in Literature from Waseda University in 1987, and then joined TV Man Union Inc., a television production company in Tokyo. Prior to his narrative debut, Kore-eda directed and produced award-winning documentary films for Japanese television (on subjects such as an H.I.V. patient; a Korean trying to "pass" in Japanese society; and the Taiwanese filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang). Mr. Kore-eda came to New York as a Visiting Fellow in April 2001. During his short stay, Mr. Kore-eda participated in a Directors' Panel Discussion that was the highlight of the eight-week "Countries and Cities in East Asian Film" series at Columbia University's Roone Arledge Cinema. The film series incorporated films from Japan (including Maboroshi and After Life), Korea and Taiwan, and was co-sponsored by the Donald Keene Center, the Richard W. Weatherhead Fund of the East Asian Institute, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Film Division of the School of the Arts, and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation Center for Chinese Cultural and Institutional History. The other participants in the Panel Discussion were Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwanese Director of City of Sadness and Dust in the Wind, and Mr. Kore-eda's mentor), Linda Hoagland (Japanese Film Specialist and Interpreter for Mr. Kore-eda), Chu T'ien-wen (Screenwriter), Peggy Chiao (Taiwan Film Center), Paul Anderer (Japanese Literature and Film, Columbia University), and David D. W. Wang (Chinese Literature and Film, Columbia University). Mr. Kore-eda also participated in a discussion session with Columbia and Barnard University film and literature students, presented a visiting directors workshop for the students of the New York University Graduate Film Program, and discussed his works at the Screening Room following a showing of After Life by the film's distributor Artistic License Films.

NOTOJI Masako  (Professor of Area Studies)

Notoji Masako, a Professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, is considered one of Japan's most active anthropologists. Professor Notoji attended graduate school in the United States (the University of California, Los Angeles), taught at Musashi University in the 1980s and early 1990s, and has been affiliated with the University of Tokyo since 1992. In 1994, she was the Toyota Visiting Professor at the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. Professor Notoji's research interests focus on U.S. Popular Culture, Comparative Ethnic Relations, and U.S.-Japan Cultural Relations. Several of her major publications include Dizunirando to iu seichi (Disneyland as America's Sacred Land, Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1990); "Some Aspects of the Cultural Identity Crisis of Modern Japanese Intellectuals: The Case of Junichiro Tanizaki," Journal of Asian Culture (UCLA) vol. 5, 1981; "Directions of the U.S. Multiculturalism," in Why Ethnicity Now? (University of Tokyo Press, 1994, in Japanese); and "Ethno-politics in Historical Exhibits in the U.S.," in Multiculturalism in America (University of Tokyo Press, 1999, in Japanese). During her two-month stay (March to May 2001) as a Visiting Fellow of the Donald Keene Center, Professor Notoji presented various lectures and workshops at Columbia University (at the Donald Keene Center, the American Studies Program, the East Asian Institute, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, the History Student Benkyokai, and Teachers College), Brown University, the University of Washington, and Rutgers University. Lecture titles included: Anthropology and History in Japan; Teaching American Studies in Japan; Popular Uses of History in Japanese Life; Dazzlement, Consumption, and the Hyperreal: American Theme Parks in Japan; Diversity in Japan; The Role of Sports in U.S.-Japan Cultural Relations; and New Directions in American Studies in Japan. Professor Notoji also spent a significant amount of time meeting with students from area universities, discussing her varied academic, professional and cultural interests with students of Anthropology, History, International Studies, American Studies, Literature, Language and Religion.