Event Category Archives: Featured Japanese

A Japanese Work Community in Palestine: Japan’s Foreign Interface through Heritage Tourism Architecture and Construction

Please join us for a talk by Dr. Millie Creighton (Department of Anthropology, UBC), who will discuss Japan-Palestine connections, and the Japanese residential community’s involvement with Palestinians. This paper presents Japan-Palestine connections via research done on Japanese residing long-term in Palestine who were sent to work there on a construction project by their Japanese employer. […]

Time Out of Joint: War, Memory, and the Limits of the Postwar in Grave of the Fireflies

Please join us for an online talk by Dr. Jiajun Liang, who will be discussing the Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies. Widely regarded as a masterpiece of Japanese animation, Grave of the Fireflies is a tragic portrayal of civilian suffering in the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in World War II and is often considered […]

The Fight for Recognition: Double Abandonment and Resistance from Wartime Canada to Postwar Japan (1942–1965)

Please join us for a talk by Dr. Naoko Kato, who tells the stories of members of the Japanese diaspora who were “doubly abandoned” by both the Canadian and Japanese states during the postwar period. Why did postwar Japan recognize some displaced populations as “war victims” while rejecting others such as Japanese Canadian deportees? This […]

Local Japan, Global Japan: Thinking Forward Through the Past

This pre-AAS workshop will consist of two research talks open to the public on March 10 (no RSVP required), followed by a professional development session for graduate students on the topic of job-hunting and networking in Japan on March 11 (RSVP required). Both days will be held primarily in Japanese. Those interested in attending may […]

Critical Crossings: Gendered Readings across Textual and Visual Media

The Bungo Special Interest Group will meet during AATJ and AAS to celebrate Joshua S. Mostow’s monumental contributions to Japan Studies spanning over close to four decades. His wide-ranging expertise in Japanese poetry, women’s writing, gendered representations, translation, textual reception, and visual culture has established him as a leading scholar of Japan. Mostow’s work seamlessly […]

2026 Asian Studies Careers Night

The Department of Asian Studies is delighted to invite you to our biennial Careers Night! Navigating life after graduation can be hard, so we ask reputable guests and alumni with diverse experiences – at home and in Asia – to inform and inspire current students. This event will feature keynote speeches from an ex-Consul General […]

Beyond Monolingual and Monocultural Ideologies: Navigating Japanese as an Additional Language Education in Contemporary Japan

This talk explores how Japanese as an Additional Language education can navigate and move beyond monolingual and monocultural ideologies deeply embedded in contemporary Japanese society. Drawing on current Japanese government policies and K–12 educational contexts, Dr. Yumi Sugihara will first outline the key challenges faced by educators and learners, including the tensions between institutional circumstances […]