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 choose to go to either or both days, but please note that the professional development session is for graduate students only.
Research Talks
Dr. Toeda Hirokazu will begin by giving a lecture entitled “Tracing the Legacies of the Shinkankakuha in the Literature, Media, and Tourism of the Era of High-Speed Economic Growth.” Although Kawabata Yasunari’s reputation in North America is that of a writer deeply engaged with the “traditional” aesthetics of Japan, Kawabata in fact launched his writing career in the 1920s through the avant-garde literary movement known as the Shinkankakuha (Neo-Perceptionist School). The talk will illuminate how Kawabata’s novels came to be regarded as “masterpieces” during Japan’s postwar era of high-speed economic growth by analyzing various related forms of media and tourism trends from that time.
We will then have a lecture by Dr. Tanaka Yukari, entitled “The Language and Literature of the Era of Economic High-Speed Growth: On ‘Dialect Newspaper Novels’.” In Japan, newspaper novels emerged as a form of sales promotion. Analyzing the authors, themes, and literary representations of such novels affords us a window into the linguistic society of Japanese (Nihongo shakai) of that time. The talk focuses on Kawabata Yasunari’s Koto (The Old Capital, 1961-2), which was serialized in the morning edition of the Asahi Shinbun in the midst of Japan’s high-speed economic growth, in order to elucidate the workings of the “dialect newspaper novels” of this era.
Drs. Kim Younglong and Sakasai Akito will moderate the event.
Date & Time:
Tuesday, March 10, 2026 | 11:00am – 12:30pm PT
Location:
Room 604, Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall, Vancouver
Profile
Toeda Hirokazu serves as co-director of the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities at Waseda University. A distinguished professor of Japanese literature at Waseda University, his research deals with the production, modification, and canonization of literary works and the transformation of writers into well-known cultural figures in relation to the development of publishing and visual media from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Tanaka Yukari is Professor in Nihon University’s College of Humanities and Science. Her multi-faceted research interests concern images and valuations of linguistic variance across various media and content, as well as how linguistic societies and their structures are diversified through people’s linguistic consciousness.
Sakasai Akito is an associate professor of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature, affiliated with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. His research topic covers modern and contemporary Japanese literature, focusing on novels and poetry written from the 1930s to the 1950s. The main objective of his research is to analyze the impact of Japanese imperialism during this period and the resistance of people to it through literary expressions.
Kim Younglong is an associate professor in the Department of Japanese Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities at Otsuma Women’s University. Her research field is modern and contemporary Japanese literature through the interdisciplinary approach, “Law and Literature,” on topics ranging from literary production under the Peace Preservation Law regime to war crimes trials in Japanese literature.
Professional Development Seminar
On March 11, we will hold a professional development seminar for Japan Studies graduate students featuring presentations and discussion by Toeda Hirokazu (Waseda University), Tanaka Yukari (Nihon University), Kim Younglong (Otsuma Women’s University), Sakasai Akito (Tokyo University), Tokinoya Yuri (Waseda Daigaku Kōtō Gakuin), and Bent Yusuke (Waseda University).
Date & Time:
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 | 11:00am – 1:00pm PT
Location:
Room 604, Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall, Vancouver
