Symposium on Early Modern Japanese Values and Individuality

Wednesday 2013.08.28

1:00-1:30 Welcome and introductions:

Ross King, Head, UBC- Asian Studies

Seishi Takeda, Director, JSPS San Francisco

Seiji Okada, Consul General of Japan

Dave Farrar, Provost and Academic Vice President

Peter Nosco, Professor of Asian Studies

1:30-3:30 Panel #1: Chair/discussant Gregory Smits (The Penn St. Univ.), with three papers by:

Katsurajima Nobuhiro (Ritsumeikan Univ.) The Demolition of the Early Modern World Empires, and the Tokugawa history of ideas in the 19th century

Jeffrey Newmark (Univ. of Winnipeg) Nineteenth Century Legends and the Formation of Local Identity

Minami Orihara (Univ. of British Columbia) Dilemmas of Protest in Tokugawa Villages: Trust, Promise, Cooperation

3:30-3:45 Break

3:45-5:30 Panel #2: Chair/discussant Isomae Jun’ichi (Nichibunken), with two papers by:

Naoki Sakai (Cornell University) From Relational Identity to Specific Identity – on the Idea of Equality

Daniel Botsman (Yale Univ.) Flowery Tales: Ōe Taku (1847-1921), Tokugawa Values and the Making of Meiji Japan’s “Emancipation Moment”

5:30-5:45 Ron Toby (Univ. of Illinois) Summary comments on the day’s papers

9:15-11:30 Panel #3: Chair/discussant Anne Walthall (Univ. of California – Irvine), with two papers by:

William Brecher (Washington St. Univ.) Boys Behaving Badly: The Ethics of Childhood Disobedience in the Edo Period,

William Steele (ICU) The Unconventional Origins of Modern Japan: Mantei Oga and the Politics of Play

11:30-1:00 Break

1:00-3:15 Panel #4 Chair/discussant William Brecher (Washington St. Univ.), with three papers by:

Endo Jun (Kokugakuin Daigaku) Language, Spirits and Cosmology in Study of Kodo (Japanese Ancient Way),

Gideon Fujiwara (Univ. of Lethbridge) Merchant Intellectuals and the Restoration: The Kokugakusha Community of 19th-Century Hirosaki

Anne Walthall (Univ. of California Irvine) Ii aniki warui otōto: Sibling Rivalry in the Hirata School

3:15-3:30 Break

3:30-5:45 Panel #5: Chair/discussant James Ketelaar (Univ. of Chicago), with three papers by:

Oleg Benesch (York Univ.) Individualism Denied: Edo Samurai and Modern Historical Revisionism

Greg Smits (Penn State Univ.) New Values, New Identities: Becoming Okinawan and Japanese in 19^th-Century Ryukyu

Amy Stanley (Northwestern Univ.) Vanishing Acts: Disappearing Women and their Worlds)

5:45-6:00 Ron Toby (Univ. of Illinois) summary comments on the day’s papers

6:00-6:30 Break

8:15-9:30 Keynote address by Eiko Ikegami (The New School) Revisiting Some Earlier Thoughts (at Cecil Green Park House)

9:30-11:45 Panel #6: Chair/discussant Ron Toby, with three papers by:

James Ketelaar (Univ. of Chicago) Discovering Erotic Emotionality in Tokugawa Japan

Kojima Yasunori (ICU) Laughter Connects the Sacred and Sexual: The Blooming of Parody in Edo Culture

Peter Nosco (UBC) The Early Modern Co-Emergence of Individuality and Collective Identity

11:45-1:00 Break

1:00-2:30 Summary discussions, next steps and conclusion