New Perspectives on Japan
Terasaki Center Junior Faculty Roundtable Series 2021-22
This series brings together eminent and emerging scholars from around the world for focused and unscripted dialogue on contemporary concerns in interdisciplinary Japanese Studies, broadly conceived. Given the myriad challenges faced by scholars especially since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the roundtables provide an occasion for scholars to come together for a series of critical reflections on the current state and post-pandemic future of scholarship related to Japan. Rather than replicating traditional presentation styles, this “born digital” format foregrounds the potential for digital platforms to create large-scale dialogue. Roundtables open to the public, but significant time is reserved at the end of each one for audience questions and engagement.
Roundtable 1
February 22, 2022 4:00PM (PST)
Japanese Tradition in the 21st Century
As the discipline of art history increasingly embraces more global, inclusive, and transcultural models and methodologies, how will this change the field of Japanese art history? Likewise, what is (and has been) the role of Japanese art history in this disciplinary turn? This roundtable brings together scholars working across the full chronological span of the archipelago's history in order to discuss the future of Japanese art history in the context of the global.
Speakers
LeRon Harrison, Independent scholar (PhD UCI, postdoc Stanford University, faculty Murray State University)
Morgan Pitelka, University of North Carolina
Yuko Eguchi Wright, University of Pittsburgh
Moderator
Michelle Liu Carriger, UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television
Register HERE
Roundtable 2
March 14, 2022 5pm (PDT)
Digital Health in Japan and USA
Digital health has the potential to transform how healthcare services are provided to patients globally. Although there have been many promising technological advancements in how digital health—particularly the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning—may improve healthcare, there remain challenges to implement and operationalize in the real world to actually improve patient care and outcomes. This roundtable brings together government officials and business leaders who are deeply involved in digital health to discuss the future of digital health in both the US and Japan.
Speakers
Takuma Inamura, Director, Healthcare Industries Division, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
Sean Matsuoka, Co-founder of General Prognostics (GPx)
Koichi Narasaki, CEO of Digital Business / Group Chief Digital Officer, SOMPO Holdings, Inc., CEO Palantir Technologies Japan, CEO SOMPO Light Vortex, Inc.
Moderator
Yusuke Tsugawa, UCLA School of Medicine, School of Public Health
Register HERE
Roundtable 3
April 28, 2022 5pm (PDT)
Butsuzō: New Horizons on the Study of Japanese Buddhist Sculpture
In recent years, exhibitions of Buddhist sculpture (butsuzō) in Japan have become blockbuster affairs, with attendance figures so high that they rank among the most popular exhibitions in the world. What is fueling this “butsuzō boom?” Why do these nonmodern, ritual objects exert such a powerful pull over twenty-first-century viewers? Needless to say, such statuary has long held pride of place in the canon of Japanese art. This status dates to the nineteenth century, when these icons were categorically reassigned as “sculptures” meant to rival those of the antique Mediterranean. Recent decades, however, have seen dramatic shifts towards exciting new horizons in the study of these artifacts: ritual studies, conservation analysis, materiality studies, and performance studies have changed the way in which these objects are seen. A further topic of considerable recent interest has been the vast array of objects sometimes discovered cached within these sculptural bodies. As such, this timely roundtable will address the state of butsuzō scholarship at this exciting juncture: its historiography, the tension between living icon and art-historical artifact, and especially the critical promise of future research into these three-dimensional forms.
Speakers
Sherry Fowler, University of Kansas
Yukio Lippit, Harvard University
Samuel Morse, Amherst College
Akiko Walley, University of Oregon
Moderator
Kristopher Kersey, UCLA Department of Art History
Register HERE