26th Annual Japan Studies Graduate Conference At UCLA

April 17, 2023/ 9:30 AM

Transgression

Transgression, by its very nature, is enigmatic. At once it implies various trespasses on established social, moral, or legal orders, while also suggesting a tantalizing foray into the forbidden. Beyond the mere act it describes, transgression can paradoxically serve a normative function as it establishes ex nihilo the very boundaries it seeks to challenge. The word itself raises questions about the very action it describes: transgressing what, when, where, how, and most importantly why? After all, as graduate students we are actively encouraged to grapple with and engage in transgressions ourselves, whether those transgressions be objects of study or a means to go beyond previously set boundaries in our own fields. This conference offers a chance for us to explore transgression as a generative process more thoroughly, as both a historical and conceptual phenomenon. The aim of this conference is to expose the objects of our studies to new scrutiny regarding the various geographical, temporal, and disciplinary boundaries we inevitably find ourselves confined to. We therefore invite participants to address the idea of transgression in their own work, be these thematic or methodological, to answer questions concerning what role transgression plays in their research, and how transgression establishes and/or undermines the very boundaries it engages with.

Please direct any questions you may have to the following Google Survey: https://forms.gle/3PBncLTCfe8DRnqx7

For more information, please visit https://uclajstudiesgradcon2023.wordpress.com/home/

Schedule

9:30 – 9:35 am	Opening Remarks
9:40 – 11:10 am	Panel A: Andrea Jung-An LIU (UC Berkeley) “Infrastructuring Imperial Sacrality: Meiji Shrine as an Eco-Colonial Site” Xiaoyang Yue (UC Irvine) “Goodbye and Hello: Translocal Zainichi Identity in Matsue Tetsuaki’s Personal Documentary Annyong Kimchi” Sophie Mariko Wheeler (UC Irvine) “Transgressive Female Bodies in Kobayashi Erika’s Trinity Trinity Trinity” Discussant: Ju-Hyun Kim (UCLA)
11:10 am – 12:50 pm	Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 pm	Panel B: Julie Morris (UCLA) “What’s in a Song: Ideas of Sound in Ryōjin hishō” Adam Reynolds (UC Irvine) “Zato Kyogen: Performing Arts and Dark Humor” Charles Len McArtor (University of Arizona) “Performing Rape: Sexual Transgression as Metaphor for Sociopolitical Violence in Postwar Underground Japanese Theatre” Discussant: Dr. Satoko Shimazaki (UCLA)
2:40 – 4:10 pm	Panel C: Jessica Peña (UCLA) “Becoming the Sun: The Suffrage Movement & Feminist Activism during the U.S. Occupation of Japan (1945-1952)” Zane Casimir (UC Irvine) “Haunting the House of Hausu: Domestic Space, Gendered Consumption, and The Anxieties of Commercialized Possession” Anni Perheentupa (UCR) “Hatsune Miku as Imagined Technology: Ideology, Connections, and Poesis of Networks” Discussant: Dr. Junko Yamazaki (UCLA)
4:10 – 4:30 pm	Break
4:30 – 5:40 pm	Keynote Address Dr. Seth Jacobowitz (Texas State University) “Theorizing the Continuum Between Immigration and Imperialism in Prewar Japan”
5:40 – 5:45 pm	Concluding Remarks

Sponsor(s): Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies