PFJ Third Thursdays, 2016-17
Third Thursdays highlight the work-in-progress of Penn and visiting faculty and graduate students in an informal setting over lunch.
Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
“Gates to Shikoku: Personal Experience and Religious Traditions of the 88-Temple Pilgrimage”
Frank L. Chance, Associate Director for Academics (retired), Center for East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Stiteler Hall, Room B26
A group of eighty-eight sites related to the life of the eminent Buddhist priest Kūkai (空海, 774-835 posthumously Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師) came to prominence in late medieval Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. Today these temples form a circuit traveled by thousands of henro 遍路 pilgrims annually. Dr. Frank Chance walked the 1200-kilometer route in February and March of 2016 and participated in many rituals along the path; this paper reports on his experience and reflects on the survival and adaptation of this tradition in contemporary times. The talk is illustrated with images and artifacts from his sojourn.
Thursday, Feb. 16, noon – 1:30 p.m.
“Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor”
Ayako Kano, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania
209 College Hall, Lunch will be served
This talk will introduce Kano’s recently published volume, Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor (University of Hawai’i Press, 2016). This book argues for the importance of understanding Japan’s feminist public sphere, a discursive space in which academic, journalistic, and political voices have long met and sparred over issues that remain controversial to the present day: prostitution, pornography, reproductive rights, the balance between motherhood and paid work, relationships between individual, family, and state. Highlighting essential questions that remain unresolved, Ayako Kano traces the emergence and development of these controversies in relation to social, cultural, intellectual, and political history.
Thursday, Mch. 23, noon – 1:30 p.m.
“Japanese Police Reform, 1952-54”
Hitoshi KOMIYA, Associate Professor, College of Literature, Aoyama Gakuin University
Cherpack Lounge (543 Williams Hall), Lunch will be served
This presentation examines Japanese police reform from 1952 to 1954. Following independence in 1952, the Japanese government reformed the police system introduced during the Allied Occupation. Today’s system derives from this reform. This talk explains the unique amendment draft of 1953 and its transformation after only one year.
Thursday, Apr. 20, noon – 1:30 p.m.
“The Shogun’s Secretary: Hayashi Razan between Korea and Japan”
Peter Kornicki, Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge
209 College Hall, Lunch will be served