Call for Papers

20th Annual Japan Studies Association Conference
2-4 January 2014, Honolulu, Hawai'i
Proposal deadline: 10 October 2013

At its annual conference in Honolulu, Hawai'i in 2014, the Japan Studies Association will mark its twentieth anniversary. Established in San Diego in the spring of 1994, the JSA has assisted its members - primarily teachers from American two- and four-year colleges and universities - in acquiring first-hand knowledge about Japan and infusing it into the curriculum. Through workshops and study-tours, and the professional networking they enable, JSA's members have been inspired to engage in curriculum development, design study-abroad programs, and initiate Japan-focused or comparative research; members share their insights through the Japan Studies Association Journal and the organization's annual national conference.

Please join us at Hawai'i Tokai International College in Honolulu in January 2014 to celebrate twenty years of JSA's achievements, reconnect with Freeman workshop alumni and share your continuous and new pedagogical and research interests in Japan's literary and cultural traditions, historical and economic developments, socio-political and religious practices past and present. We invite proposals for individual presentations, discipline-specific or interdisciplinary panels, roundtables on pedagogy and teaching innovation, and staged readings from both faculty and graduate students. The following ideas can serve as useful points of departure:

* Historical, social, economic or political perspectives on Japan's relationships with its national or regional self, minorities and neighbors in East Asia;

* post-3.11 Japan - healing and continuous challenges; anti-nuclear activism; sustainability development trends and issues;

* Imaging disaster - responding to adversity and war through political and religious narrative and discourse, the fine and performing arts, popular culture, literature and film;

* Youth and popular culture in Japan; manga and anime at home and abroad;

* Pre-modern, modern or contemporary Japanese literature and culture, music, theatre, film;

* Tradition and innovation in Japanese philosophy, aesthetics and material culture;

* Japan's religious traditions, sacred texts, art and architecture;

* Pedagogy, field trips and study tours: teaching Japanese language and culture - reflections and strategies, hurdles and achievements;

* Infusing Japanese Studies into the undergraduate curriculum - successful course and program development, faculty collaboration and ways to engage with institutional core goals;

* New voices in Japanese Studies: graduate student research;

* Plenary discussion of a Japanese literary, historical or theoretical text: suggestions solicited.

We encourage both east-west and inter-Asian comparative approaches and would particularly welcome contributions by graduate students and by alumni of JSA's Freeman Foundation intensive workshops on Japan held between
2002 and 2013. Please contact colleagues with whom you share pedagogical and research interests and form a panel or a roundtable; this ensures engaging presentations and follow-up discussions.

Annually, JSA offers up to three graduate student scholarships, $500 each. To be eligible, students must be enrolled full time in a graduate program in any content area related to Japan and must have a paper accepted for the 2014 conference. Please submit a complete copy of your paper, making sure that "graduate student" appears clearly on its first page. The successful applicants will be notified in October when acceptance letters are sent out to all conference participants.

To send an abstract for an individual presentation of approximately 250 words or a 500-word proposal for a themed panel, roundtable or staged reading, go to:
http://www.japanstudies.org/proposals.html Make sure you include the names, institutional affiliation and contact information of all presenters. We hope to see you in Honolulu in January!

The deadline for proposals is 10 October 2013.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 20 October 2013.
For more information, see http://www.japanstudies.org/ or contact the conference co-chairs: Maggie Ivanova (Maggie.Ivanova[at]flinders.edu.au ) and Thomas Campbell (campbelt[at]wabash.edu )

Maggie Ivanova, Ph.D.
Lecturer in Drama, Honours and Postgraduate Coordinator JSA Conference Program Co-Chair and Board Member at Large Flinders University of South Australia
E-mail: Maggie.Ivanova[at]flinders.edu.au