Register
If you haven’t already, register to start contributing news and events, and to search the Member Directory. Registration is free, but only open to current members of the American Studies Association.
Group Members
The following people are members of this group:
The following people are administrators of this group:
Member Tools
We're sorry. You are not yet a member of the ASA-JAAS.
Register or login to join this group.
MAIN | Reports | Submit a Proposal | Contact
ASA-JAAS
ASA-JAAS Delegate Report 2001
Final Report
ASA/JAAS PROJECT, May-June, 2001
For the Japan-US Friendship Commission
Michael Frisch, 2000-2001 President
American Studies Association
July, 2001
On behalf of the American Studies Association (ASA), I am pleased to submit this report on the 2001 program developed in conjunction with the Japanese Association for American Studies (JAAS) and the U.S. Department of State. This program, each year, brings two competitively selected US American Studies scholars, as well as the ASA president, to participate in the JAAS annual meeting and to offer additional programs of lectures, seminars, and informal meetings for scholars, students, and general audiences at other venues in Japan. The Japan-US Friendship Commission supported the two scholars, and the ASA president was sponsored by the US State Department. The overall program involves sustained cooperation between the ASA, the JAAS, and the US Department of State and its cultural/public affairs offices.
This overview report broadly summarizes and reflects on the accompanying detailed reports of the two scholars supported by the Japan-US Friendship Commission-this year, Professors Amy Kaplan of Mount Holyoke College, and Susan Smulyan of Brown University-as well as a similarly appended profile of my own activities as ASA president. It offers some recommendations on the further development of what we all have found to be a fundamentally healthy, superbly developed, and invaluable program that deserves to be continued and extended.
The 2001 program built on some established features of the project-major participation of all three US scholars in the JAAS meeting, this year held at Aichi Prefectural University in Nagoya, and joint participation of all three scholars in the special American Studies seminar organized at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. The roster of additional programs included, for the first time in some years, a formal program, and extensive visit in Okinawa.
Though not formally part of the ASA/JAAS project, the ASA president’s program this year included a new dimension-a week of programming in Korea, preceding and in addition to the full schedule developed for Japan. Grounded in my own interest and experience-I had spent a Fulbright year in Korea in the 1970s, and was interested in the opportunity for an extensive return visit-this additional programming fit naturally and appropriately with the ASA/JAAS program, especially considering the JAAS steps to regularize Korean participation in the JAAS meeting. I include this dimension in my individual report, below, in the hope that the experience this year may lead to some parallel and on-going program involvement in Korea on the ASA/JAAS model, and perhaps usefully linked to it as prove to be the case this year.
The full roster of program events this year is detailed in the appended summary table. As this indicates, the three US scholars offered, in sum, sixteen formal and informal programs in Japan; I presented six more in Korea, for a total of twenty-two program events. (This does not include many substantive informal discussions with colleagues and students, often over tea or meals.)
These programs were presented in seven different cities in Japan, and three in Korea; there were seven different university venues in Japan, and three in Korea, for a total of ten different universities; other public programs were presented at US Centers or their equivalents, as well as at the major JAAS conference. Although many programs involved considerable cooperation between JAAS (or the American Studies Association of Korea, ASAK) and the US Embassy and Department of State, in Japan eleven of the sixteen programs were primarily developed by JAAS, and five by the US; in Korea, all of the programs were coordinated by the US Embassy, though with regular ASAK cooperation, including the formal joint US-ASAK sponsorship of the major American Studies lecture series in Seoul at which I appeared.)
In sum, this profile evidences a healthy, broadly based program providing a substantial outreach to diverse academic and general audiences. It was certainly the experience of all of the US scholars that the program realized its fullest ambitions, though in commenting we offer suggestions as to how it might be further refined and improved to build on its most significant strengths and capacities. We all know that the work of international intellectual dialogue involves much more than a formal lecture or scholarly paper. To organize my own remarks on our collective impressions and suggestions, I will review a number of dimensions each worth assessment in its own terms: 1) personal contacts, coordination, hospitality, support, between US scholars and their hosts; 2) formal opportunities for substantive intellectual and research dialogue; 3) informal opportunities for intellectual dialogue and exchange; and 4) informal opportunities for meaningful contact with American studies students and programs. The burden of all of our reports, in sum, is that the program is most fully successful in the first two dimensions noted, and that there are the most opportunities for further development in the last two.
1) Personal contacts, coordination, hospitality, support for US scholars: Beyond the superb logistical and organizational assistance at every level, the extraordinary quality of personal contact and engagement with our JAAS hosts was at the center of what made this such a meaningful opportunity for all of us. The quality of hospitality, preparation, and personal assistance made for a successful program at a logistical level crucial for foreign visitors without Japanese language capacity. But much more importantly, it provided a foundation of rich personal and intellectual association on which everything else rested. Our individual reports detail our appreciation of the many individuals who did so much to enrich our experience, and to ensure the success of the program in its broadest objectives. But in this summary I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of the efforts by our primary JAAS hosts, Professors Masako Notoji, Masako Iino, and Naoki Onishi, at every stage of our visit.
Beyond the immense job of coordinating the complex JAAS meeting, they were “always there” in every detail of program development and personal support. We all feel immensely grateful for this, and for the chance to get to know these very special colleagues so well. Such intense personal contacts and interdependencies, of course, are at once a crucial precondition for program success and a much-valued result—solid foundations for ongoing development of personal and intellectual ties between American and Japanese scholars.
We are similarly appreciative of the hospitality and many efforts made by the various State Department officers, particularly Warren Soiffer, and American Center directors, all of whom contributed so much to the success of our various efforts.
2) Formal opportunities for substantive intellectual and research dialogue: We all found intellectually satisfying and professionally meaningful the range of opportunities presented by all of our formal programs-at the JAAS meeting, and beyond. In all of these, we were able to present our scholarship, to respond to the questions and comments that greeted it, and to learn about the work of Japanese colleagues and students. To be sure, as our individual reports detail, there were a few instances where communication between US, JAAS, and individual scholars, about lecture topics and audience details might have been improved; fine-tuning the “hand-off” from JAAS to US coordination will be worth some attention in the future. But by and large, we found the formal programs to have been extremely successful in their design and realization.
It was also my own sense, and perhaps that of others, that if anything our US and JAAS hosts were more considerate than they needed to be about the risk of over-programming their speakers. Although we all enjoyed the free-time opportunity to be tourists, the program’s value rests on substantive interactions between visitors and Japanese colleagues and students, and so the more of these the better, within reasonable bounds. (In my case, for instance, I was in Tokyo for nearly four days with only one program appearance, and I certainly would not have minded being asked to do a bit more.)
In building lecture and program opportunities beyond the US Centers or our Japanese hosts who were appropriately focused on the important JAAS meeting, let me offer one concrete suggestion grounded in my own experience: take more advantage of the Fulbright program as a bridge between the US, JAAS, and Japanese universities, across which a range of program opportunities be developed. I had some contact with the Fulbright program while in Tokyo because a current Fulbrighter whom I know had heard I would be speaking at his university, Komaba. Through this contact, I visited the Fulbright office, and was lucky to be able to join the Fulbright group for a special visit to the Supreme Court scheduled that same day. I have the impression that the Fulbrighters in general had little awareness of the broader JAAS-ASA program and the scholars it was bringing to Japan, and that involving that program might be of help in identifying additional university venues and audiences for which the expertise of the visiting scholars might be especially appropriate and mutually beneficial.
As for the wonderful JAAS meeting itself, a highlight of our visit, the individual reports note a number of ways, obvious to all, in which additional resources for translation could permit more meaningful involvement in the JAAS meeting for the US visitors, beyond their individual presentations in the keynote and the two English language sessions. I am not sure what it is realistic to hope for in this regard, and we all understand that the meeting, quite appropriately, does not have the needs or interests of US scholars as its central concern or mission. But I do think Professor Kaplan’s point is worth reflection: We all wish to move further away from an old model in which US scholars “disseminated” scholarship to international American studies scholars positioned only to “receive” it. We all wish to move towards a model of genuine dialogue based on the central importance to American studies of international scholarship. It is therefore in everyone’s interest, and a way to underscore this crucial point, that the opportunities for two-way interaction at meetings such as the JAAS be maximized as much as possible.
3) Informal opportunities for intellectual dialogue and exchange: Both at the JAAS meeting and more generally, where the overall JAAS/ASA program can be most significantly refined and developed is in the opportunities for informal contact and discussion created by formal program relationships and appearances. Just as the lecture planning “builds out from” the formal occasion of the JAAS annual meeting, the most meaningful discussions and on-going relationships often develop in the conversations that similarly “build out from” any formal lecture presentation or appearance. Both at the JAAS and elsewhere, our experience provided many examples of how meaningful this can be, and a number of ideas about how still more advantage can be taken of the momentum generated in the formal program appearances. Professors Kaplan and Smulyan both speak to how useful the “cafeteria time” proved to be at the JAAS meeting, as well as the informal lunch group on women’s and gender studies that they attended. We all felt, I think, that the easiest way to enrich the JAAS meeting opportunities for interchange would be to provide space for more such informal opportunities around the formal program sessions and events. I can imagine a number of such roundtable or informal meetings sharing perspectives on issues or methods of shared interest. Some could draw on the expertise of visitors, such as, in my case, for instance, an informal discussion on trends in oral or public history in both the US and Japan. Such conversations would require no additional resources in terms of translation or logistics, yet they would provide additional opportunities for meaningful interchange outside of formal scholarly sessions-and not only between American and Japanese scholars, but among the meeting’s Japanese participants themselves. At the various lecture programs across Japan, we all found-like most speakers-that the best and ultimately the most useful part is the informal questions and discussions, exchange of resources, on-going contacts, and so forth-for which the lecture provides a foundation. This is especially useful in contacts with younger colleagues and graduate students who may be more diffident in the initial contact, but who have so much to offer, and gain, in more relaxed communication growing out of the lecture’s substance.
In just about every setting, this kind of meaningful interchange developed on its own, and was of course supported by the wonderful level of hospitality offered by all of our hosts. We do suggest it is sometimes worth further attention, as an integral part of the program planning itself. For instance, the wonderful efforts that have made the Ritsumeikan American Studies seminar such an admirable highlight of the overall program-a multi-university regional audience that brings together all the visiting American scholars for a well-conceived joint seminar-would be even more valuable were more opportunity provided, after the seminar, for continuing, substantive but informal interchange among those attending. The same could be said of many of other appearances. In general, the more that enhancing this important dimension is seen as part of the useful work of exchange, however informal, the more natural it will seem to make this “middle level”, between formal lecture and informal socializing, part of the organization and planning of the event.
4) Informal opportunities for meaningful contact with American studies students and programs: There is one final dimension that arises from the above comments on informal relationships-our sense of the usefulness, in all directions, of direct informal exchange with students, especially graduate students in American studies, and with colleagues involved in American studies teaching and program development. These discussions proved of great interest to all of us, and are mentioned explicitly in the reports of Professors Smulyan and Kaplan. Although grounded in our scholarly presentations, these often became general discussions about issues in American studies in every sense, from scholarship to methodology to training to pedagogy to program organization.
In that my participation in the JAAS/ASA program was grounded in my organizational position as ASA president, I want especially to extend the remarks of section three to address this more particular dimension. I wish to focus on the value the overall program has for advancing the generally shared objectives of truly internationalizing the practice and understanding of American studies. I want to underscore the role the program is playing-and could play even more forcefully-- to make more genuinely “two-way” the dialogue about the field.
For my part, quite a few of the discussions I had following my presentations ended up in a focus on teaching, on student work, and on how programmatic directions in the field are related to trends and issues in the scholarship itself. While some of this surely traces to my role as a representative of the ASA, the experience of my colleagues suggests that the interest in discussing American studies programs and pedagogy is more general, and arises naturally in the context of the broad exchange.
My own recommendation, simply, is that we look for ways to encourage such dialogue, and to build it into both the JAAS program and some of the lecture appearances as well. It would be an easy matter to arrange an informal discussion at the JAAS meeting for exchange of approaches and views on American studies teaching and programs, for example, or for discussion of specific issues of concern to graduate students as they contemplate advanced work and careers in American studies. Similar forums are as easily imaginable on issues of common concern in the field-such as the impact of new technology on teaching, research, and public work, and how electronic projects like the ASA’s Crossroads could be even more extensively internationalized. Adding a few such informal opportunities for exchange and discussion need not complicate or burden the already intense JAAS program, and might fill out some of the informal time between and around sessions quite usefully. In the process, it would provide additional opportunities for visiting US scholars to interact productively. The same might be true at many of the individual lecture appearances we all made-filling out the spectrum from formal lecture to more purely social interaction over drinks or dinner, with more targeted opportunities to involve more people in focused discussion of the concerns that we all share in the teaching, research, and programmatic practice of American studies. My own experience suggests that the scheduling parameters of each event would in most cases be quite consistent with such ancillary informal discussions in and around the major lecture and the reception or informal socializing usually accompanying it. I emphasize this in a purely additive sense-a way to enhance what is already so successful about these encounters, and to enhance their capacity to have a lasting and cumulative impact for all those participating.
Let me extend this direction one final step in a comment bearing on the particular possibilities of the ASA president’s participation: the opportunities to develop specific occasions for exploring the JAAS-ASA dialogue on the internationalization of the field, and the practice of American studies in general. Here, let me offer some suggestions arising from two features of my program in Korea that might be similarly useful in some version in Japan. One was a breakfast meeting with the past and present leadership of ASAK, the American Studies Association of Korea; the second was an overnight “retreat” with directors of American studies programs from six or seven provincial universities outside of Seoul. Both occasions provided a chance for intensive, informal discussion of issues in the field and in its international embodiment particularly. Each seemed to me exceptionally fruitful and engaging for all concerned, with lots of possibilities for personal and institutional follow-up. I suggest that something similar, tailored of course to needs and interests in Japan, might be worth exploring for the next stage of the JAAS/ASA program.
Conclusion:
I close with a strong reiteration of the central message that all of the US delegates want to convey in our reports: this exchange has been an extraordinarily substantive and meaningful experience for us, on both personal and professional levels. Even more, it has been the kind of transformative experience that makes a lasting difference for all that it touches-in the direction of our individual work, the emphases of our teaching, and the broadened opportunities for sustained international dialogue and interaction. Such experiences are individually and institutionally meaningful at any time, but they are especially so at this moment in the development of American studies, when international perspectives and the practice of American studies from outside the US are increasingly understood as not only desirable but as absolutely essential.
This JAAS/ASA program has been responding very constructively to the challenge of such a moment. We all find it to be a program than is alive, creative, stimulating, and meaningful beyond an individual year’s visit. We hope it will be continue to be sustained and encouraged in the future, for it is truly a program than delivers real value beyond the individuals concerned.
I close by expressing once again our gratitude for the opportunity we have been given, our deep appreciation for the support of the Japan-US Friendship Commission that has made it all possible, for the support from the U.S. State Department that underwrote the ASA President’s participation, and our profound thanks to our many friends and colleagues in Japan who did so much to make our visit so meaningful.
ASA DELEGATE REPORTS
Michael Frisch, ASA President 2000-2001
ASA-JAAS Project Report, July 2001
My general assessment of the project is provided in the overview final report I have prepared for the Commission. That report accompanies and frames the individual reports of Professors Amy Kaplan and Susan Smulyan, the two scholars whose participation was supported directly by the Japan-US Friendship Commission. Because their reports so usefully summarize the components of their individual programs as a base for more general remarks, I have elected to include, in the form of this brief individual report, a similar summary of my own activities. This is intended to provide a base for the observations, assessment, and recommendations I offer in the overview report. This approach will also give me the chance to record my profound gratitude to the many individuals who did so much to make my each event in visit possible, and to make the whole such a rich and, I hope, such a mutually beneficial experience.
I. KOREA
I spent a year in Korea as a Fulbrighter quite a while ago (1973-74), and returned for a brief visit to participate in the annual meeting of the American Studies Association of Korea (ASAK) in 1989. On both occasions, I was also privileged to offer lecture tours in Japan organized by USIS. In 2001, I was quite interested in the chance to make a more extensive return visit to Korea on the occasion of my ASA-JAAS program in Japan, to see how the country has changed and to discuss what I know-from many Korean students whom I have met in the US-to be the rapidly burgeoning field of American studies in Korea.
Though the assistance and support of the U.S. Department of State, an intensive program was arranged for the week before I arrived in Japan for the ASA-JAAS program. Because of some schedule constrictions-I could not leave until Monday, May 21 and programming possibilities were curtailed because of the Memorial Day holiday a week later, all events had to be scheduled between Wednesday and Friday, May 23-25. At my suggestion, we decided to program this as intensively as possible to give me the equivalent of a full week in Korea, leaving me a free weekend in Seoul to rest before moving on to Japan on Memorial Day, May 28. , I will summarize below the features of the program, and comment briefly on the broader conclusions I draw from this visit.
1. The opening event of my program was a breakfast meeting with the past and present leadership of the American Studies Association of Korea (ASAK) at the Chosun Hotel in Seoul. Planned for the morning after my Tuesday evening arrival, this ended up-because of a cancelled flight and improvised re-booking en-route-taking place only an hour or so after my arrival at dawn on Wednesday, May 23. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful, high-energy way to start, and provided a chance for some very useful conversation about American studies, and an introduction to recent developments in Korea. I strongly endorse the value of such institutional dialogue, and hope such occasions will be developed for visiting ASA leaders whenever possible.
2. After a chance to rest at my hotel from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, I traveled with US Cultural Affairs Officer Robert Banks and Cultural Affairs Specialist Chung Kyung A to Sogang University, in Seoul, for my first lecture program. This was preceded by an audience with the university’s vice president, Maeng Jueson, and Shin Sook Won, director of American Studies there, who had also been at the breakfast meeting with ASAK. My lecture on “Collective Memory” was in English, to a large predominantly student audience of over one hundred. It seemed to go well, with many lively questions and continued discussion afterward. The particular topic chosen for my presentations in Korea dealt with the politics of grade-school representations of history, something that had become a front-page story in both Korea and Japan. In part because of this, but also because of the general interest in the visit of an ASA president, ASAK President Yoon Young O had arranged for an interview with Dong-A Ilbo, one of Korea’s leading newspapers. The interview was conducted at the newspaper’s office after my Sogang lecture. It was quite extensive, and led to a major story about my work in both the print and the on-line version of the newspaper.
3. The next day featured my third program event, at the American Studies Institute of Seoul National University, arranged by its former director, Professor Kim Seong-Kon. This was preceded by a very useful private luncheon with the faculty of the Institute, followed by a general lecture in English to a predominantly audience of some fifty students and faculty. Again, the response was engaged and very lively.
4. Following the appearance at Seoul National University, I was taken to the US Information Resource Center for the major event of my tour-a formal presentation in the American Studies lecture series jointly sponsored by the US Embassy and ASAK. This event drew a quite large (200) and very diverse audience of scholars, students, journalists, and professionals.
The lecture was again in English, and the response very gratifying. A wonderful dinner party hosted at a nearby restaurant by CAO Robert Banks and the US Embassy, for a diverse group of some twenty-five or thirty invited guests, followed the lecture. I had a chance to move among several tables during this delightful evening, and pursue many discussions with a wider range of people.
5. The next morning, I traveled by air to Taegu with the Embassy Public Affairs Officer Stephen Rounds and Country Program Officer Richard Huckaby, as well as Kim Mi Young, our interpreter, for a program at Keimyung University. A formal audience preceded this with the university’s president, Synn Il Hee. My lecture-consecutively translated, this time-was to an undergraduate audience of more than 100, and here too the response was very lively, informed, and engaged. The talk was followed by a private luncheon with American studies and related faculty-again, a chance for sustained and very intensive conversation about the US, Korea, and American studies.
6. From Taegu, I traveled by taxi with Mr. Rounds, Mr. Huckaby, and Country Program Specialist Kwon Hwa Soon, to the ancient imperial capital, Kyungju. After some time to tour tombs and the world-famous Sokkuram mountainside Buddha (all of which have been developed enormously as tourist sites since my visit in 1974, a process I was very interested to have a chance to explore closely) we arrived at the Kolon resort hotel, for a long and extremely interesting evening with a group of American studies program directors from a variety of universities outside of Seoul, predominantly in the south. This “retreat” provided an exceptional chance to get to know a wonderful group of individuals, many of them younger scholars developing ambitious new programs, and to get a real sense of the issues facing American studies in Korea. We continued our discussion through a long dinner and after, and over breakfast the next morning.
This concluded the formal portion of my Korean visit. I returned to Seoul by train with Mr. Huckaby on Saturday morning, which me gave me a chance to see how much the countryside had changed since my many trips along that route more than twenty-five years ago. I spent the remainder of that weekend in Seoul visiting with old friends. Professor Kim U Chang and his wife hosted a wonderful evening at their home on Saturday, and on Sunday Professor Kim Seong Kon helped me explore the city, especially its dramatic new districts “kangnam”, south of the Han River. The following morning, I departed for Tokyo.
Before turning to a summary of that portion of my trip, let me pause to record, again, my appreciation to those who did so much to make my return to Korea so meaningful-especially CAO Robert Banks and his staff, Professor Yoon Young O of ASAK, and Professor Kim Seong-Kon and Professor Kim U Chang. There seemed to me to be enormous value in this visit to Korea. While the schedule was more intense than optimal because of the noted scheduling constraints, it proved easily manageable, especially with the relaxed weekend break, and I was grateful for so many substantive opportunities to present my work and pursue meaningful discussions about an internationalized American studies. (As will be noted, my schedule in Japan proved to be, if anything, perhaps more relaxed than it needed to be, so my trip as a whole achieved a nice balance.)
I am pleased to recommend that this broadened itinerary for the ASA president, to include additional time in Korea, be considered as a regular feature of the program. I have the sense this might well be of interest to the Department of State, since it makes for a more sustained regional impact. There may be opportunities, on this basis, for developing support structures in Korea roughly parallel to the way the Japan-US Friendship Commission supports the JAAS-ASA exchange, and certainly ASAK leadership seems interested in such a possibility. Considering that JAAS has already committed itself to a more regionally inclusive approach to the JAAS meeting, featuring representatives of American studies in Korea at this year’s Nagoya meeting, it would seem that a broadened ASA itinerary centered on the JAAS meeting might advance the broad purposes of the current exchange supported by the Friendship Commission, especially if any regularized Korean programming were to be understood as adding to, rather than constricting in any way the planning for Japan. Certainly that was the experience this time, and for me the inclusion of Korea provided additional, instructive context for my encounter with American studies in Japan.
II. JAPAN
My summary will be briefer, here, since comments on aspects of my programs in Japan are dealt with at length in the overview final report. But to provide, as noted earlier, a parallel to the itemized summaries in the reports of my colleagues Amy Kaplan and Susan Smulyan, I can outline the features of my program concisely. I arrived in Tokyo on Monday evening, May 28. Tuesday was a free day, which I enjoyed by exploring on my own the lively Rippongi area near my hotel. In the evening, I was met by Yoshitsugu Nakamura of the Embassy Cultural Affairs staff, and brought to the home of Program Development Officer Warren Soiffer, for a wonderful welcoming dinner reception. In addition to meeting my colleagues Amy Kaplan and Susan Smulyan and two of our JAAS coordinating hosts, Masako Notoji and Naoki Onishi, the small group included a number of other academic and professional figures. The conversation was intense and substantive, and in all the evening provided a fine foundation for my experience in Japan. Wednesday was also largely free, aside from a quite useful briefing at the Embassy in late morning mostly focused on the “nuts and bolts” of program arrangements. After that, an old friend, Professor Andor Skotnes of Skidmore College, currently a Fulbrighter at the University of Tokyo, Komaba, where I was to speak the next day, met me. We spent a fine afternoon exploring some the sights of Tokyo, including major shrines, some museums, and the Imperial palace and grounds. After a brief rest I set off for International House for the Japan-US Friendship Commission reception, itself a wonderful introduction to a diverse range of people, and some of the exciting new programs featured in the Commission’s work-such as the undergraduate exchange represented by a very engaging group of young students whom it was a delight to meet. After the reception, Amy, Susan and I went out for dinner with the two of our JAAS hosts attending, Professors Notoji and Onishi, and continued to solidify what was quickly becoming a warm relationship among all of us, a real resource for the remainder of our time in Japan.
Thursday was also largely free before my late afternoon program at the University of Tokyo, Komaba. In late morning I met my friend Professor Skotnes, who teaches there, as he had volunteered to help bring me to the campus early in order to meet informally with faculty there before my talk. Before that, his Fulbright status proved serendipitous. We visited the Fulbright program office where I was able (the director being out of town) to talk with program specialist Mizuho Iwata about the development of Fulbright programs in recent years, a matter of interest given my own Fulbright experience in Korea. Following this, I was invited to join a quite special tour arranged for the Fulbrighters of the Japanese Supreme Court, including a full official briefing on the Japanese judicial system and a private audience with one of the court’s Justices. Professor Skotnes and I went from there to the Komaba campus, for my first formal program in Japan, and one that proved to be exceptional in every respect. I had the time to learn a great deal about the exciting Center for Pacific and American Studies developing on that campus, through extensive conversation with the CPAS program director, Professor Yasuo Endo, Professor Yujin Yaguchi, and the center’s director, Professor Daizaburo Yui. The seminar itself was quite successful; I presented my paper about deindustrialization and public history to an audience of some thirty or so graduate students and faculty, and enjoyed a sustained, provocative question and discussion period afterward. This dialogue continued as a group of us, quite usefully including some of the students, traveled to the lively Shibuya area for a late supper. All in all the occasion was extremely satisfying, both in terms of the intellectual dialogue, and the exchanges we were able to have about trends in American studies program development, especially as engaged by CPAS and its students.
The next day I traveled to Nagoya with Mr. Soiffer, Margaret Mihori of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, my US colleagues, and our wonderful hosts, Professors Notoji, Onishi, and Iino. The JAAS conference began with the opening reception in the evening, featuring a moving toast by Makoro Saino, the conference’s “elder”, and honoring all the US and Korean visitors. The event helped make us all feel at home, generating considerable “momentum” as we prepared for the conference the next day.
My colleagues have extensively discussed the JAAS conference in the reports, and I synthesize some of our responses in my overview report. Here, I will note only how enjoyable I found it: my keynote presidential address went well, and the requisite technical support for my combination video and laptop slideshow proved superb. I appreciated the ceramic museum and park visit after, which provided opportunities for a range of interesting conversations among American and Korean visitors and some of our Japanese hosts. The formal reception in the evening was also a highlight, and permitted an even wider range of engaging conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed the two English language sessions on Sunday, the next day, and I found the level of the papers, commentaries, and general discussion to be exceptional. I second my colleagues’ remarks about the importance of informal “cafeteria time” discussion to get to know conference participants outside of formal sessions. At the conclusion of the conference, we returned to Nagoya for a wonderful farewell dinner. Though it took great effort, we succeeded in forcing our hosts to accept our hospitality, for a change, and to be the guests of the Korean and American scholars for whom they had done so much. I concluded the evening by joining my Korean colleagues at a Korean karaoke bar, a last chance to use some of whatever Korean I have retained from my earlier visit. All-in-all, the day brought the JAAS meeting experience to a wonderful conclusion.
On Monday, Professors Kaplan, Smulyan, and I made our way to Kyoto, and spent a fine free afternoon beginning our various explorations of the city’s famous temples. We were invited to a most welcoming dinner by Professor Julie Higashi of the Ritsumeikan University Center for American Studies, who had arranged our seminar, along with center director Masahiro Nakano, and CAS Professor Hiroshi Yoneyama. Professor Yoneyama graciously continued our introduction to Kyoto with a tour the next morning and a fine soba noodle lunch, after which we went to the campus for the seminar-a very well prepared event attracting students and faculty from Doshisha and other universities as well as Ritsumeikan. There was a useful discussion period after, and a reception. This very special seminar was a real highlight of the trip, bringing all the US lecturers together with a wide range of students and faculty from several campuses. The fact that the topics of the visitors seemed to mesh so well was a special plus, this year. As discussed in my final report, the very success and significance of the Ritsumeikan seminar argues for doing even more with the resources brought together in Kyoto, especially via more time for informal discussion.
The next morning, Wednesday, I left for the final leg of my journey, and my final program, in Okinawa. This had been arranged and sponsored by the US consulate for presentation at the University of the Ryukus. The train took me from Kyoto to Osaka’s KIX airport for the flight to Okinawa, where Ms. Fuji Takayasu of the public affairs section met me. On Thursday morning, I was taken by public affairs officer Bruce Nelson to what turned out to be a very substantive and useful briefing with the Consul General, Timothy Betts. After that, my university host, Professor Kenji Akamine, president of the American Studies Society of Okinawa, took me for an extensive tour, of which the extraordinary Peace Museum and memorial garden was a quite moving highlight, followed by a lunch and good conversation.
By the time I arrived for the lecture, I felt I had a reasonably good sense of the complexities of Okinawa, and its even more complex historical relation to both the US and Japan. (This was only weeks before yet another international incident brought underlying tensions in the US-Okinawan relationship to the surface). My presentation there was a version of my JAAS lecture, itself based on my ASA Presidential Address. As it happens, much of the argument in this presentation speaks indirectly to the kind of issues presented by the Okinawan situation, since the challenges and dilemmas of a truly multi-directional internationalized American studies are so palpable in that cultural and political context. Perhaps because of this resonance, the talk seemed to strike a chord useful for stimulating very extensive discussion, which continued all through a long and delightful post-seminar supper for a small group of university faculty and our consulate hosts. All-in-all, this provided a fine coda for my journey, and I am delighted that it proved possible to include Okinawa on the itinerary, just as I was pleased to be able to precede my Japanese tour with the visit to Korea.
The richer web of relationships to the US and to American studies suggested by each of these contexts seems to me to have made my engagement with each particular context in Japan all the more instructive and intense. My return flight to the US the next day proved uneventful, in happy contrast to the complications of my outward-bound flight, and I arrived home safely and on time-exhausted but fully satisfied with my three-week journey. I will turn now to my overview report on the overall ASA-JAAS project in which I can comment on my experiences further. I do want to conclude here, again, by noting my profound gratitude to all those whose support, efforts, and exceptionally gracious hospitality did do much to make this experience possible. I know how much it has meant to me, personally and intellectually, and I can only hope that through our various efforts the program has achieved some of its broader objectives, advancing the project of a more mutually enriching international dialogue in and about American studies.
Amy Kaplan
Mount Holyoke College
Project Report for Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, July 2001
My two-week trip to Japan in June 2001 as an ASA delegate to the JAAS was an extraordinary experience that will remain with me for years to come. Rewarding exchanges with Japanese scholars and students of American studies profoundly reshaped my sense of the changing transnational context of the field in ways that will continue to affect my own scholarship and teaching. I am grateful to the sponsorship of the Japanese-US Friendship Commission, the ASA and the JAAS for this unique opportunity. I owe the success of my visit to the hard work and gracious hospitality of many Japanese scholars who hosted me at Aichi Prefectural University, Ritsumeikan University, Nara Women’s University, and Tsuda College.
I owe special gratitude to Professors Masako Iinos, Masako Notoji, and Noaki Onishi of the JAAS for their warm hospitality, intellectual engagement, and expert planning. Their attention to every detail before the trip and their attentive and welcoming hosting during our stay there went above and beyond the call of duty as members of the executive committee of the JAAS. So much more goes into hosting foreign visitors for two weeks than I could have imagined before I arrived in Japan. Professor Iinos, Notoji, and Onishi anticipated our needs and responded to the everyday wear and tear of travel in such considerate and thoughtful ways that I felt at home throughout my stay in Japan. They were more than merely excellent organizers; my contact with each of them throughout my visit epitomized the collegiality and high quality of intellectual exchange that made the entire trip so special.
I arrived in Tokyo several days before the conference and attended a dinner hosted by Warren Soiffer, program development officer at the US embassy, and a reception at the Japanese-US Friendship Society. These venues provided valuable time for orientation before any formal presentations. I got to know the three members of the JAAS committee and other scholars in more informal settings than the large conference. I was especially honored to have the opportunity to meet Professor Hiroko Sato, past president of the JAAS (and an alumna of Mount Holyoke College). I also had the opportunity to meet Professor Michael Frisch and Professor Susan Smulyan, (who I met known years ago) and to tour Tokyo with her guidance and on my own. Through Susan, I also met Professor Yujin Yaguchi of Tokyo University, whose dissertation I offered to read to comment on preparations for publication. By the time we all met on the train to Nagoya, we were good friends ready to “talk shop.”
I very much enjoyed my attendance at the JAAS. While some of my Japanese colleagues grumbled about the distance of the Aichi campus, when in a new place I find everything interesting. At the JAAS I gave my talk on W.E.B. Du Bois in a workshop on globalization with two other very interesting papers, one on the international reception of Mohammed Ali and the other more speculative, and also very insightful, on Americanization and globalization. I was very pleased with the reception of my paper-with the interesting questions and new perspectives presented during the discussion period. Since my paper was on Du Bois’s internationalism, I was especially interested in the material people suggested to me on his relation to Japan. I also enjoyed my attendance at the other panel in English. In that case, the three papers really spoke to one another and the commentator expertly brought them together. That panel was truly international and made excellent use of the visitors from the US and Korea-- in this case, Professor Nam-Gyun Kim of Pyongtaek University. Susan Smulyan and I were also invited to attend an informal lunch meeting with women scholars of the JAAS. That session was wonderful because we not only spoke about our own experiences as women in the academy and the role of gender studies in our work, but the other participants also went around the room to share their own work and experiences with us.
While I thoroughly enjoyed my attendance at the JAAS, I think in the future more can be done to integrate the U.S. delegates into the proceedings. It might have been useful to meet with the other panelists in my workshop, for example, before hand or afterward. Our papers had interesting points of overlap that we might have brought out if we had talked together. In general, the hosts at Aichi were very attentive by setting us up with a separate lunch and organizing a tour to a local museum, but this treatment also isolated us as tourists rather than as participants. When Susan and I wandered into cafeteria, things got more interesting, as we started speaking to younger colleagues and graduate students. The main obstacle to intellectual exchange though is language. Except for our workshops, all the papers of course are in Japanese. I would highly recommend that some form of translation be offered, and that this be budgeted in the grant. I also suggest that at least abstracts of each paper be translated for the program. Without such means of translation, the intellectual exchange risks going in a one-way direction, and feels like an older model in which the Americans convey “what’s really going on in American studies” to the Japanese on the outside. The purpose of such a trip at this historical moment is to shift that power dynamic. It was clear from my informal conversations that I had as much to learn from my Japanese colleagues as to teach them.
As for informal conversations, like all good conferences, that is where the real work is achieved. I learned a lot from talking to people about their own work, and was especially interested in the work being done on Japanese immigration to the US, and US- Japanese relations. Their work showed me how much research in American studies must be internationalized that can only be done with a bi-national archive and bilingual approach. I came home not only with off-prints and citations directly related to my own work, but also with new comparative perspectives on issues I’ve been working on, such as US and Japanese imperialism, on responses to orientalism, controversies about historical memory of WWII in both countries.
After a wonderful farewell dinner in Nagoya, Susan, Michael, and I departed from our Tokyo hosts and went to Kyoto. At Ritsumeikan University, Professors Julie Higashi, Hiroshi Yoneyama and Masahiro Nakano did an excellent job of organizing a seminar for graduate students and faculty in which we presented papers around the related themes of media, popular culture and politics. The papers worked very well together. Professor Frisch’s paper on the Pan-American Exposition 1901 overlapped with my paper on the same period-on early films about the Spanish American War ("Birth of an Empire"). Professor Smulyan tied both together with an overview of theoretical and methodological approaches to popular culture. This was a very well organized seminar that required students to apply and read the papers ahead of time. I thought that the decision to select papers coordinate the papers around a common theme was very productive and interesting both for us as presenters and for the participants in the seminar. Students and faculty attended from both Ritsumeikan and Doshisha. I was pleased to hear from Professor Higashi that the papers were well received and would be discussed further in their classes. While in Kyoto, it was of course wonderful to have time to tour such a beautiful city both with the guidance of Professor Yoneyama on our first morning there, and on our own. On my last afternoon, Professor Higashi very kindly spent the afternoon taking me to a beautiful teahouse north of the city. She was also very helpful in organizing my reservations and railroad tickets for the next stage of my trip.
During my stay in Kyoto, I spent one day at Nara Woman’s University under the auspices of the U.S. embassy. Let me just say that I wish the embassy had been as well organized as our JAAS hosts. There was some confusion until my arrival as to the venue and audience I would be addressing, and whether or not I was expected to submit a paper ahead of time. This caused some awkwardness with the translator and organizers at Nara. Nonetheless, that visit was very successful. My paper “Gender and Nation in the Americas” compared the changing myths of Pocahontas in the US and Malinche in Mexico. I spoke through a consecutive translator to a group of around a hundred students from different classes. The students asked good questions both during the session and afterwards and I sensed their interest and enthusiasm about the issues of the representation of women, race and nation. The embassy arranged a lunch with an interesting group of faculty members involved in gender studies and American studies. After my talk, Professor Yasuko Miyasaka very kindly spend the afternoon showing me the beautiful sights of Nara.
From Kyoto I took a trip on my own to Hiroshima. (Even there, Professor Iinos kindly arranged for me to be hosted by a former student). I wanted to go to Hiroshima because I teach a course on “Mourning and Memory in American Culture” in which we study the intersection of private and public occasions of mourning in response to recent historical traumas: WWII, the Vietnam War, and the AIDS epidemic. One of the themes we explore is the construction of memory through personal narratives and contests over historical meaning through public memorials. I spent half a day at the museum and the Peace Park, which I found moving and invaluable, and I plan to bring this material into my course as a comparative perspective. Discussions with Japanese colleagues along the way had prepared me to understand some of the controversies and complexities involved in presenting Japanese history in this context, issues I would not have known on my own.
I then took the train from Hiroshima to Tokyo, which by now felt like “coming home, “ and was hosted again graciously by Professors Notoji, Iinos and Onishi. On my last day in Tokyo, I gave my final lecture at Tsuda College, which was a wonderful way to conclude my trip. I presented a paper to Professor Iinos’s graduate seminar on “The Transnational Turn in American Studies.” The students read my paper beforehand, and I spoke about it informally rather than read it directly. This was my most rewarding presentation, because the students had so much to say both about the issues I addressed; and about their own work. (There were also two students there from Tokyo University). We had a very lively and engaging discussion. I was also given a tour of the college and found many interesting connections between women’s education in the states and in Japan, as I know it from Mount Holyoke and learned about the history of Tsuda College and Nara University. That evening Professor Iinos hosted the members of the seminar and I at a restaurant, which was a celebratory final banquet for my entire visit. There I had the opportunity to speak with each student about her research, and I enjoyed spending time with such an engaging group of bright students with such potential. I also spoke to several of them about their plans to study in the states, and have corresponded with several of them by email since then.
Let me add that on a trip like this so much of intellectual value happens outside the formal sessions through unexpected encounters and insights in the process of travel. I learned much from the trip that enriched my understanding of my own work on imperialism, nationalism, and culture, and that broadened my sense of the transnational dimensions of U.S. history and culture. I have to admit, with some embarrassment, that even though I study American imperialism, I saw on this trip how narrow and myopic my own view of the world can be. The paradigm of empire sometimes divides the world simplistically into a binary between the colonizers and colonized. Japan, with its own imperial history and complex relation to western power of course completely undoes that binary. This was something I “knew” intellectually, but it was not until this trip that I had a much better sense of my own limited knowledge and a new sense beginning to emerge of a more complex global picture. It was unique experience to be in Japan with scholars of American studies from both Japan and Korea and to discuss current issues that arose at the moment, such as the textbook controversy, questions of militarism and nationalism, the reception of the film “Pearl Harbor.” These kinds of discussions were invaluable, and one could not have them in the states in the same way, or merely as a tourist in Japan without an intellectual context. I am very grateful to the organizers of the ASA and the JAAS for affording me this incredible opportunity.
Susan Smulyan
Brown University
Project Report for Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, July 2001
I write to report on my experiences as a delegate from the American Studies Association to the Japanese Association for American Studies in May and June 2001 and to thank the Japanese-US Friendship Commission, the ASA, the JAAS, and my Japanese hosts for a transformative experience. I have been working in the field of American Studies for 28 years, since I was a junior in college, but this was my first international conference. Learning about the US from the perspective of Japanese colleagues and having the chance to present my own work and hear the reactions to it will have an important influence on my scholarship and teaching. In what follows, I will detail the range and variety of interactions in which I was able to participate and the way in which the academic contacts I have made in Japan will enrich my scholarly work and benefit my students. At the end, I have included some small suggestions to improve an already impressive project and a list of tips for other ASA members lucky enough to be included in future exchanges.
Most importantly, I hope my report expresses my deep gratitude to the JAAS, particularly Professors Iinos, Onishi and Notoji, for their intellectual and personal openness and hard work which made the exchange a success. Julie Higashi and the faculty and students at the Center for American Studies at Ritsumeikan University gave us a wonderful forum for our talks. I also owe a debt to the Public Affairs Section of the American Embassy and the staffs of the Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Kansai American Centers for giving me the opportunity to interact with a range of people interested in the same subjects I am. Finally, old friends and colleagues whom I had met in other venues provided me with new opportunities to meet new people and see new things, particularly Pofessor Yujin Yaguchi of Tokyo University and Professor Takeshi Matsuda, Osaka University of Foreign Studies. Many others, undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and lay people, listened to my talks and shared their ideas and I remain grateful beyond measure for their intellectual generosity and insights.
In many ways, my experience as a delegate from the American Studies Association to the Japanese Association for American Studies was colored by the fact that, with a grant from the Watson Center for International Studies at Brown University, I arrived in Tokyo three weeks before Professors Frisch and Kaplan. Staying at International House, I had a chance to meet Japanese colleagues, do a little research and a lot of sightseeing, and generally learn my way around Tokyo before I plunged into giving talks. One of my recommendations to other delegates would be to arrive as early as possible, up to five days before your first presentation, to meet Japanese colleagues informally and to get over jet lag. I think if the Americans understood that the subsidy provided would easily cover an early arrival, they might be more eager to plunge in as I did. The other influence on my visit was the opportunity to host Professor Notoji at Brown, where she gave a talk in April 2001, just before the JAAS-ASA exchange. Our personal and intellectual acquaintance, along with the fact that we simply traded places in making arrangements and planning events, allowed us to begin with a feeling of collegiality and equality that continued throughout the rest of the exchange.
My time with the JAAS began with a dinner, kindly hosted by Warren Soiffer, Program Development Officer, Public Affairs Section, American Embassy at his home. This was a great chance to meet our hosts and other JAAS officers and to hear more about our itinerary. Our orientation meeting at the American Embassy the next day helped answer the many questions about our responsibilities to the American Centers.
Rather than giving a day-by-day itinerary (which would be very long since I traveled so much), I want to focus on the seven events in which I participated. They were:
- Talk in the introductory American Studies class at International Christian University, Tokyo, arranged by Professor Naoki Onishi (attendance about 100); Thursday, May 31
- Paper at the JAAS Meeting in Nagoya, participation arranged by Professors Noaki Onishi, Masako Notoji, and Masoko Iinos (attendance about 50); Sunday, June 3
- Informal Talk at the Women’s and Gender Studies Lunch, JAAS Meetings, Nagoya, arranged by Professor Rui Koiyama (attendance about 35); Sunday, June 3
- Paper at Graduate Seminar, American Studies Center, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, arranged by Professor Julie Higashi (attendance about 35); Tuesday, June 5
- Talk, Tokyo American Center, J. Brooks Spector, Director; Moderated by Professor Masako Notoji, University of Tokyo (attendance about 50); Monday, June 11
- Faculty Seminar and Talk to undergraduate lecture class, Kitakyushu University, Kitakyushu, arranged by Fukuoka American Center, Bruce Kleiner, Director (Faculty Seminar, attendance about 12; Undergraduate lecture, attendance about 200); Thursday, June 14
- Talk, Kansai American Center, Osaka, Max Kwak, Director; Moderated by Professor Takeshi Matsuda, Osaka University of Foreign Studies (attendance about 50); Friday, June 15
Go to second page
Quick Links
American Quarterly [official journal site]
American Quarterly [editorial site]