Benjamin Lowell ALLEN
Ph.D., 1st Year

Research Interests:
Japanese graphic design/visual culture, contemporary Japanese art

Dissertation Topic (Proposed):
The international circulation of Japanese design and popular cultural products

Degrees Held:
M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultures (with distinction), UIUC 2007
B.A., Japanese Language and Literature, University of Florida, 2000

Valerie Holshouser BARSKE
Ph.D. Candidate
Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellow 2007-2008
Fulbright Fellow 2005-2006

Research Interests:
Modern Japan, contemporary Japanese culture, Okinawan cultural history, women in East Asia,colonial studies, gender studies, theorizing the body

 

Dissertation Title (Proposed):Embodying History, Performing Identities: Peace, Gender, and Ethnicity in Okinawa Japan

Degrees Held:
M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultures, UIUC, 2001
B.A., International Relations Asian Concentration (minors: French and Japanese; Honors in Politics), Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, 1998

Selected Publications and Presentations:

Publications:"Dance and Performance in East Asia and Oceania," in Gary Xu ed. Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Cultures Vol. 6, East Asia and Pacific Oceania, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007.

"Nuchibana: Okinawans Dancing for Peace," in Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement (JASHM) 12:3 (Autumn 2003): 145-165.

"'Okinawa Omnibus': A Film Review," in Asian Educational Media Service News and Reviews 4(2) (Winter 2001):9

Selected Presentations:
"Ethnicized Difference, Nationalized Bodies: Women and Intersectional Identities in Postwar Japan," panel organizer at Forging Junctions, Forcing Ruptures: Woman and Intersectional Identities in Japan, University of Wisconsin System Annual Women's Studies Conference, Madison, April 20, 2007.

"Fight for Life, Protest as a Lifestyle: Women Demonstrating on the Sea," invited lecture at the Annual Liberal Arts Symposium, Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia, April 18, 2007.

"Moving Beyond Unai (Sisterhood): Gender, Ethnicity, and Women's Peace Activism," paper presented at the EALC Graduate Student Colloquium, UIUC, March 30, 2007.

"Cultural Literacy and Women' Studies," panel in Literacies Connecting Across the Liberal Arts Annual Teaching Conference, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, January 17, 2007.

"Whose Kokutai?: Problematizing the Postwar 'Japanese' National Body," paper presented as part of the panel session "Unstable Bodies, Unsettled Movements: Sport, Performance, and Nation in Japan," at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, January 4-7, 2007.

"Okinawa Inc.?: Ethnic Tourism, Neoliberal Logic, and the Moving Body," paper presented as part of the invited panel session "Critical Intersections of Neoliberalism in Japan," at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Jose, November 15-19, 2006.

"Political Dreamworks, Cultural Fantasies: Fetishizing Neoliberalism?" paper presented at the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory Conference: "Fetishizing the Free Market: The Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism," at UIUC, April 29-30, 2005.

"'Asia's Last Colony', Ultra-Nationalism, and Imperial Violence," Respondent to Naoki Sakai, Korea Workshop: on "Imperial Nationalism and Comparison," at UIUC April 18, 2005

"Cosmic Disc: Mediating the Jikkai Mandala on DVD," Panel presentation with Ronald Toby, David Plath, and Brian Ruppert, at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 31-April 3, 2005.

"Dance? Or Change Your Religion: Dance Performance as a Key Social and Sacred Event among the Lahu Na Sheleh of Thailand," Panel Presentation and Field Report with Jacquetta Hill and David Plath, at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Minneapolis, October 1-3, 2004.

"Okinawan Action Sign Systems: Dancing Difference or Dancing Differently," paper presented as part of the panel session "Exploring the Senses and Semiosis," at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 21-24, 2002.

Brian CLEVELAND
M.A., 3rd Year

Research Interests:
Buddhism in Japan, institutional history of Rinzai Zen in the Muromachi/Ashikaga eras, Buddhist ethics and moral codes, Indian/Vedic philosophy

Degrees Held:
M.A., Modern Japanese Literature (with distinction), University of Kansas

Dunja JELESIJEVIC
Ph.D., 1st Year

Research Interests:
Japanese religion (Shinto)

Degree Held:
B.A., Japanese Language and Literature, Belgrade University, Serbia, 2000

Fang JI
M.A., 1st Year

Research Interests:
Japanese language and literature

Jung Sun KIM
M.A., 2nd Year

Research Interests:
Japanese Linguistics and Pedagogy, Second Language Acquisition

Degrees Held:
M.A., Division of English as an International Language, UIUC, 2006
B.A., Economics, Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, 2001

Research Interests:
Modern Japanese literature, pre-modern Japanese literature, gender and sexuality in manga

Degree Held:
B.A., English, Japanese Language and Literature (with honors), Vassar College

Research Interests:
Modern Japanese history, gender and women's history, colonialism/imperialism

Dissertation Title:
Shaping the Body Domestic: Gender, Race, and Physical Culture in Imperial Japan

Degrees Held:
M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultures, UIUC, 2003
B.A., Sociology/Anthropology, Colgate University, 1998

Selected Publications and Presentations:
Publications:
Film Review: "Women in Japan: Memories of the Past, Dreams for the Future." Asian Educational Media Service News and Reviews 6(3) (Fall 2003): 3.

Selected Presentations:
"Exercising Agency: Female Bodies and Physical Education in Imperial Japan," paper presented at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, January 4-7, 2007.

"Rooting for the Home Team: Nationalism, Regionalism, and International Sport in Asia," paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Jose, California, November 15-19, 2006.

"Flexible Bodies, National Bodies: Global Sport and the Cultural Nation in East Asia," paper presented at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Michigan State University, Lansing, Michigan, September 23-25, 2005.

"Training Imperial Bodies: Gender and Physical Education in Modern Japan," paper presented at the Graduate Student Conference on East Asia, Columbia University, New York, February 12, 2005.

"Baseball as a Medium of Cultural Identity in Modern Japan," paper presented at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Wittenburg University, Springfield, Ohio, September 27-29, 2002.

Research Interests:
Japanese language pedagogy, the relationship between teacher-student interaction and student learning, exchange students learning Japanese in Japan

Degrees Held:
M.A., Foreign Language Education, University of Kansas
B.A., Sociology, Sophia University, Japan

Research Interests:
Japanese religions (Shinto and Buddhism), ancient Japanese history

Degrees Held:
M.A., Social Sciences, University of Chicago
B.A., History, Dongguk University, Seoul

Publication and Presentation:

Publication:
The Sacred Outcast: The Symbol of Alienated Divinity in Japanese Mythology and Its Historical Reflection (A Critical Application of Georges Dumezil's Trifunction System Theory to Japanese Mythology), M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 2003.

Presentations:
"Hermaphrodite Shaman: Understanding Female-Male Shaman Combination in
Japanese Shamanism," paper presented at the Eighth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History, UIUC, March 8-10, 2007; and at the Third Annual Loyola University Chicago History Graduate Student
Conference, Chicago, April 28, 2007.

Research Interests:
Japanese religion (Buddhism), modern Japanese philosophy and intellectual history (esp. the Kyoto School and its critics), socially engaged Buddhism, comparative/cross-cultural studies in religion (esp. Buddhist-Christian dialogue)

Degree Held:
B.A., Religion and Classical Studies, University of Evansville, 2004

Selected Publications and Presentations:
Presentations:

"'New Kamakura Buddhism Revisited': The Apparent Transition in Dogen Zenji's Thought and its Subsequent Effect on Female Religious Practice within the S?t? Zen Tradition," paper presented at the Eighth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History, UIUC, March 8-10, 2007.

"Different Worlds, Mutual Responses: Paul Tillich and Shinran Shonin on the Human Existential Condition," paper presented at Midwest American Academy of Religion, DePaul University, Chicago, April 8-9, 2005; and at the 19th National Conference on Undergraduate Research, Washington and Lee University & Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, April 21-23, 2005.

Publication:
"Different Worlds, Mutual Responses: Paul Tillich and Shinran Shonin on the Human Existential Condition," in the Proceedings of The National Conference on Undergraduate Research (Lexington, Virginia, April 21-23, 2005), ed. Robert Yearout. University of North Carolina at Asheville, 2005.

Research Interests:
19th century Japanese intellectual history

Dissertation Title:
Dialectics of National Landscape: Rearranging Space and Narratives in Nineteenth Century Japan (An abstract is available here.)

Degrees Held:
M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultures, UIUC
B.A., History, Mount Mary College

Presentations:
"A Nation of Landscape: Shiga Shigetaka and Modern Knowledge in Early Meiji Japan," paper presented at the Waseda University Modern Japanese History Workshop, Tokyo, June 2, 2006.

"East-West Intertextuality and the Remapping of Japan:
Nihon Fukei-ron and Things Japanese," paper presented at the 11th UCLA Graduate Student Symposium on Japanese Studies, Los Angeles, May 7, 2005.

"Forming a Conceptual Space: Nihon fukei-ron and Strategic Rewriting of ‘Japan,’" Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures Graduate Student Colloquia Series, UIUC, April 14, 2005.

"Defining Nation through 'Art': Okakura Tenshin and His Notion of Pan-Asianism," paper presented at the 51st Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, September 27-29, 2002.

"Defining Art, Nation, Culture: Earnest F. Fenollosa and Meiji Japan," paper presented at the Sixth Annual Midwest Conference on Asian History and Culture at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, May 4-5, 2002.

"'Art' as a Means to Define the Ideals: Okakura Tenshin and His Notion of Pan-Asianism," paper presented at the 11th Annual
Graduate Student Conference on East Asia at Columbia University, New York, February 9-11, 2002.

James WELKER
Ph.D.,3rd Year

Research Interests:
Contemporary Japanese culture, Japanese lesbian and gay history and culture,
Asian Queer Studies, gender and sexuality, Women's Studies, and Cultural Studies

Dissertation Title (Proposed):
Thinking Globally, Identifying Locally: Re-Envisioning "Women" in Late Twentieth-Century Japan

Degrees Held:
M.A., Advanced Japanese Studies (with distinction), University of Sheffield, U.K.
M.A., English (Rhetoric and Writing), Bowling Green State University

Selected Publications:
Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
"Lilies of the Margin: Beautiful Boys and Lesbian Identities," in AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Gender and Sexuality in the Asia-Pacific, eds. Peter Jackson et al., Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming, 2008.

"Drawing Out Lesbians: Blurred Representations of Lesbian Desire in Shojo Manga," in Lesbian Voices: Canada and the World, ed. Subhash Chandra, 156-184, New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 2006.

"Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: Boys' Love as Girls' Love in Shojo Manga," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 31(3) (Spring 2006): 841-870.

Beverley Curran and James Welker, "From the Well of Loneliness to the akarui rezubian: Western Translations and Lesbian Identities," in Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan, eds. Mark McLelland and Romit Dasgupta, 65-80, London: Routledge, 2005.

"Telling Her Story: Narrating a Japanese Lesbian Community." Japanstudien: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts fur Japanstudien 16: 119-144. (Also available online here.)

Edited Collections and Journal Issues:
Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker, eds., Queer Voices from Japan: First-Person Narratives from Japan's Sexual Minorities, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2007.

James Welker and Lucetta Kam, eds., "Of Queer Import(s): Sexualities, Genders, and Rights in Asia," special issue of Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context 14 (November 2006), URL: <http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue14_contents.htm>.

Translations and Published Interviews:
Translation of six selections in Queer Voices from Japan: First-Person Narratives from Japan's Sexual Minorities, eds. Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2007.

Three translations and one interview in "Queer Japan," ed. Mark McLelland, special issue of Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context 12 (January 2006), URL: http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue12_contents.html

A more complete list of James Welker's publications and presentations can be found here.