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

Dunja JELESIJEVIC
Ph.D., 2nd Year

Research Interests:
Japanese religion (Shinto)

Degree Held:
M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultures, UIUC
B.A., Japanese Language and Literature, Belgrade University, Serbia, 2000

Jung Sun KIM
M.A., 1st 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, reading manga as literature, the adaptation of European mythologies for a Japanese audience, premodern Japanese lit., modern drama, Shakespeare in Japanese, translation, and English literature.

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

Publications:
"Densha Otoko: a review, "Asian Educational Media Service Newsletter, forthcoming winter 2008/early 2009.

"The Long and Winding Scroll: England as Palimpsest," Undergraduate Thesis, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2007.

Research Interests:
Modern Japanese History, Gender and Colonialism, Feminist History, Imperial History, Body Theory

Dissertation Title:
Imperial Designs: Fashion, Cosmetics, and Physical Culture in Japan, 1933-1949

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:

"Tanaka Chiyo, 'Ethnic Costumes,' and Fashion in Wartime Japan," paper presented at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, October 10-12, 2008.

"Living the 'Double Life': Women, Fashion, and Colonial Modernity in Wartime Japan," Asian Studies Japan Conference, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, June 22, 2008.

"Imperial Makeover: Examining Shiseido's shashi as Historical Resource," invited paper presentation as part of the Japanese Company Histories (shashi) Group, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, April 3-6, 2008, Atlanta, Georgia.

"Embodying Empire: Intersections of Gender and Race in Imperial Japan," Eighth Annual Graduate Symposium on Gender and Women's History, UIUC, March 8-10, 2007.

"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:
Medieval Japanese Buddhism; Kyoto School Philosophy; Buddhist Pedagogy; American Pragmatism in Cross-Cultural studies; Transmission of Buddhist Philosophy; Concepts of Personhood in the Religious Tradition; Nature, Environmental Ethics and Factory Farms

Degrees Held:
M.A., Philosophy, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
B.A., Philosophy, Eastern Illinois University

Other Qualifications:
Certified instructor of shinkendo

Presentation

"Bushido: Concepts of Personhood in Japanese Warrior Philosophy," presented as part of a panel on Asian Philosophy and Religion at SIUC for Asian Heritage Month, April 12, 2007.

Research Interests:
Modern Japanese Literature, Modern Korean Literature, Translation

Degrees Held:
B.A., East Asian Studies, Princeton University

James WELKER
Ph.D.,3rd Year
Fulbright-Hays Fellow (Ochanomizu Women’s University) 2008-2009

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):
Transfiguring the Female: Women and Girls Engaging the Transnational in Late Sh?wa Era 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:

Edited Volumes:
Mark McLelland, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker, eds. 2007. Queer Voices from Japan: First-Person Narratives from Japan’s Sexual Minorities. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.

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

"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.)

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.