THE APPA Newsletter

THE APPA Newsletter

November 18, 2003

See This Weekend

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MISSION STATEMENT:

Promote full utilization of the capabilities of the Enterprise's employees and champion the betterment of the company and community. Promote interest in Asian Pacific issues and culture and act as a bridge to all groups within our community.

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ed. by Douglas Ikemi

(dkikemi@pacbell.net, dkikemi01@sprintpcs.com)

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The internet site is at:

www.apa-pro.org

Our own domain name, apa-pro.org, stands for Asian Pacific American Professionals. www.apa-pro.org/ gives you a menu of AP organization websites.

Back issues of the newsletter for all of 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 are available on the website if you want to look up some past event.

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APPA Board Meeting Schedule for 2003:

Evening meetings open to the public will be at the Hilton Garden Inn, 2100 Mariposa Ave.(corner of Nash)‎‎ 310/726-0100.

(finished for the year)

Detailed, updated calendar is available on the internet at www.apa-pro.org in Acrobat and Excel formats . Please send in information on cultural events and news items. Thanks to those who have.

Long range calendar items:

Chinatown Farmers Market Every Thursday, 3:00pm to 7:00pm Chinatown Business Improvement District http://www.ChinatownLA.com/ For Information (213)‎ 680-0243

Nov 1-Feb 1, Korean Costumes Exhibit at the Pacific Asia Museum, 46 N. Los Robles, Pasadena 91101, 626-449-2742.

Nov 17-21 Victims of Pacific Wars Photo Exhibition 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM, 214 Kerckhoff Hall Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 90095. For more information please contact Center for Korean Studies, 825-3284, koreanstudies@ucla.edu, http://www.internationalucla.edu/korea

Nov 29 Fugetsudo 100th Anniversary of Little Tokyo Confection Shop, 2-4PM, slide show and mochi pounding at the JANM.

Dec 6 Fine Arts - Flowers in Harmony: The Japanese Art of Ikebana At the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, World of Art Family Workshop. Hisoko Shohara, president of the LA chapter of the Ohara School of Ikebana, will teach participants how to create their elegant arrangements while learning the design elements key to this art form. $5 material fee for Fowler members; $10 for non-members. Reservations required; call 310-825-8655. Not intended for young children. 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA Campus, Los Angeles, CA 90095, Free, $5 material fee for Fowler members; $10 for non-members. Reservations required; call 310-825-8655. For more information please contact UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History Tel: 310-825-8655, fowlerws@arts.ucla.edu, www.fowler.ucla.edu

Dec 7 Music of Edo Concert at the JACCC Garden Room, 2PM, $20. Japanese Traditional Performing Arts Organization, 310-378-3550

Dec China Expo, LA Convention Center

March 21, 2004 Live at the Armstrong - George Takei. 4:00 pm Tickets $30.

As part of the American Perspectives Series ...Salute to Liberty

Recognized worldwide as a member of the original Star Trek cast, Los Angeles native, George Takei is an actor, community and political activist, author, long distance runner and lecturer. Mr. Takei spent most of his childhood behind the barbed-wire enclosures of United States internment camps during World War II. His optimistic vision is a world where people from all backgrounds work together to overcome problems. Armstrong Theatre at 3330 Civic Center Drive in Torrance. Questions: 310-738-8011. Box Office: 310-781-7171

April 3, 2004 Also the Peanut Gallery Series which is especially popular with children

two to six years of age is featuring Korean Classical Dance, Saturday Morning 10 am.

Tickets $5.50 - $8.00, Armstrong Theatre. The Company performs graceful and elegant ceremonial and social dances that present a stunning vision of traditional Korean art. A thrilling drum dance is featured in a rich and vaired repertoire of exciting dances that

are an integral part of the Korean culture.

The Pacific Asia Museum (46 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena, 91101, 626-449-2742) Family Festival schedule for 2003, Saturdays, 1-4:

Nov. 15 Himilayan Festival

Dec 13 Pasko Sa Nayon

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This Weekend (and earlier)

Nov 20 Two in LA by Rhiana Yazzie, staged reading of a play about a young Navajo in LA. In collaboration with the East West Players Writer's Gallery, Performring Arts Series at the JANM, 7:30-9:30

Nov 20 Lecture - From One Root, Many Flowers At Vintage Books, Pacific Palisades, by author Virginia C. Li. Li, Professor of Public Health at UCLA, will discuss her new book, a personal perspective on 20th-century China. For additional information on Professoir Li and the book, see Richard Gunde's web article at http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article.asp?parentid=4794. 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM Vintage Books, 1049 Swarthmore Ave., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272, Free. For more information please contact Vintage Books Tel: 310-454-4063

Nov 20-23 Play - The Recognition of Shakuntala At Pomona College . The Pomona College Pacific Basin Institute (PBI) presents " The Recognition of Shakuntala ," a classical Indian Sanskrit play by Kalidasa. "Shakuntala" is the most famous classical dance-drama of India . This production has been translated from Sanskrit into English. It will be done in classical Natyshastra style in performance and in design. Showtimes: November 20-22 at 8:00 p.m. , November 22 at 2:00 p.m. , and November 23 at 3:00 p.m. Call the Box Office at (909) 607-4375, Mon-Fri 11:00 - 4:00, for additional information and tickets ( $5 for students/ faculty/staff; $10 regular). Location: Pomona College, Seaver Theater, 333 N. College Way, Claremont, CA 91711. For more information please contact Pomona College Box Office Tel: (909) 607-4375

Nov 21-30 Film – Blindness Premieres at the Laemmle Music Hall Theater in Beverly Hills presented by Pathfinder Pictures and Laemmle Theaters, directed by Anna Chi. Los Angeles premiere engagement. A blind Chinese-American woman (Lisa Lu, "The Joy Luck Club") lives with her son (Chin Han) and daughter-in-law (Vivian Wu, "The Pillow Book," "8 Women"). Mother and daughter-in-law barely tolerate one another. The son, a doctor, lives in his own world of work and hobbies to avoid daily confrontations with either of them. On one moonlit night, an armed intruder (Joe Lando) invades their home and psyches. Falsely accused of the murder of his parents, he tries to find the truth by holding this family of his father's former business partner hostage. "Blindness" is the directorial debut of filmmaker Anna Chi, a veteran of the Chinese film industry who immigrated to the United States in 1989. Her personal story and that of her family's during the Cultural Revolution are subjects of screenplays currently in development: "The Moving Earth" and "Forever Red." While establishing her writing and directing career in the U.S. Anna has served as Associate Producer on Chen Kaige's "Killing Me Softly" and director's assistant on Oliver Stone's "Nixon" and Wayne Wang's "The Joy Luck Club." Laemmle's Music Hall is located at 9036 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills. Ticket prices at the Music Hall are $9 for general admission, $7 for students and $6 for seniors 62 years and older and for children under 12. For additional information, call 310-274-6869, or visit www.laemmle.com or www.pathfinderpictures.com

Nov 20-23 Hermeneutical Strategies: Methods of Interpretation in the Study of Japanese Literature, University of California, Los Angeles, Royce Hall 314, Organizer: Michael F. Marra. Sponsors: The Japan Foundation, Toshiba International Foundation, UCLA Center for Japanese Studies

PROGRAM

Friday, November 21, 2003,

8:00-8:30 Registration/Coffee and Pastries

8:30-8:45 Welcoming Remarks by Michael F. Marra

8:45-10:20 Panel 1--Feminist Theories, 1

“The Maternal Body as the Site of Ideological Contest: A Feminist Reading of Hirabayashi Taiko,” Linda Flores , University of California, Los Angeles.

“The Rhetoric of Misogyny: Women Who ‘Hate’ Women and Other Feminist Problems in the Literature of Takahashi Takako,” Julia Bullock , Stanford University.

“Japanese Female Writers Watch a Boy Being Beaten by His Father: Female Fantasy of Male Homosexuality, Psychoanalysis, and Sexuality,” Kazumi Nagaike , University of British Columbia.

Discussant: Rebecca Copeland , Washington University in St. Louis.

10:20-11:35 Panel 2--Feminist Theories, 2

“Hirabayashi Taiko and the Future of Feminism,” Marilyn Bolles , Montana State University-Bozeman.

“Outing Miyamoto Yuriko: The Hermeneutics of Sexual Identity,” Sarah Pradt , Macalester College.

“How Housewives Shatter a Narrative: Tawada Yoko’s The Bridegroom was a Dog ,” Robin Tierney , University of Iowa.

11:35-12:50 Panel 3--Postcolonial Theories

“Issues of Postcolonial Theories in Zainichi Literature,” Yoshiko Matsuura , Purdue University.

“Zainichi Literature Through a Lacanian Gaze: The Case of Yi Yang Ji’s Yuhi ,” Catherine Ryu , Michigan State University.

“Debating War Responsibility in Postwar Japanese Film Discourse,” Michael Baskett , University of Oregon.

12:50-2:00 Lunch

2:00-3:15 Panel 4--Voices from the “ Ikyo ” (Foreign Space)

“Shōjo and Yamanba in Mori Mari’s Literature,” Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase , Vassar College.

“A Female Modernist in Chaos (Gendered Place): Osaki Midori’s Dainana Kankai Hōkō (Wandering Around the Seven Sensuous Worlds),” Eguro Kiyomi , Josai International University.

“Shinjuku as ‘ Ikyo ’: Hideo Levy’s Seijōki no Kikoenai Heya (The Room in which the Sound of American Flag Cannot Be Heard), Satō Koji , Josai International University.

3:15-4:50 Panel 5--Literary Interpretation and the Crises of Modernity: Cultural Criticism in Early Shōwa

“I Am A Revolutionary Cat: Proletarian Literature and Natsume Sōseki,” Michael Bourdaghs , University of California, Los Angeles.

“The Fiction and Criticism of Sakaguchi Ango: The Rhetoric of Ambivalence,” Oshino Takeshi , Hokkaidō University.

“’Irony’ and Subjectivity in the Essays of Yasuda Yojūrō,” Nosaka Akio , Oita Prefectural College of Arts & Culture.

Discussant: Miriam Silverberg , University of California, Los Angeles.

4:50-6:05 Panel 6--Cultural Criticism in Early Shōwa, 2

“Shinseinen , the Contract and Vernacular Modernism,” Kyoko Ōmori , Hamilton College.

“Miyazawa Kenji and the Ethics of Scientific Realism,” Gregory Golley , University of Chicago.

“The Problem of Aesthetics in Nishida Kitarō,” Matteo Cestari , University of Turin.

6:05-6:35 Keynote Speaker Fujita Masakatsu , University of Kyoto.

(Nishida Kitarō’s Philosophy and Japanese Language) (in Japanese)

7:00-9:00 Dinner

Saturday, November 22, 2003

8:00-8:30 Coffee and Pastries

8:30-9:45 Panel 7—The Author, Intertextuality, and Narratology

“What if the Author was Never God?: Some Thoughts on Kawabata, texts and Criticism,” Matthew Mizenko , Ursinus College.

“The Author, the Reader, and Japanese Literary Texts: Returning Poststructuralist Intertextuality to its Dialogic Roots,” Timothy J. Van Compernolle ,College of William and Mary .

“Materializing Narratology: The Case of Kanai Mieko,” Atsuko Sakaki , University of Toronto.

9:45-11:00 Panel 8-- Wa-kan Dialectic and the Field of Poetics

“Prefaces as Sino-Japanese Interfaces: Towards an Intracultural Poetics of Early Japanese Literature,” Wiebke Denecke , Harvard University.

“Pictured Landscapes: Heian Gardens and Poetic Imagination,” Ivo Smits , Leiden University.

“Beyond Wa-kan : In Search of Sharper Tools for Narrating Reception,” Jason P. Webb , Princeton University.

11:00-12:35 Panel 9--Re-Interpreting the Classics

“Beyond Our Grasp? Materiality, Meta-genre and Meaning in the Po(e)ttery of Rengetsu-ni ,” Sayumi Takahashi , University of Pennsylvania.

“Heteronormativity and the Politics of the Writing Subject: Zeami and the Legitimation of Popular Literature,” Joe Parker , Pitzer College.

“Staging the Spectacular: Kabuki ,Shunga , and the Semiotics of Excess,” David Pollack , University of Rochester.

“The Role of Heian Intertexts in the Recuperation of Lyrical Acuity in Tawara Machi’s Late Capitalist Tanka ,” Dean Brink , Saint Martin’s College.

12:35-1:45 Lunch

1:45-2:15 Keynote Speaker Matsumura Yūji , Kokubungaku Kenkyū Shiryōkan (National Institute of Japanese Literature). (The Position of Allusive Variation: Between Plagiarism and Originality) (in Japanese)

2:15-3:50 Panel 10--Strategies in Reading Tropes: The Hermeneutics of Medieval Language and Poetry

“Excluded Middles: Grammar vs. Rhetoric vs. Esthetic in the Medieval Hermeneutics of Canonical Waka ,” Lewis Cook , Queens College, CUNY.

“Whether Birds or Monkeys: Names, Reference and the Interpretation of Waka ,” Gian Piero Persiani , Columbia University.

“Dramatizing Figures: the Revitalization and Expansion of Metaphors in Nō ,” Akiko Takeuchi , Columbia University.

Discussant: Haruo Shirane , Columbia University.

3:50-5:25 Panel 11--Literature on Literature: Hermeneutical Subtexts in Anthologies and Fiction

“Compilation as Commentary: The Two Imperial Anthologies of Nijō Tameyo,” Stefania Burk ,University of Virginia.

“Little Atsumori and The Tale of The Heike : Fiction as Commentary, and the Significance of a Name,” R. Keller Kimbrough , Colby College.

“Genji Goes to China: The Tale of Hamamatsu and Murasaki’s Substitutes,” Charo D’Etcheverry , University of Wisconsin.

Discussant: H. Richard Okada , Princeton University.

5:25-7:00 Panel 12--Constructing the Alternative Text: Commentaries in Late Medieval and Early Modern Japan.

“Accessorizing the Text: The Role of Commentary in the Creation of Readers,” Linda H. Chance , University of Pennsylvania.

“The Context and Structure of Neo-Confucian Commentary: The Case of Minagawa Kien,” W. J. Boot , Leiden University.

“In Search of the Absolute Origin: Ogyū Sorai (1666-1728) or the Shadow of the Ancients,” Aiko Okamoto MacPhail , Indiana University.

Discussant: Mark Meli , Kansai University.

7:00-7:30 Keynote Speaker William R. LaFleur , University of Pennsylvania.

“Good Karma, Bad Karma, Words, and Deeds”

8:00-10:00 Dinner (hosted by Fred G. Notehelfer , Director, UCLA Center for Japanese Studies)

Sunday, November 23, 2003

8:00-8:30 Coffee and Pastries

8:30-10:05 Panel 13--How to Discuss Artistic Inspiration: New Methodologies on Studying Modern Japan

“The Uses and Abuses of History for Butō -writing: The Literary Activities of Hijikata Tatsumi,” Bruce Baird , University of Pennsylvania.

“Japanese Detective Fiction and the Question of Authenticity: Discussing Intercultural Influences,” Sari Kawana , University of Pennsylvania.

“Writing the Political not Just the Personal in Tamura’s Shōwa Period Fiction,” Anne Sokolsky , University of Southern California.

Discussant: Alan Tansman , University of California, Berkeley.

10:05-10:35 Keynote Speaker Muroi Hisashi , Yokohama National University.

“Problems of Interpretation in the Age of Database”

10:35-11:30 Panel 14--The Ins and Outs of Publishing: Plumbing Archives for Japanese Literary Histories

“In Search of the Japanese Novel in Nineteenth-Century America: Book History and the New Literary Hermeneutics,” Jonathan Zwicker , University of Michigan.

“Archiving the Forbidden: War Responsibilities and Censored Literature,” Jonathan Abel , Princeton University.

11:30-12:45 Panel 15—Art and Psychoanalysis

“The Historical Horizons of True Art: Kafū and Okakura at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair,” Miya Lippit , Getty Center.

“Psyche as Soma: Four Modern Japanese Texts, ”Andra Alvis , Indiana University.

“Konaka’s Mirror Stage: Alice, Anime, and the End of Psychoanalysis,” Margherita Long , University of California, Riverside.

12:45 Closing Remarks by Michael F. Marra

Location:

314 Royce Hall

Los Angeles, CA 154003

Cost: Free. For more information please contact Michael Marra, Tel: 310) 794-8941, Email: marra@humnet.ucla.edu, Website: www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/ealc/ajls/

Nov 22 Screening: The Secret of My Success (Wo chenggong de mimi), U.S. premier of a documentary about electoral politics & contraception in China (2002, China) Directed by Duan Jinchuan. Contraception meets electoral politics in this absorbing and comical documentary about the ambitions of Mr. Lu, the go-getting Birth Control Officer of remote Fanshen Village in northeastern China who will stop at nothing to keep his hold on power. Calamity ensues when a local woman who is pregnant with her third child flees the village, seriously violating the community's annual quota of newborns and jeopardizing the careers of all the village officials. Her disappearance prompts the scheming Mr. Lu into action as he conspires to fix the upcoming elections, which ultimately hinge on a question of absentee votes. Sharply observed details of human behavior and rich, painterly cinematography lend a fable-like quality to this microcosmic study of fledgling Chinese democracy. Producer: Jacqueline Elfick, Mark Frith. Cinematographer: Duan Jinchuan. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Beta-SP, 59 min. Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM. Location: James Bridges Theater, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095. General admission: $7; Students, seniors, & members of UCLA Alumni Assoc. (with ID): $5. For more information please contact Film & Television Archive Tel: 310 206-8013, www.cinema.ucla.edu

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Last Weekend

I made it to the Japan Expo. Every year, it gets smaller, but the quality also improves. This year there was a nice exhibit on the 150^th anniversary of Commodore Perry opening Japan to the World. It’s based on materials from MIT which can be viewed on the web at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Foreign-Languages-and-Literatures/21F-027JVisualizing-CulturesSpring2003/Exhibit/index.htm#blueeyes

There was also some pretty good entertainment, but food selections were rather limited.

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LA Times: (The Times are requiring registration again, but you might as well sign up for the free on-line access to their articles. This week they may even be accessible without registration)

Nov 18 THE WORLD

China Braces for Political Onslaught

Beijing usually comes in for extra criticism during the American presidential campaign season, but this time it may be better prepared.

By Mark Magnier, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chipolitics18nov18,1,1232931.story

Nov 17 COMMENTARY

60 Years On, Again Battling an Abomination of Power

Fred Korematsu opposed Japanese internment in the '40s. Now he's urging the Supreme Court not to make the same mistakes with today's detainees

By Jonathan Turley

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-turley17nov17,1,5429524.story

Nov 16 METROPOLIS / SNAPSHOTS FROM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

A Shrine to the Printed Word