| Abstract |

Attributes of the weak, fragile, and vulnerable are an important characteristic of the appeal of Japanese popular culture and new technologies. Take, for instance, moe and kawaii kyara, which openly display their clumsiness, helplessness, shame, confusion, drowsiness, coordination difficulties or their lack of physical strength and speed. Yowai has also found its way into the public sphere, including advertising, even in areas where one would not expect it at first glance, for example in the deliberately “soft” advertising campaigns of the Japanese army or the police. Currently, the concept of the non-perfect has also been incorporated into the realization of so-called yowai robotto. In contrast to conventional concepts that focus on strength, perfection, and dexterity, the yowai robotto developed by Okada Michio is popular and useful precisely because of its “weakness”. A wastebasket robot, for example, that is not even able to pick up garbage from the floor, or a narrator robot that constantly forgets the plot of the story and stutters trigger the same reaction in adults and children: they support the weak object without being asked and thereby form a strong affective bond with it. The idea of hōgan biiki (sympathy for the weak), which is still popular today, goes back to the antihero Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who found himself in a hopeless situation but became one of the most popular characters in Japanese theater for this very reason. Ivan Morris’ study The Nobility of Failure (1975), which examines a series of vulnerable figures in Japanese literary and cultural history, was published almost half a century ago, but underdogs have lost none of their topicality, quite the contrary. What constitutes vulnerability and why does it trigger such a strong affective reaction? Does yowai have a greater identifying and stabilizing potential than strongness and perfection? The lecture will present the implications of yowai, how exactly it manifests itself in individual forms of representation and why the concept of yowai is so irresistible. Furthermore, the online encyclopedia “Yowai Japan – The Encyclopedia of Vulnerability,” which is currently being created, will also be presented.

| Bio |

Elena Giannoulis is Professor of Japanese Literature at the Department of History and Cultural Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Furthermore, she is the Principal Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) research group “Emotional Machines: The Technological Transformation of Intimacy in Japan”. She studied Japanese Studies and Literary Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and Keiō University. In September 2009, she received her PhD in Japanese Studies. Her fields of interest include modern and contemporary Japanese literature and culture, affects and emotions, digital communication and new technologies as well as forms of attachment and detachment in present-day Japanese society. Her first book, published in 2010, deals with the notion of “authenticity” in contemporary Japanese literary self-narratives. Giannoulis is the co-editor of the Routledge volume Emoticons, Kaomoji and Emoji: The Transformation of Communication in the Digital Age (2020). In addition, she is a translator of Japanese literature.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e13
Thursday 2024-06-27, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e13.

| Abstract |

In the mid-1970s, many Americans took a new interest in Japan, sparked by its "miraculous" economic growth. This attention was especially prominent among an influential and prominent group of writers and thinkers known as neoconservatives, who worried that the capitalist stagnation of the 1970s was leading the United States into nihilism and cultural chaos. Writers with little prior Japan expertise, such as sociologist Nathan Glazer and futurist Herman Kahn, took it upon themselves to become "interpreters" of Japan, explaining to Americans why Japan had accomplished such economic success. They claimed that Japanese growth was due to Japanese culture, arguing that Japan demonstrated a successful marriage between tradition and modernity. Yet where did they get these ideas? Glazer, Kahn and others were heavily dependent on Japanese thinking. Among other source, they drew on nihonjinron, a literature that sought to explain the "essence" of Japanese-ness and often heralded Japan's allegedly unique social, cultural, and racial homogeneity as the source of Japan's success. Charting how Americans utilized the translations of nihonjinron writers Nakane Chie and Doi Takeo, this talk will trace how Japanese thinking about its own success shaped American understandings of economic growth, capitalist possibility, and globalization at the dawn of the 1980s. In particular, it will examine how these Americans used nihonjinron to build a broader argument about the importance of "culture" and a return to "tradition" as the solution to the United States' economic ills. By tracing this process of intellectual transmission, this talk will show Japan's role in undergirding broader conservative visions of economic growth, which emphasized on cultural values and traditions and sought to legitimize both domestic and global inequality.

| Bio |

Jennifer M. Miller is an associate professor of history at Dartmouth College. Her first book, Cold War Democracy: The United States and Japan (Harvard University Press, 2019), examined the convergence and clash of American and Japanese understandings of democracy between 1945 and 1963. She is currently working on a book that explores the lessons that Americans drew from Japanese economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s and traces ways in which these lessons shaped capitalism and neoliberalism in United States. Her research has also been published in the Modern Intellectual History, Diplomatic History, Journal of American-East Asian Relations, and Journal of Contemporary History.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e12
Thursday 2024-06-20, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e12.

| Abstract |

Feminisms in Japan are still largely ignored in public or academic debate internationally. Also, feminism is often termed as ‘Western’ and framed as a contradiction or threat to ‘traditional’ domestic values as in present antifeminism worldwide. Thus, feminisms in Japan have a singular and crucial meaning in international perspective: They developed as an autonomous force selecting international impulses (for example equality, participation and female eros) and locating them in their context. And they were confronted with Japan’s singular development which was threatened by Western colonialism and transformed into a colonizing imperialist nation. They raise the issues of feminist autonomy in diverse cultural contexts and postcolonial critical memory. This lecture will look at the diverse currents and transformations of feminisms in Japan in transnational longterm perspective aiming to overcome hegemonic eurocentric and nipponcentric views. They have developed over 140 years in a continual line which is different from the Western model of the first, second and third wave. But they have proceeded with radical self-reflexive transformations reacting to fundamental challenges. From their start in the 1880ies, they were confronted with defining new concepts of women and gender, with intersectional inequality and with locating themselves in the nation and world society. In this changing context, they developed different discourses and practices between establishing new legitimate gender terms or deconstructing feminity / gender or between cooptation to nationalism or radical critiques of imperialism. Following a short summary until the 1970ies, I will focus on the trajectories of new feminisms after the lib movement. This will be concretised by looking at the debates around gender and women, intersectionality and the postcolonial critique of Japan’s international responsibility and feminist exchange in East Asia as in the comfort women issue.

| Bio |

Ilse Lenz is professor emerita for social structure /gender at the Faculty of Social Science, Ruhr University in Bochum. Her doctoral thesis 1983 at the Free University of Berlin analyzed women's work in Japanese industrialization from a development sociology perspective. In her habilitation in 1989 at the University of Münster, she did empirical research on the gendering of computerization in Japanese industry. She has published on intersectionality in work, social movements and feminism in comparative perspective. She has a singular profile comparing Western and East Asian societies, especially German and Japan. She published standard works on feminism in Germany (2010) and in Japan (2023). Her new research focusses the present transformation of the intersectional and gender orders in welfare states including the change of gender, capitalism and work. Together with Michiko Mae, chair of the Institute for Modern Japan at the University of Düsseldorf, she coordinated an annual workshop on gender research on Japan (now held by Andera Germer and Annette Schad-Seifert). Ilse Lenz is a co-editor of the book series Gender & Society (Springer publications) and was spokesperson for the gender section in the German Society for Sociology.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e11
Thursday 2024-06-13, 18:00~19:30

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e11.

| Abstract |

More than other markets, art markets are often shrouded in mystery. How art is traded, valued, and exhibited is frequently shaped by complex cultural, social, and economic arrangements. Trading arrangements are, among other factors, shaped by market actors trying to address various sources of uncertainty: How should they value the objects of their trade, how can they shield themselves from the competition, and with whom and how do they cooperate? This lecture investigates how Japanese antique art dealers confront such issues. While offering a rich description and analysis of a rather secretive Japanese market, this lecture will advance our understanding of how actors can actively shape market arrangements and find solutions to address the specific challenges of their domain. In the case of the Japanese antique art market such challenges include a high risk of fakes, a limited quantity of high-quality material, “wonnabe” dealers and market outsiders, as well as dealers with “too much” money. Offering interview-based insights into the social world and beliefs of Japanese antique art dealers, the lecture will also discuss a globally unique and ingenious market device that combines auctions with lottery draws to manage “fair” dealers’ auctions.

| Bio |

Harald Conrad holds the Chair of Modern Japanese Studies II at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany. Prior appointments were at the School of Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield (England), the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (Japan), and the German Institute for Japanese Studies (Japan). Harald has a PhD in Economics from Cologne University and has primarily published on the Japanese employment system, Japanese human resource management, and Japanese social policy. In recent years, he has developed a particular interest in the field of economic sociology which is also at the heart of his new DFG-funded research project on “Traditional Craft Industries and Their Markets in 21st Century Japan – Social and Economic (Re-)Organisation”. His research has, among others, been published in Work, Employment and Society, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Asian Business & Management, Contemporary Japan, International Migration, Journal of Social Policy, Japanese Studies, Social Science Japan Journal, Japan Forum, and The Japanese Economy.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e10
Thursday 2024-06-06, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e10.

| Abstract |

Die gestiegene Anzahl universitärer Abschlussarbeiten und zu begutachtender Zeitschriftenartikel über Manga (als mit Japan assoziierten grafischen Erzählungen) fordert dazu heraus, die disziplinäre Positionierung dieser Medienform und die damit verbundenen methodologischen Neigungen zu rekapitulieren. Auf Deutsch begann die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit Manga, als sich die Japanologie von der traditionellen Philologie zugunsten einer gegenwartsbezogenen Sozialwissenschaft abwandte. Drei frühe Magisterarbeiten antizipierten die späteren Hauptströmungen: Studien zum story-manga als Repräsentant japanischer Populärkultur (Maderdonner, Wien 1986); kritische Untersuchungen aus dem Blickwinkel der Geschlechterforschung (Bachmayer, Wien 1986); und Forschungen zur Jugend- und Fankultur (Kawai, Siegen 1986).

Kulturell, und nicht medial, definierte Zugriffe standen seither im Zentrum japanwissenschaftlicher Bemühungen, während sich die entstehende Comicforschung zunehmend medienwissenschaftlich ausrichtete. Letzterer fehlt allerdings meist die Expertise, die es erlaubt zu verstehen, wie Manga konkret situiert ist. Als Beispiel für das Potential eines Zusammenspiels beider Disziplinen soll die problematische Kategorisierung von Manga als japanischer „Populärkultur“ dienen.

| Bio |

Jaqueline Berndt ist Professorin für Japanologie an der Universität Stockholm. Ihr primäres Arbeitsgebiet sind Mangastudien und Animeforschung aus medienästhetischer Sicht, auf Deutsch repräsentiert durch die neueren Aufsätze „Anime in Japan“ (in Handbuch Animation Studies, Springer VS, 2022) und „Mangaforschung“ (in Handbuch Comicforschung, de Gruyter, 2025). Sie ist Herausgeberin des Cambridge Companion to Manga and Anime (2024) und der Open-Access-Reihe Stockholm Studies in Media Arts Japan (Stockholm University Press) sowie Mitherausgeberin der Buchreihe Comics Studies: Aesthetics, Histories, Practices (de Gruyter). Für die Japan Foundation konzipierte sie die internationale Wanderausstellung Manga Hokusai Manga: Approaching the Master’s Compendium from the Perspective of Contemporary Comics (seit 2016), für das Museum Rietberg, Zürich, Flow: Erzählen im Manga (2021). www.su.se/english/profiles/jbern-1.259043

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e09
Thursday 2024-05-23, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e09.

| Abstract |

An hour-long film documents the life of two Indian women migrants who moved to Japan more than a decade ago as trailing spouses. The women were excited to move to a foreign country and to be with their husbands, but they had no prior knowledge of Japan. Having witnessed at a distance the lives of their relatives settled in the US, UK, and Canada, they had similar expectations for their own future lives in Japan. But the reality was to prove different from the expectation. Through personal narratives told by the women, we examine past, present and future expectations and see how these affect their roles as Indian women, wives, mothers, and workers in a foreign country, as well as the challenges they faced in ‘Finding their Niche’.

TRAILER: vimeo.com/743482060.

| Bio |

Dr. Megha Wadhwa is a migration researcher and Japanese and Indian studies Scholar. She is a Research Associate at Free University of Berlin, and a visiting fellow at Sophia University, Tokyo, which is also her alma mater. Originally from New Delhi and she was a resident of Tokyo for about 15 years before she moved to Berlin in 2021. She is the author of the book ‘Indian Migrants in Tokyo: A Study of Socio-Cultural, Religious and Working Worlds’ (Routledge:2021). She has also written several articles on the Indian community in Japan and other topics for The Japan Times and journals. Currently she is working on ‘Indian Professionals in Japan and Singapore: Migration Trends, Labor Market Integration and Challenges’ and is a part of the research project – ‘Qualifications and Skill in the Migration Process of Foreign Workers in Asia’ (QuaMaFA), supported by Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e08
Thursday 2024-16-02, 17:30~19:00

| Place & Preparations | 

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e08.

| Abstract |

The Scandinavian Modern Breakthrough, with authors such as Strindberg and Ibsen departed from the motto of the Danish literary critic Georg Brandes who in the 1870s urged writers to leave behind romanticism and depict the social problems in the world around them. The only literature worthy of writing was that which created debate. Ibsen and Strindberg would be the leading figures in bringing naturalism and realism to the Japanese stage in the beginning of the 20th century.

This presentation will focus on the early reception of Strindberg at a time when the so called New Woman, later succeeded by the Modern Girl in the late 1920s, emerged in the major cities of Japan in what might seem to be a rebellion to the norm of being a “Good Wife and Wise Mother” promoted by the Government. The naturalistic plays by Strindberg are famous for their depictions of the battle between the sexes. Exposing the crisis of masculinity in the writings of Strindberg is a perspective recently being examined by numerous scholars. What happens to the power struggle between man and woman when the texts are translated and performed in theaters in Japan? As the setting of the naturalistic drama often is the bourgeois home with the ideal model of family in its center, home and family will also be important concepts in examining the reception of Strindberg in Japan.

| Bio |

Martin Nordeborg is a senior lecturer of Japanese at the Department of Literatures and Languages at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His PhD thesis dealt with the first Japanese primary school reader, published in 1873, which was in fact a translation of an American primer. In the framework of the nation-building process it was interesting to see the role of this book and especially how religious concepts were translated at a time when freedom of religion had just been announced that same year. After his dissertation, he continued to examine the Japanese translation of the Bible. Gender and language in Japan is also part of his research and he has combined this with his interest in translation studies, recently the role of translated drama in the modernization of Japanese theater. Finally, originally a junior high school teacher, his research spans literary texts used in Japanese schools as well as fiction consumed by young people in their free time, such as the cell-phone novels.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e07
Thursday 2024-05-02, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e07.

| Abstract |

Japan has long been known for its commitment to a pacifist foreign policy as stipulated in Article 9 of the post-World War II constitution. Despite some opposition, for much of Japan’s postwar history there has been a mainstream foreign policy consensus to maintain a security treaty with the United States and limit rearmament. In the years since the end of the Cold War, however, there has been a concerted movement urging constitutional revision in order to legalize militarisation. This project has been driven by younger, more radical conservatives at odds with the moderate conservative establishment.

This talk examines the rise of a hawkish foreign policy ideology in post-World War II Japan and trace the intellectual underpinnings of this movement. These ideas can be traced to the (re)emergence of a reactionary and culturally traditionalist conservatism which styled itself as the ‘New Right’ (Shin-Uyoku) at the height of Japan’s postwar economic power. This intellectual movement located the source of social malaise in Japan’s political and cultural reliance on the US. What ensued was a hawkish position regarding the role of the Japanese state in international politics, vis-à-vis the pacifist consensus.

First, drawing on the discourse of conservative political commentators and ideologues, I demonstrate that the arguments for state power, sovereignty, and rearmament are entrenched in a culturally particularistic logic. Second, I show the alliances and divergence among varying ideological factions and their interlocutors that make up the politics of rearmament on the Japanese Right.

| Bio |

Karin Narita is a postdoctoral Research Associate in Japanese Politics and International Relations at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. Her main research focus is the intellectual history of the Global Right and she is particularly interested in right-wing ideologies in the Asia-Pacific. She previously taught political theory and international relations at Queen Mary University of London, where she received her PhD, and at King’s College London. Her research has appeared in Millennium, International Political Sociology and elsewhere, and her co-authored monograph Globalizing the Right is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e06
Thursday 2024-04-25, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e06.

| Abstract |

In spring 2020, the sudden appearance of a poem, rendered in large, white characters on the ground near Ōmiya station, sparked a buzz on Twitter and stirred irritation among local residents. Only a few months later, poet Saihate Tahi revealed that she was responsible for the poem, stating that it was a site-specific commissioned work for the 2020 Saitama Triennale entitled Shi no kasoku (‘The Acceleration of poetry’). However, with the Triennale postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the installation emerged without its institutional context, transforming the everyday space of a regular street into something Edward Soja calls a ‘Thirdspace’ or ‘an-Other.’

Drawing on spatial theories by Soja, Henri Lefebvre, Maeda Ai, and others, alongside insights from cognitive literary studies, this presentation examines the implications of encountering poetry within real and virtual urban spaces. Focusing on the reader reception and considering how readers must physically (or virtually) navigate these spaces to engage with the poetry, this presentation seeks to understand the dynamic relationship between readers, poetry, and space, arguing that these encounters not only shape our interpretation of the poems but also influence our perception of the surrounding spaces.

| Bio |

Sarah Puetzer is a DPhil candidate at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on contemporary Japanese literature and poetry, with a particular interest in exploring the concept of 'poetic spaces' in the works of poets Saihate Tahi, Mizusawa Nao, and Fuzuki Yumi among others. She has pursued her studies in Oxford, Berlin, and Tsukuba, Japan. From May to September 2023, she was granted a scholarship by the German Institute of Japanese Studies in Tokyo to conduct fieldwork on Saihate Tahi’s poetry exhibition Shi wo ippuku.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e04
Thursday 2024-04-18, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e05.

| Abstract |

Es gibt einen Witz auf Englisch:

„Heaven is to have an American salary,
a Chinese cook, an English house and
a Japanese wife”.

Tatsache ist, dass die Japanerinnen generell bei ausländischen Männern gut ankommen. Andererseits hört man auch sehr oft Kritik, besonders bei „gender-bewussten“ amerikanischen und europäischen Frauen, dass die Japanerinnen nach wie vor in der Gesellschaft benachteiligt seien und sich auch selbst zu wenig für die Gleichberechtigung einsetzen würden. Die Beobachtungen, die die Ausländer*innen über Japan und Japaner*innen machen, sind wohl nicht unbedingt unkorrekt, sie stellen jedoch nur Teilwahrheiten dar.

Dieser Vortrag dient dazu, nicht nur die Vorurteile über japanische Frauen zu korrigieren, sondern auch zu einem besseren Verständnis der Kulturunterschiede beizutragen.

| Bio |

Dr. Mizuuchi Akemi geboren 1960 in Tokyo, aufgewachsen in Düsseldorf. Studium der Internationalen Beziehungen und Geschichte in Tokyo, Wien und Bologna. Promotion an der Universität Wien. Tätigkeit als Lektorin für japanische Geschichte und interkulturelles Lernen an den Universitäten Tel Aviv (2006-07), Wien (2007-09) und Berlin (20011-12). Gemeinsam mit ihrem Ehemann, der als japanischer Diplomat wirkt, längere Aufenthalte in Österreich, Thailand, Israel, Deutschland und Sambia.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e04
Thursday 2024-04-11, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e04.

| Abstract |

In recent years, the phenomenon of sexual inactivity, so called sexlessness among (married) couples has become a central issue in Japan. Psychiatrist Teruo Abe (1991) initially defined ‘sexless couples’ as following: “without any special circumstances, do not engage in consensual sexual intercourse or sexual contact for more than a month, with an even longer period expected”. Previous research indicates a significant increase of sexlessness among married couples, rising from 31.9% in 2004 to 51.9% in 2020 and 64.2% in 2024 (JEX Sex Survey 2020, 2024). The reasons for being in a sexless relationship are multicausal, with common factors including childbirth, overtiredness from work, and the perception of sex as something bothersome. Although sexlessness among (married) couples has been increased in these recent years, there is a lack of research on this topic.

Therefore, this lecture will focus on interview research from the recent publication “(NO) Sex in Japan”. The book examines the causes of sexlessness in Japanese couple relationships, emphasizing: 1) the meaning of sexuality for individuals, 2) the meaning of sexuality within the partnership, 3) how sexual consciousness and behaviors can change through certain life events (e.g., before and after being in a relationship, marriage, and childbirth), as well as their chronological processes, considering past experiences in (sexual) relationships. Overall, this study seeks to obtain a deep understanding of the concepts of sexuality, love, intimacy and relationships both within and beyond Japan.

| Bio |

Alice Pacher is a lecturer at Meiji University, Musashi University and a visiting research scholar at Sigmund Freud University, Vienna. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in sociology from Meiji University in 2020, with a dissertation on the Japanese sexless phenomenon. Her doctoral thesis was published as monographs ‚(No) Sex in Japan‘ (Springer) and ‚Shitaikedo Mendokusai‘ (Koyobosho)

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e03
Thursday 2024-03-14, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e03.

| Abstract |

Japanese ama (professional free-diving women) are well-known from various documentaries and movies, most prominently from James Bond: You Only Live Twice (1967), or also from the NHK Morning Drama Series Amachan (2013). While their popular image as exoticized “pseudo-mermaids” is still spread in the media, ama divers are, in reality, hard-working and often remotely living people from the Japanese countryside, facing themselves with the profound impacts of a modern world and trying to arrange their lives in a steady negotiation of old and new, local and global, human and environment.

This lecture will reflect on Timo Thelen‘s fieldwork on the ama diving community of Hegura Island / Wajima City spanning from 2014 to 2023. During this period, the ama community, on the one hand, struggled with an aging population, unsteady prices for their catches, and declining resources. But, on the other hand, they also experienced attempts of revitalization and support from the regional government and researchers, such as the designation of their fishery practices as immaterial cultural heritage or the establishment of the abalone festival – a commercial event centered on their catches. Yet, even under the inevitable menace of environmental changes caused by the global warming and international crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the ama community always managed to cope with diverse obstacles and preserved their fishery practices in a sustainable manner. The Noto Peninsula Earthquake of New Year’s Day 2024, however, caused a yet incomparable disaster to the community, whose aftermath will affect them for many years to come. Beyond the popular mystifications, this lecture aims to present a more accurate and nuanced portrayal of the ama community, how they experienced substantial changes and how they reacted to them.

| Bio |

Timo Thelen is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of International Studies in Kanazawa University. He has received his PhD in Modern Japan Studies from Dusseldorf University. His research focusses on media, tourism, and rural culture. His monograph Revitalization and Internal Colonialism in Rural Japan was released in the Japan Anthropology Workshop Series at Routledge in 2022.

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e02
Thursday 2024-03-14, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e02.

| Abstract |

Karate erreichte vor etwa hundert Jahren die japanischen Hauptinseln. Es kam aus Okinawa, wo es seit wohl fünfhundert Jahren als Kunst des Selbstschutzes in hermetischer Weitergabe gepflegt worden war. Die dort autochthone Faustkampfkunst hieß pars pro toto te („Hand“) oder di im lokalem Idiom. Seit dem 18. Jh. erfuhr sie zunehmend starke chinesische Einflüsse, sodass sie fortan als Tôdi („China-Hand“; auch „Karate“ lesbar) bezeichnet wurde. Auf dem Festland (China/Indien) konnten diverse Faustkampfsysteme auf womöglich tausende Jahre Geschichte zurückblicken.

Gesundheitlich-hygienische Methoden der Lenkung innerer Energien, Atemübungen, Visualisationen, Massagemethoden, Heilverfahren, Meditation im Stehen und im Sitzen und mehr waren integrierte Teile der chinesischen Kampfkünste. Sie sind weitgehend auf der Strecke geblieben. In Okinawa lag das pragmatische Augenmerk auf höchstmöglicher Effizienz (= Letalität). Respektive gefährliche Techniken wurden in der Vermittlung nach Japan, nach Einführung von Gruppenunterricht nach militärischem Drill in den Schulen Anfang des 20. Jhs, eliminiert. Dafür wurde Karate in Japan mit dem fiktiven Kodex des bushidô befrachtet, zu einer Zeit, als die Kriegerkaste der bushi abgeschafft und verschwunden war. Auch die Japanisierung und Assimilation an die „alten“ ehrwürdigen martialischen Wegkünste des budô, namentlich Kyudo, Kendo und Judo geschah besonders seit den 1930er Jahren. Mit der internationalen Verbreitung des Karate wurde es dem Zeitgeist der späten 1960er Jahre entsprechend mit dem Zen-Buddhismus in Verbindung gebracht. Mit der extremen Versportlichung (Olympische Disziplin) scheinen Aspekte des traditionellen Budô und der beanspruchte Zen-Geist in den Hintergrund zu treten.

Aufgrund dieser Dynamiken wurden laufend konstitutive Elemente über Bord geworfen oder aus anderen Bereichen dem Karate hinzuaddiert. Heute existieren nicht nur viele verschiedene Stilarten nebeneinander, sondern auch Karate-Formen mit distinktiver Ausrichtung: z.B. Sport, praktische Anwendung, Selbstverteidigung, Fitnessprogram, Kinderunterhaltung oder Budô im Sinne einer Lebensschule und Selbstkultivierung.

Der Referent möchte anhand der historischen Entwicklung auf entbehrliche ideologische Konstrukte, pathologische soziale Strukturen und technisch extreme Vereinseitigungen hinweisen, die das Karate aus Japan in den Westen mitgebracht hat und die dort lange unhinterfragt übernommen wurden. Es gilt auf dem Weg verloren gegangene wertvolle Traditionen zu re-integrieren und unheilsame erfundene Traditionen zu entsorgen. Der Vortrag soll vor allem kritische Reflexion provozieren, die im autoritären Klima japanischer Kampfkünste ein eher kümmerliches Dasein fristet.

| Bio |

Dr. Wolfgang Herbert, Studium der Japanologie (Promotion 1993), Philosophie und Religionswissenschaften an der Universität Wien, Professor für Vergleichende Kulturwissenschaften an der Universität Tokushima, Karate-dô 6. Dan.

Autor des Buches: Von Shaolin bis Shôtôkan. Beiträge zur integralen Praxis des Karate-dô. Distelhausen: schlatt-books 2023

| Date & Time |

u:japan lecture | s08e01
Thursday 2024-03-07, 18:00~19:30

| Place & Preparations | 

| Plattform & Link |

| Further Questions? |

Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s08/#e01.