An online panel discussion considering relations between modern mapping, as a configuration of spatial difference, and modern figurations of race and ethnicity in Japanese Studies.

Hosted by Brett de Bary, Professor Emerita, Asian Studies and Comparative Literature

Participants:

Discussant – John Namjum Kim, Associate Professor, German/Japanese/Comparative Literature, UC RiversideDiscussant – Parisa Vaziri, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature & Near Eastern Studies, CornellAndrew Harding, Ph.D. candidate in the field of Asian Literature, Religion & Culture,
“Make Zainichi Korean Again: The Allure of the Sovereign Figure in Post-Colonial Japan and Korea”Andrea Mendoza, Assistant Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature, UC San Diego,
“Toward a Critical Phenomenology of the Transpacific”Dexter Thomas, culture correspondent for Vice News,
“Black Liberation in Japanese Manga: Another Look at Golgo 13”Paul McQuade, Ph.D. candidate in the field of Asian Literature, Religion & Culture,
“Translating Race: Mapping Language and Ethnicity”This panel discussion will consider relations between modern mapping, as a configuration of spatial difference, and modern figurations of race and ethnicity in Japanese Studies, as well as the spatially bounded “Japan” taken to be its object. How do we understand how figures of race and ethnicity, as fundamentally aesthetic constructions without much reference to socio-demographic existences, nevertheless can mobilize such powerful political effects? How is our ability to critically read these figures shaped by geopolitical mappings institutionalized in postwar Area Studies? How do we historicize the multiple distinctions between “interiority” and “exteriority” these mappings enable? Panelists will propose and discuss possible approaches to these questions.