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Japan/Okinawa Studies: Joint Events 2013: Speakers

The University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and the National Museum of Japanese History (Rekihaku) held a series of joint events, Parades and Processions of Edo Japan, from February 6-11, 2013.
speaker profiles
picture of Dr. KurushimaDr. Hiroshi Kurushima, Professor, National Museum of Japanese History, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Field : The Late Edo Period (Early Modern Japanese History)
Present Position: Professor of National Museum of Japanese History, Inter-University Research Institute Corporation National Institute for the Humanities
Education/Academic Degrees: D.C.,University of Tokyo(Japanese History) Dr.Litt.,University of Tokyo
Publications:
"The Administration of Bakufu Land: The Role of Village Cooperatives in Late Tokugawa Japan" University of Tokyo Press 2002
"Concepts of Nation- State in Modern Asia:Prospects and Realities." Aoki Shoten Publishing Co.,Ltd.,2008
"Hyakusho and Military Duty in Early Modern Japan" Acta Asiatica 2004, Vol. 87
"Nagasaki Kunchi Festival Reconsidend:The Nagasaki Kunchi as Castle Town Festival." Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History 2003,Vol.103
"Exhibiting Other Culture and Exhibiting Own Culture," Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History 2008,Vol.140

 
picture of Dr. Gregory SmitsDr. Gregory Smits, Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University

Gregory Smits is a specialist in early modern East Asian intellectual history, the history of the Ryukyu Kingdom, and historical earthquakes in Japan and East Asia. His book Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early Modern Thought and Politics has recently appeared in Japanese translation as Ryukyu no jigazo: kinsei Okinawa shisoshi (Ryukyu self-portraits: early modern Okinawan intellectual history) Reviewed by Dr. Kurayoshi Takara (in Japanese), and his recent articles include “Examining the Myth of Ryukyuan Pacifism.” He has published numerous articles on aspects of earthquakes and earthquake-related culture, including “ Namazu-e: Catfish Prints of 1855,” "Danger in the Lowground: Historical Context for the March 11, 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami," and most recently, "Conduits of Power: What the Origins of Japan’s Earthquake Catfish Reveal about Religious Geography." His book Seismic Japan: The Long History and Continuing Legacy of the Ansei Edo Earthquake will be published by the University of Hawai’i Press.

 
picture of Dr. Manabu YokoyamaDr. Manabu Yokoyama, Professor, Notre Dame Seishin University, Okayama Prefecture, Japan

Field : Japan-Ryukyu cultural history, Japanese Cultural History, Biography of Frank Hawley, Shio Sakanishi, Sakamaki families in Hawaii.
Present Position: Professor and Director of Research Institute for Culture and Cultural History, Notre Dame Seishin University, Okayama
Academic Degrees: Ph.D. degree in History from Tsukuba University.
Publications:
A Study of the Ryukyuan Missions in Edo Era , Yoshikawakobunkan Pub. Com.1987 .
Historical Published Materials for Ryukyuan Studies in Edo Era , Honpo S hoseki Pub. Com.1981
Historical Materials for Ryukyuan Political Position in Meiji Era , Honpo S hoseki Pub. Com.1980.
On the Understanding of the relation of Ryukyu-Okinawa-Japan , BUNKA NO SHOSO , 1997 .
Ryukyuan Resources in Japan and the Database Project , Sources of Ryukyuan History and Culture in European Collections Munchen : Iudicium-Verl., 1996 .

For more information :
http://researchmap.jp/read0035536/?lang=english

 
picture of Travis SeifmanMr. Travis Seifman, PhD student, University of California Santa Barbara

Travis Seifman completed an MA in Art History from UH Manoa in 2012. For his MA thesis, he examined Japanese Edo period depictions of Ryukyuan subjects in a variety of formats, focusing on many of the objects presented in this exhibit as representative examples. He is now a first-year PhD student in History at UC Santa Barbara, and is considering in his PhD work examining the logistics and material culture of the Ryukyuan missions to Edo in greater detail.

 
picture of Dr. John SDr. John Szostak, Associate Professor, UHM Art History Department

Dr. John Szostak is Associate Professor of Japanese Art History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and has previously taught at the University of Washington and the University of British Columbia. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Washington, and conducted his doctoral research at Kyoto University as a Fulbright research fellow.

His area of research expertise is Japanese art of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a visiting research fellow at the School for African and Asian Studies, University of London, in the 2010-2011 academic year, which resulted in book forthcoming in spring 2013 as part of Brill's Japanese Visual Culture series on the artist Tsuchida Bakusen and modern painting in Kyoto.

 
picture of Dr. Mark McNallyDr. Mark McNally, Associate Professor, UHM History Department

Mark McNally received his BA degree from Pomona College in Asian Studies (1990) and his MA and PhD degrees in History from UCLA (1995, 1998). He spent three years in Nagoya as a participant in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (1990-1993). He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University (1999-2000) and a Foreign Research Scholar at Tokyo University's Historiographical Institute (2005). In 2008, he was the Erwin von Baelz Guest Professor at the Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen (Germany). He has been a recipient of various grants and fellowships, including a Fulbright fellowship. His research interests are primarily in early modern Japanese social and intellectual history, including Confucianism and Kokugaku. He is completing a monograph on Tokugawa exceptionalism, and researching the development of Yamato Learning (Wagaku).