"Beyond Divine Punishment: Theodicies of Post-Disaster Japan"
Pow A. Camacho-Lemus, University of California, Los Angeles
BIO:
Pow Camacho-Lemus is a first-year doctoral student in the UCLA department of Asian Languages and Cultures under Buddhist Studies.Their research interests include post-disaster religious aid in Japan, anti-nuclear clerical activism, and gender in Buddhist Studies.
"Aftermaths of Internment: Legacies of Resistance Behind Barbed Wire"
Sophie Hasuo, University of Michigan
BIO:
Sophie Hasuo is a second-year graduate student in the Masters in International and Regional Studies program at the University of Michigan. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts, concentrating in International Studies from Soka University of America in 2019. Her research focuses on politics of belonging and identity formation of ethnic minorities in Japan, as well as consequences of displacement in the Japanese diasporic community. She is currently researching the intersections of disease rhetoric and Yellow Peril sentiment in the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Zainichi Korean identity following the partition of the Korean peninsula.
"The Aftermath of The Extinction of The Dharma: Hōnen and Non-causal Theory of Liberation in Medieval Japan"
Kentaro Ide, Princeton University
BIO:
Kentaro Ide is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion at Princeton. He is working on narrative representations of Buddhist historicity, Buddhism and literature in Japanese history. Prior to coming to Princeton, He earned his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Tokyo in 2008 and 2012 respectively. His former works were centered around the relationship between Buddhism and poetic language in medieval and early modern Japan, and theoretical reflections on historical transmission in Mahayana Buddhist traditions.
"'Momijigari' and Matsubame-mono: The Meiji Theatre Reform of Mokuami and Danjūrō IX"
Melissa Li, Columbia University
BIO:
Melissa Li is a second-year Ph.D. student in premodern Japanese literature at Columbia University. Her long-term objective in the Columbia doctoral program is to reconceive kabuki in the late Edo and early Meiji periods as a theater, a cultural phenomenon, and a discursive arena, where issues of authorship, showmanship, spectatorship, and censorship encountered natural catastrophes, social reforms, and intellectual debates. Her current project situates kabuki in the dramatic moment of social transformation from bakumatsu to early Meiji, by examining matsubame-mono, a subgenre of kabuki inspired by the Noh theater, and investigating major playwrights and actors involved in these productions.
"1968 from 1987"
Adam Manfredi, Washington University, St. Louis
BIO:
Adam Manfredi is a fourth year PhD candidate in the joint Japanese Literature and Comparative Literature program at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include Japanese popular culture, comics, narrative theory, and the 1968 Japanese student protests. He has an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University, a BA in Creative Writing from the University of California Berkeley, and was a Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology scholar at the University of Tokyo. Most recently, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research for his dissertation on the 1968 Japanese student protests at Keio University in 2021.
"Poetizing Ministers: The Identity of the Sugawara House Through the Rise and Fall of Institutionalized Poetry Banquets in Early Heian Japan (ca 800-950)"
Dario Minguzzi, Sapienza University of Rome
BIO:
Dario Minguzzi is a PhD student at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He is interested in the literary culture of the kidendō elite during the early Heian period. His dissertation project focuses on the rise of poetry banquet culture and the significance of Sinitic poetry in the literary ecosystem of the Heian court in late ninth and early tenth century. Before joining Sapienza University, he received an MA degree in Japanese Studies from Leiden University and spent two years at Kyoto University as a MEXT research student.
"Torn Between Internationalism and Japanese Tradition: Raising Consciousness of International Contemporaneity and Tōno Yoshiaki’s Struggle in Postwar Art Criticism"
Shunichiro Oka, University of Tokyo
BIO:
Shunichiro Oka is a Ph.D. student in the Culture and Representation Course, Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies Program, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. His dissertation project focuses on postwar Japanese art in the context of the cultural exchange between Japan and the United States.
“On the Temporality of 'Looking On': Queer Futurities in post-3.11 literature”
Chiara Pavone, University of California, Los Angeles
BIO:
Chiara Pavone received her BA in Asian History from the University of Bologna (2011), and her MA in Japanese Literature from Ca' Foscari University in Venice (2015). She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at UCLA and a Visiting Fellow at Waseda University. Her research interests include disaster literature, body and immunity studies, queer studies, and ecocriticism. She is currently working on her dissertation, which focuses on representations of bodies and bodily transgressions in post-3.11 literature.
"Poetic Alliances: The Contexts and Spaces of Poetry Exchange in Kagerō nikki"
Deborah Price, University of California, Los Angeles
Deborah Price received her BA in Japanese and MA in Asian Languages and Cultures from UCLA in 2013. Receiving two MEXT scholarships, she pursued further Japanese language and academic training in Japan, culminating in a second MA from Gakushuin Women’s College in Tokyo in 2018. Since returning to UCLA for her PhD that same year, Debbie’s research centers on conceptualizations of space as propagated in and through Heian court literature.
"Base Town Literature: Racial and Sexual Tensions in the Aftermath of Japan's Defeat"
Kristin Schreiner, University of California, Los Angeles
BIO:
Kristin Schreiner has previously received a BA in Japanese Language and Literature from Wellesley College and a MA from the East Asian Languages and Cultures department at Columbia University. She is now in her 2nd year of PhD studies specializing in modern Japanese literature at UCLA. Her research focuses on postwar Japanese literature, particularly Occupation period texts and the figure of panpan girls in literature. She is generally interested in questions of gender and sexuality.
Pow A. Camacho-Lemus, University of California, Los Angeles
BIO:
Pow Camacho-Lemus is a first-year doctoral student in the UCLA department of Asian Languages and Cultures under Buddhist Studies.Their research interests include post-disaster religious aid in Japan, anti-nuclear clerical activism, and gender in Buddhist Studies.
"Aftermaths of Internment: Legacies of Resistance Behind Barbed Wire"
Sophie Hasuo, University of Michigan
BIO:
Sophie Hasuo is a second-year graduate student in the Masters in International and Regional Studies program at the University of Michigan. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts, concentrating in International Studies from Soka University of America in 2019. Her research focuses on politics of belonging and identity formation of ethnic minorities in Japan, as well as consequences of displacement in the Japanese diasporic community. She is currently researching the intersections of disease rhetoric and Yellow Peril sentiment in the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Zainichi Korean identity following the partition of the Korean peninsula.
"The Aftermath of The Extinction of The Dharma: Hōnen and Non-causal Theory of Liberation in Medieval Japan"
Kentaro Ide, Princeton University
BIO:
Kentaro Ide is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion at Princeton. He is working on narrative representations of Buddhist historicity, Buddhism and literature in Japanese history. Prior to coming to Princeton, He earned his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Tokyo in 2008 and 2012 respectively. His former works were centered around the relationship between Buddhism and poetic language in medieval and early modern Japan, and theoretical reflections on historical transmission in Mahayana Buddhist traditions.
"'Momijigari' and Matsubame-mono: The Meiji Theatre Reform of Mokuami and Danjūrō IX"
Melissa Li, Columbia University
BIO:
Melissa Li is a second-year Ph.D. student in premodern Japanese literature at Columbia University. Her long-term objective in the Columbia doctoral program is to reconceive kabuki in the late Edo and early Meiji periods as a theater, a cultural phenomenon, and a discursive arena, where issues of authorship, showmanship, spectatorship, and censorship encountered natural catastrophes, social reforms, and intellectual debates. Her current project situates kabuki in the dramatic moment of social transformation from bakumatsu to early Meiji, by examining matsubame-mono, a subgenre of kabuki inspired by the Noh theater, and investigating major playwrights and actors involved in these productions.
"1968 from 1987"
Adam Manfredi, Washington University, St. Louis
BIO:
Adam Manfredi is a fourth year PhD candidate in the joint Japanese Literature and Comparative Literature program at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include Japanese popular culture, comics, narrative theory, and the 1968 Japanese student protests. He has an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University, a BA in Creative Writing from the University of California Berkeley, and was a Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology scholar at the University of Tokyo. Most recently, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research for his dissertation on the 1968 Japanese student protests at Keio University in 2021.
"Poetizing Ministers: The Identity of the Sugawara House Through the Rise and Fall of Institutionalized Poetry Banquets in Early Heian Japan (ca 800-950)"
Dario Minguzzi, Sapienza University of Rome
BIO:
Dario Minguzzi is a PhD student at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He is interested in the literary culture of the kidendō elite during the early Heian period. His dissertation project focuses on the rise of poetry banquet culture and the significance of Sinitic poetry in the literary ecosystem of the Heian court in late ninth and early tenth century. Before joining Sapienza University, he received an MA degree in Japanese Studies from Leiden University and spent two years at Kyoto University as a MEXT research student.
"Torn Between Internationalism and Japanese Tradition: Raising Consciousness of International Contemporaneity and Tōno Yoshiaki’s Struggle in Postwar Art Criticism"
Shunichiro Oka, University of Tokyo
BIO:
Shunichiro Oka is a Ph.D. student in the Culture and Representation Course, Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies Program, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. His dissertation project focuses on postwar Japanese art in the context of the cultural exchange between Japan and the United States.
“On the Temporality of 'Looking On': Queer Futurities in post-3.11 literature”
Chiara Pavone, University of California, Los Angeles
BIO:
Chiara Pavone received her BA in Asian History from the University of Bologna (2011), and her MA in Japanese Literature from Ca' Foscari University in Venice (2015). She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at UCLA and a Visiting Fellow at Waseda University. Her research interests include disaster literature, body and immunity studies, queer studies, and ecocriticism. She is currently working on her dissertation, which focuses on representations of bodies and bodily transgressions in post-3.11 literature.
"Poetic Alliances: The Contexts and Spaces of Poetry Exchange in Kagerō nikki"
Deborah Price, University of California, Los Angeles
Deborah Price received her BA in Japanese and MA in Asian Languages and Cultures from UCLA in 2013. Receiving two MEXT scholarships, she pursued further Japanese language and academic training in Japan, culminating in a second MA from Gakushuin Women’s College in Tokyo in 2018. Since returning to UCLA for her PhD that same year, Debbie’s research centers on conceptualizations of space as propagated in and through Heian court literature.
"Base Town Literature: Racial and Sexual Tensions in the Aftermath of Japan's Defeat"
Kristin Schreiner, University of California, Los Angeles
BIO:
Kristin Schreiner has previously received a BA in Japanese Language and Literature from Wellesley College and a MA from the East Asian Languages and Cultures department at Columbia University. She is now in her 2nd year of PhD studies specializing in modern Japanese literature at UCLA. Her research focuses on postwar Japanese literature, particularly Occupation period texts and the figure of panpan girls in literature. She is generally interested in questions of gender and sexuality.