ARCHIVED Japan Literatures of Remembering. A Panel Discussion on Fiction, Poetry and Anime
Date
Thursday 13 August 2020
Time
1.00pm (BST) / 9.00pm (JST)
Booking Details
Free – Donations Welcome
Registration essential
The activities of the Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. This event is free of charge and open to all. We realise that this is a difficult time for many people. However, if you are planning to attend, and are able to consider making a donation, it would be hugely appreciated.
This is the online launch of the special issue of Wasafiri: Japan Literatures of Remembering, published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the end of the World War Two in the Pacific. It is part of the Japan-UK Season of Culture. The discussion will reflect on the transformations of Japanese identity in literature, exploring themes of time, memory and diversity. We are fortunate to be joined by Mimi Hachikai in Japan who will be reading her poetry alongside her translator Kyoko Yoshida.
Watch the video of the event
Speakers
Rayna Denison is a Senior Lecturer in Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Anime: A Critical Introduction (2015) and the editor of Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess (2018). She has published in a wide range of journals including Cinema Journal, Velvet Light Trap and Japan Forum. Rayna is currently writing a book on the industrial history of Studio Ghibli.
Stephen Dodd is Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature (Harvard University Press) and The Youth of Things: Life and Death in the Age of Kajii Motojirō (Hawai’i University Press). His translation of Yukio Mishima’s Life for Sale (Inochi urimasu) was published by Penguin in 2019.
Mimi Hachikai publishes poetry, stories, essays, reviews and translation. Her latest collection Kao wo Arau Mizu (2015) is highly praised for her private yet palpable language that creates an imaginative textual space that both addresses the present and recollects transcendental human experiences.
Kyoko Yoshida writes fiction in English, translates contemporary Japanese poetry and drama into English, and American novels into Japanese. Her collections of short stories are Disorientalism from Vagabond Press in Sydney and Spring Sleepers from Strangers Press in Norwich. She co-translated Kiwao Nomura with poet Forrest Gander. She teaches at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.
Moderator
Elizabeth Chappell is the co-editor of Wasafiri: Japan Literatures of Remembering (2020). She is completing a PhD based on her original interviews with survivors of Hiroshima at The Open University.
If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email us at: events@japansociety.org.uk.
* Image: Barack Obama folded paper crane. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (wikipedia)
In association with:
