ATJ’s annual Thursday Seminar provides a chance for all ATJ members to gather, meet and talk with colleagues, participate in the business of the Association, and hear the latest research on language, linguistics, pedagogy, and literature. This year’s Seminar will be held Thursday, March 27, 2003, in New York City, in conjunction with the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), at the New York Hilton Hotel. The Seminar features a full day of concurrent panel sessions—twelve in all—on literature, language pedagogy, linguistics, and second language acquisition.

The Seminar’s keynote speaker, from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., will be Donald Keene, one of the world’s leading translators and scholar of Japanese literature and culture. Professor Keene will speak on “Sixty Years of Teaching and Learning Japanese.”

The Seminar schedule is available at www.japaneseteaching.org/ATJseminar/2003/. The Seminar is open to all ATJ members and their guests: advance registration is not required. However, a fee of $35 will be payable on-site by non-members of ATJ or NCJLT. (Non-members will of course have the option of joining ATJ at the Seminar.)

If you wish to also attend sessions of the AAS conference, which will be held at the same venue March 27-30, it is necessary to register either in advance or on-site. On-line early registration can be conducted at the AAS web site: www.aasianst.org.

We cordially invite all ATJ members to attend the annual General Membership Meeting, which will be held Saturday, March 29, 2003, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. The membership meeting is your chance to meet ATJ’s officers and Board members and to participate in making decisions that affect the Association. As usual, there will be door prizes donated by publishers who specialize in books on Japanese language pedagogy and Japanese studies.

The larger AAS conference is an opportunity to attend panel sessions on a variety of subjects, find out what is happening in the fields of Japan and Asian Studies, see the latest books and instructional materials in the exhibit hall, and meet colleages and friends. Of particular interest to ATJ members at this year’s conference will be a Roundtable session sponsored by ATJ, “Asia In Situ: Acquiring Language and Culture Through Study Abroad.” The Roundtable, to be chaired by incoming ATJ President Pat Wetzel, will take place Thursday evening (March 27) from 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Other sessions at the AAS conference will focus on a variety of aspects of Japanese literature, history, and culture. Sessions of potential interest to ATJ members include “Translation as Origin: A Trans-Historical View of Japanese Writing”; “The Internet and Japan: Electronically Mediated Selves”; “Affectionately Yours: Romancing the Word in Modern Japanese Literature”; “‘Placing’ Resident Korean Literature in Postwar Japan”; “Japanese Mystery Fiction as Social Critique”; and others. As always, the exhibit hall will feature the latest publications in Asian studies from a large number of university presses and other publishers. In addition, for the first time this year, ATJ will have a booth in the exhibit hall: please visit us at booth #3071.

Information on registering and attending the AAS conference is available from the AAS office (1021 East Huron St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104); by email at annmtg@aasianst.org; or on the Web at www.aasianst.org. The ATJ office can also supply information on conference registration.

All of the conference events will take place at the New York Hilton Hotel, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. If you wish to stay at the New York Hilton in order to attend the ATJ Seminar and/or the AAS conference, please phone the hotel at 212-261-5870 or fax 570-450-1582; when registering, mention the AAS conference to receive a special discounted room rate.