Call for Papers: AJLS

The Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, on the theme of "Parody," will take place August 19-21, 2008, at the University of British Columbia. As defined by Linda Hutcheon and other recent literary theorists, parody is "imitation with a critical difference, not always at the expense of the parodied text" (A Theory of Parody, 7). Because of parody's perceived "critical difference," it has been elevated in Anglo-European literary scholarship above other, similar tropes that draw connections between disparate texts in terms of content or form, such as pastiche, allusion, and simulacra, which are seen as playful and apolitical at best (as in Hutcheon's own discussion of pastiche), and politically dangerous at worst (as in Jameson's discussion of the simulacrum). In the context of Japanese literature and art, much attention has been drawn to the frequency of allusion and intertextuality, but it remains largely unrelated to distinctions between simple pastiche, allusion, and/ or parody in their critical senses. Consideration of the nature of Japanese intertextuality in various genres and time periods raises a host of questions:

• How can we determine whether what we read as simple allusion, such as honkadori in a waka, might have had true parodic force to its original audience? To what extent does the readers' horizon of experience determine what distinguishes (valorized) parody and (merely formulaic) allusion? Does a literature of parody (or some other kind of intertextuality) require a small, homogeneous, and contemporaneous audience to be appreciated? • What is the relationship between form and substance in a work of literature or art, and does a parody of form (as frequently seen in Japanese examples) have the same function as a parody of substance? Does Japanese literature and art prize form over substance, as some critics have claimed, and, if so, does that change the way parody should be conceptualized in the Japanese case? • How has parodic intertextuality been used in times of censorship or political oppression to produce subversive messages? • Gender parody appears in the literature and art of many periods of Japanese cultural production. What is its function in different contexts? Does its meaning depend on the readership? Is it subversive or merely playful? How can we tell? What does such parody tell us about gender conceptualization? • Can we consider parody in literary or artistic texts without reviving the idea of authorial intention? • Does the ubiquity of intertextuality in Japanese literary forms indicate a lack of originality, and what value do we as critics place on the Romantic ideal of the artistic genius producing original work? • Because tropes such as parody and pastiche are sometimes considered hallmarks of a postmodern aesthetic, what would an examination of Japanese literary and artistic parody suggest about definitions of the premodern, modern, and postmodern in Japan? • Is it only parody ("repetition with a critical difference") that should be valorized by critics looking for social/political significance in a text (as is largely the case in Anglo-European criticism), or does the Japanese literary use of multiple forms of intertextuality suggest other possible theorizations of the relationship between text and society?

Deadline for receipt of abstracts of no more than 250 words on these and other questions is April 1, 2008. Individual submissions as well as three- or four-person panel proposals are welcomed. Presentations will be organized in three-hour time blocks. The conference languages are English and Japanese. Papers and panels on both Japanese verbal and Japanese visual culture are welcome. Proposals should be submitted electronically to: ubcajls@gmail.com. All other correspondence may be directed to the organizers: Joshua Mostow (jmostow@interchange.ubc.ca) or Sharalyn Orbaugh (sorbaugh@interchange.ubc.ca).

Proposals should be sent as attachments to ubcajls@gmail.com with a message containing the paper or panel title, name and status, institution, address, telephone, fax, email.

The Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education (CAJLE) is pleased to announce its 20th Anniversary Annual Conference, "The Japanese Language in Transition and Its Education at Present," scheduled for August 15-17, 2008, at the Japan Foundation Toronto. The goal of the conference is to bring together teachers of Japanese across countries and disciplines. There will be keynote lectures, panel discussions, paper presentations, and teacher workshops and an optional day trip tour to Niagara Falls on August 18. We invite submission of abstracts for paper presentations on topics including, but not limited to, Japanese linguistics, Japanese language pedagogy, Japanese as a heritage language, and innovative teaching. Submissions related to the conference theme are particularly welcome. Thirty minutes will be allocated for each paper, including questions and discussion. We also welcome group submissions on a common theme.

Presentations should be given in Japanese, though presentation in English is acceptable under special circumstances. Please send an attachment (.pdf or .doc) containing the paper title (in both Japanese and English), a one-page abstract (in Japanese), the name(s), current affiliation, and title(s) of the presenter(s) (in both Japanese and English), and the email address, phone number, and mailing address to: shimojo@buffalo.edu (subject: "CAJLE 2008"). Deadline for submission of abstracts is April 10, 2008. Submitters will be notified of acceptance by May 10, 2008. Presenters must be members of CAJLE. Membership information: www.cajle.net.

The 20th Annual Conference of the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese (CATJ 20) will take place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison May 31-June 1, 2008. The central theme of this conference is "Toward Advanced Japanese Language Proficiency." Together the participants will explore the following questions: How can we conceptualize advanced language proficiency? 
How can we assess and assist learners' development toward advanced language proficiency? 
How can linguistic features of Japanese and sociocultural factors surrounding learners of Japanese 
influence their development of advanced language proficiency? The two plenary lectures will be: "New Media Literacies and the 21st Century Language Learner," Steven L. Thorne (Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research, The Pennsylvania State University); and "Advanced Language Training and Study Abroad," Mari Noda 
(National East Asian Language Resource Center, The Ohio State University). 


Presentations of research-based studies on Japanese language pedagogy, Japanese linguistics, and second language acquisition, as well as reports on innovative teaching, are welcome. Proposals that underscore the connection to the central theme of the conference, "Toward Advanced Language Proficiency," will be given priority. The time allocated for each paper will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for question/answer sessions and equipment change. Proposals should be sent as an email 
attachment (.doc or .pdf) to catj20@mailplus.wisc.edu by February 15, 2008. Submission form and further information: http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/catj2008. Inquiries to: catj20@mailplus.wisc.edu or Junko Mori, the conference organizer: 
jmori@wisc.edu.

The twenty-Second annual conference of the Japanese Teachers Association of New England (JLTANE) will be held jointly with the thirteenth conference of the Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese (NECTJ) on the campus of Connecticut College on June 14, 2008. The theme of this conference is "Looking Past the Textbook: Teaching in the Visual Age." Nowadays many of us are teaching students who grew up in the visual age. How can we teach these students through the textbook and lead them beyond? Teachers and scholars who work in any field related to Japanese language teaching are encouraged to participate. Those who are interested in presenting, please submit proposals (500 words in English or 800 characters in Japanese) along with the title of the paper to hkob@connncoll.edu or The Japanese Program, EALC, Connecticut College, 270 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT, 06320. Deadline: April 14, 2008.

Education About Asia (EAA) is the peer-reviewed teaching journal of the Association for Asian Studies. Readers include undergraduate instructors as well as high school and middle school teachers. Articles are intended to provide educators, who are often not specialists, with a basic understanding of Asia-related content. Manuscripts submitted for consideration are evaluated by qualified referees. EAA is in the process of developing a special section for the winter 2008 issue entitled "Teaching About Asia Through Youth Culture." It is hoped that the articles published will enable teachers and students to better understand how popular culture influences young people in Asia and perceptions of Asia among young people elsewhere. The journal is seeking manuscripts about all areas of Asia. Although the editors welcome manuscripts on various aspects of youth culture, they are particularly interested in the ways that digital communications, entertainment, and education are affecting Asian youth, intercultural contact, and globalization. Prospective authors should be aware that approximately half of EAA readers are secondary or middle school teachers, and the rest teach at the undergraduate level. The editors are most interested in manuscripts that are useful for survey-level courses. Prospective authors should consult the EAA guidelines at www.aasianst.org/eaa-toc.htm before submitting a manuscript for this special section. Prospective authors are also encouraged to share possible manuscript ideas with EAA Editor Lucien Ellington via email: l-ellington@comcast.net. The deadline for receipt of manuscripts for this special section is August 20, 2008.

The latest issue of U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, No. 32 (2007) is a special issue on avant-garde author Into Hiromi, initiated and guest-edited by Jeffrey Angles. This volume marks the first collection of essays on Ito and includes translations of several of her most important works, including her novella House Plant. As Ueno Chizuko notes in her introduction to this special issue, Ito is a unique woman poet without compare or competition. Born in 1955, Ito wrote a series of dramatic anthologies that radically transformed the ways people were writing in Japan. Her "shamanistic" style and unabashed treatment of taboo topics—women's sexuality, motherhood, and infanticide—made her the most infamous writer of the so-called "women's poetry boom" in the 1980s and earned her significant notoriety in the popular press. Since the 1990s, she has resided in California and has drawn upon these experiences to write engaging and challenging works that explore some of the many facets of modern migrancy, including the linguistic isolation of recent emigrees and the implications of that isolation for self-expression and identity. For information on obtaining a copy of this issue, past issues, or a subscription to U.S.-Japan Women's Journal from outside Japan, please contact: Josai International Center for the Promotion of Art and Science, Josai University, 1-1 Keyaki-dai, Sakado-shi, Saitama-Ken, 350-0295 JAPAN. Fax: +81-49-271-7981. rev-jou@josai.ac.jp.