call for papers: visualisation of Japanese history

[Dick Stegewerns]

Dear colleagues,

I would like to focus your attention on the 12th triannual conference
of the European Association for Japanese Studies in Lecce, Italy from
20-23 September next year. Within the section "History, politics and
international relations" I will organise an interdisciplinary
subsection on the visualisation of Japanese history. Those of you who
are interested in participating, please have a look at the call for
papers below and send in your proposal by the end of this month.

Best regards,

Dick Stegewerns


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Call for Papers

12th Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies

20 - 23 September 2008

Lecce, Italy

(http://www.eajs.org/english/next_conference.html)



Section: History, Politics and International Relations

The convenors of the section "History, Politics and International
Relations" of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)
invite proposals for
papers for the 12th EAJS conference in Lecce, Italy, on topics
relating to the following theme:

Every Picture Tells a Story: The Visualisation of Japanese History

Historians tend to occupy themselves with providing new insights into
historical personae, events and developments. However, just as popular mass
media can make or break present-day politicians, they can also
create, recreate or distort history. Where once the interpretation of
modern Japanese history by the historic novel writer Shiba Ryoutarou,
"The people's historian" was extremely influential, nowadays the
visual media of manga, animation, television and film seem to be the
main players in "making history". Especially manga author Kobayashi
Yoshinori has gained much attention this last decade, as his positive
interpretation of Japan's role in the Asia Pacific War seems of so
much more influence on younger generations than the interpretations
of the majority of academic specialists. However, also in the case of
less controversial historical subjects, the pictures and faces
provided by the visual media can simply destroy constructions of
carefully accumulated historical evidence and analysis.

We propose to pay special attention to the increasing influence of
visual media by organising a subsection on the visualisation of Japanese history.
How have television and film and the extremely popular formats of
manga and animation dealt with Japan's history? On which historical
periods, events
and figures do they focus? Which do they ignore? And to what extent
are they historically "accurate", i.e., in line with the dominant
interpretations in academia? Have these visual interpretations of
Japanese history changed over time? And if they have, can we detect a
certain pattern? Although a few contributions to the general section
theme of The Power of Memory at the last EAJS conference in Vienna
dealt with the medium of film, other visual media were not
represented. At our next conference we hope to hear more about
history as told or, more correctly, visualised by manga, animation,
film and television and draw attention to popular views and
interpretations ofJapanese history outside the academic debate.


Submissions

Panels: Proposals for panels, which should consist of three
presenters and a chairperson, will be given priority. Proposals
should be submitted by the
organizer of the panel and should contain:

- the title of the panel

- names and contact details (affiliation, email and postal addresses)
of the organizer, the chairperson and the presenters

- a general outline of the panel

- short (max. 250 words) abstracts for each presentation.

Individual paper proposals, if accepted, will be grouped in panels by
the convenors. Submissions should contain the title of the presentation, a short
abstract (max. 250 words) and the contact details of the presenter.

The total time for one paper (including discussion) is 30 minutes
both for presentations in panels as well as for individual
presentations. No participant is allowed to take part in more than
one session. Participants have to be a member of the EAJS.


Deadline

Proposals must arrive by 31 October 2007 and should be sent as an
email-attachment to the following email address only:

history at eajs.org

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