New Japan Initiatives
The Japanese Ph.D. in East Asian Studies at UC Irvine
David Fedman / Susan Blakeley Klein / Margherita Long / Jon Pitt / Tara Rodman / Serk-Bae Suh / Elizabeth Tinsley / Bert Winther-Tamaki
The University of California, Irvine has launched a number of new initiatives in Japanese Studies, including Japanese Environmental Humanities, Arts of Buddhism, and Japanese Performance Studies. Through generous funding from a Japan Foundation Institutional Grant and The Anne Walthall Endowment, we offer competitive admissions packages, summer research funding, and language study support. If you’re thinking of applying, please get in touch! Our faculty would love to hear from you.
Japanese Environmental Humanities at UC Irvine
Why does Area Studies need Environmental Humanities? Why does Environmental Humanities need Area Studies? What’s gender got to do with it? At UC Irvine, faculty in Japanese Studies are engaging these questions and recruiting new students. We offer an exciting community of scholars in Science and Technology Studies, Critical Theory, and Visual Studies. Some of our underway projects include:
David Fedman / The Saw and the Seed: Forestry and the Politics of Conservation in Colonial Korea
Margherita Long / Care, Affect, Crackup: Literature and Activism After Fukushima
Jon Pitt / Becoming Botanical: Entanglements of Plant Life and Human Subjectivity in Modern Japan
Bert Winther-Tamaki / Tsuchi: Earthy Substances in Japanese Ceramics, Photography, and Installation Art Since 1955
Buddhist Arts and Japanese Theater at UC Irvine
Japan’s contributions to the histories of world theater and world Buddhism come alive and merge in the research of UC Irvine’s faculty specialists. Whether the topic is nō or modern dance, medieval sutras or contemporary mandalas, we train students in close textual analysis, performance studies, and the histories of artistic and religious devotion. Please contact us for more on our exciting community of scholars in Feminist Studies, Visual Studies, and Theater Studies. Some of our projects include:
Susan Blakeley Klein, Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater and Ankoku Butō: The Premodern and Postmodern Influences on the Dance of Utter Darkness
Tara Rodman, Transnationalism, Modernism, and the Orient in the Career of Japanese Dancer and Choreographer Itō Michio
Elizabeth Tinsley, Kami Worship and Doctrinal Debate at Kōyasan