Saturday Gallery Opening and Hina Matsuri; Munk School lectures

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-March 3: Saturday Opening, noon-5 pm
-Lectures at Munk School of Global Affairs
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This Saturday in the Library:


On display in the library from March 3-April 4:
Nikko Kirie by Mark Yungblut


This Saturday in the Gallery:
February 1 - June 22, 2012
Tamasaburo Bando Poster Exhibition
presented at The Japan Foundation


The Japan Foundation, Toronto
131 Bloor Street West, 2nd floor of the Colonnade
www.jftor.org 416.966.1600 x229

Admission: Free

Gallery Hours
Monday 11:30-7 pm Extended hours
Tuesday 11:30-4:30 pm
Wednesday 11:30-4:30 pm
Thursday 11:30-7 pm Extended hours
Friday 11:30-4:30 pm
Select Saturdays Noon-5 pm
Saturday opening dates: March 3 & 17, April 14 & 28, May 12 & 26, June 2 & 16
Doors Open Toronto : May 26 & 27, 10 am-5 pm
CLOSED: other Saturdays & Sundays, April 6-9 (Easter Closing), May 21 (Victoria Day)
Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando V is one of the cultural icons of Japan and an international theatrical phenomenon. While the social modernization after World War II threatened the tradition of Onnagata, male actors who specialize in female roles, Tamasaburo revolutionized and revitalized the meaning of the Onnagata's existence.

Although Kabuki theatre consists of highly stylized expressions, the beauty that Tamasaburo creates on stage enchants people immediately; his every action projects a clear contemporary message. Centering on the Kabuki stage, his artistic activities extend from acting to directing, from film to western theatrical repertoire.

This exhibition includes such published objects as posters, photo books, theatrical flyers and house programs on Tamasaburo.
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JAPAN-RELATED LECTURES AT THE MUNK SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS:

EAST ASIA SEMINAR SERIES
Kiss and Censor: Redactionary Aesthetics in Transwar Japan
Jonathan Abel
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Japanese
Penn State University

Friday, March 2, 2012 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs
1 Devonshire Place, 108N, North House
Register Online at: http://www.munk.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?eventid=10546

Visual representations of kisses troubled censors around the world with the rise of film media in the twentieth century; a kiss was never just a kiss and the censors knew it. This talk presents the history of the kiss in modern Japan as a visible manifestation of the deepest effects of censorship. Even as censors attempt delete the trace of their work, producers continually reveal the marks of censorship.

Jonathan E. Abel is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Japanese at Penn State University . His book Redacted: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan is forthcoming from the University of California Press 's Asia Pacific Modern Series and won the Weatherhead East Asia Institute's First Book Prize.
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ASIAN INSTITUTE PHD SEMINAR SERIES
The Disagreement of Being,
A Critique of Life and Vitality in the Meiji Era
Sean Koji Callaghan
PhD Candidate, Department of East Asian Studies
University of Toronto

Monday, March 12, 2012 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs
1 Devonshire Place, 208N, North House
Register Online at: http://www.munk.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?eventid=11398

My research involves a critique of the concept of life as it emerged in Meiji era Japan . I argue that a central condition of possibility for thinking life in its modern form is a process of individuation that shapes bodies at an ontological level. By critiquing life and its ontology of individuation, I unearth the traces of an impossible "primary collectivism" that is not merely reducible to a congregation of individuals, but originally collective. In this presentation I will track this primary collectivism in a lineage tying the mutual aid societies of Japan 's Edo period to the life insurance industry of the Meiji 10s and 20s. I will then show how a particular affective order emerged under the Meiji state that defined, not merely the ideological or economic horizon of possibility for capitalist modernity, but reached down to the very core of political being itself

Sean Koji Callaghan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of East Asian Studies. His interests include early modern and modern Japanese history, Meiji era literature, French and Japanese critical theory, and continental philosophy. He lives with his wife in Vancouver and currently misses her beyond any calculation the law of large numbers could provide.