Reischauer appoints 5 fellows

The Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University has selected five leading scholars for its postdoctoral program in 2001-02. The postdoctoral residence in Cambridge will give the young scholars the opportunity to turn their dissertations into books, which may be published by the Harvard University Asia Center.

The Postdoctoral Program Fellows for 2001-02

Stefania Burk received her B.A. in Japanese language and culture from the University of Michigan in 1990, and an M.A and Ph.D. in Japanese literature from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1996 and 2001, respectively. Her research focuses on medieval Japanese poetry, especially the production of the imperial anthologies compiled in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. In particular, her interests include the making and uses of literary anthologies, the interrelationship between political crisis and the production of cultural authority, and the transformation of notions of literary value across time. Burk explores these issues in her dissertation, titled “Reading Between the Lines: Poetry and Politics in the Imperial Anthologies of Japan, 1275-1350.” Her future research will examine the appropriation and interpretation by early modern and modern institutions (governmental, academic, and artistic) of the imperial anthologies, including the works of Edo nativist scholars such as Motoori Norinaga; criticism by early Meiji poets struggling with Western ideas about art such as Masaoka Shiki; prewar interpretations by such prominent scholars as Hisamatsu Sen’ichi; and government-sponsored treatises such as Yamada Yoshio’s “Kokutai no hongi”(1936).

Ian Condry received his B.A. in government from Harvard University in 1987, and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Yale University in 1999. His research focuses on popular culture, language, performance, and power. Using Japanese hip-hop music as a case study, Condry examines the effects of global pop culture styles on local cultures. Based on fieldwork in Tokyo nightclubs and recording studios (primarily from 1995 to 1997), his ethnographic study explores the lives and practices of Japanese rap artists and DJs. His Web site at http://www.iancondry.com features musical examples with subtitles in English and Japanese. Related interests include urban anthropology, the history of Japanese popular music, corporate vs. consumer power in the digital age, and media representations of gender, race, and class. Two of his publications include “The Social Production of Difference: Imitation and Authenticity in Japanese Rap Music,” and “Japanese Hip-Hop and the Globalization of Popular Culture.” Prior to his fellowship at the Reischauer Institute, Condry taught for two years in the Anthropology Department at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.

Darryl Flaherty received his B.A. in history from Johns Hopkins University, and his Ph.D. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University. His dissertation, “Organizing for Influence in Modern Japan: Lawyers and Politics by Association,” is a social history of modern Japanese politics, in which Flaherty examines “politics by association,” the little-studied but highly influential history of voluntary associations that shaped politics and policy in Japan. Flaherty’s project takes associations of lawyers as a lens through which to view this world and traces the influence of lawyers’ groups in political parties, the study of law, and the administration of social justice from 1870 to the present. His related interests include law and social change, engendering political history, the comparative history of modernity, the history of professions, and the influence of associations.

Naomi Fukumori received her A.B. in East Asian languages and civilizations from Harvard Radcliffe College in 1991, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her dissertation, “The Politics of Amusement: Reading Sei Shonagon’s ‘Makura no soshi’ in Historical Perspective,” was submitted in 2001. She has been on the faculty of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Ohio State University since 1999, and she teaches premodern Japanese literature, language, and culture. Fukumori’s research focuses on various aspects of mid-Heian period literary practices, particularly the issues of gender and genre configurations, the dynamics of rear court patronage, narratives of “history,” and the reception of Heian-period works in later periods.

Published articles by Fukumori include “Sei Shonagon’s ‘Makura no soshi’: A Re-visionary History,” in the Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese (April 1997); and two papers in the Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies: “Sei Shonagon the Essay/Essayist: Delineating Differences in ‘Makura no soshi’” (1997), and “Chinese Learning as Performative Power in ‘Makura no soshi’ and ‘Murasaki Shikibu Nikki’” (forthcoming).

Mark Alan Jones graduated from Dartmouth College in 1991 and received his Ph.D. in modern Japanese history from Columbia University in May 2001. His dissertation, “Children as Treasures: Childhood and the Middle Class in Early 20th Century Japan,” explores the relationship between modern childhood and the formation of a middle class. His research interests include children’s history, the cultural history of the middle class, and the history of the family.