The Japan Foundation, New York presents “Illuminating Japanese Studies: Lecture Series with Former JF Fellows”

Since the Fellowship program began in 1972, there have been more than 1,000 American Fellowship recipients, who study a diverse range of research topics, from pre-modern history to pop culture and everything in between. From pre-modern history to pop-culture and everything in between, this series will illuminate what exactly Japanese studies can teach us, not only about Japan but about the world.

Join our second session titled, “The Global Script Regime: Writing Systems and Writing Technologies in Modern Japan” with JF Former Fellow Raja Adal, who will discuss his research on the relationship of writing and technology, by focusing on the Japanese 3,000-character typewriter. While relatively unpopular in other parts of Asia due to its exorbitant cost, slow speed, and inconvenient size, why was it such a huge success in Japan? And how have scripts around the world, aided by such technologies, survived into the modern era?

The discussion will be followed by a live Q&A moderated by Kay Shimizu, whose research addresses institutional design and its effects on economic governance with a special interest in central-local relations, property rights, and the digital transformation.

Please share your questions through your Eventbrite RSVP. You may also participate in the discussion by sharing your questions in the YouTubeLive chat during the livestream.

Raja Adal is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh with a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He was a Short-term Research Fellow in 2010 and Long-term Research Fellow in 2015. His recent publications include Beauty in the Age of Empire: Japan, Egypt, and the Global History of Aesthetic Education (Columbia University Press, 2019), Aesthetics and the End of the Mimetic Moment: The Introduction of Art Education in Japanese and Egyptian Schools (Comparative Studies in Society and History) and Japan’s Bifurcated Modernity: Writing and Calligraphy in Japanese Public Schools, 1872-1943 (Theory, Culture, and Society). He plans to spend 2021 as a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellow writing his second book on the global history of scripts and writing technologies in the twentieth century, with a specific focus on Japan.

Kay Shimizu is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh and a Visiting Scholar at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Japan. She was an Abe Fellow in 2014. Her research addresses institutional design and their effects on economic governance with a special interest in central local relations, property rights, and the digital transformation. Her publications include Political Change in Japan: Electoral Behavior, Party Realignment, and the Koizumi Reforms (coedited with Steven R. Reed and Kenneth McElwain) as well as articles in Socio-Economic Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Current History, and Social Science Japan Journal. She is the author, with Patricia L. Maclachlan, of a forthcoming book on agricultural cooperative reform from Cornell University Press.