Earlier this month, faculty members Dr. John Paine (English and Foreign Lannguages), Dr. Andrea Stover (English) and Dr. Jonathan Thorndike (Honors Program) attended the Japan Studies Association Conference in New Orleans and presented research.
Dr. Paine spoke on “‘Some Things Remain Broken Forever’: Christopher Banks’s Missed Connections in Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans.” Paine’s presentation concerned the quest of a London detective to solve the mystery of his own past and find his parents, who disappeared from the Japanese settlement in Shanghai in the 1930s, when Japan was about to invade China. Dr. Paine was given special recognition for accepting the role as editor of the JSA journal and bringing the newest issue of the journal to completion.
Dr. Stover talked on “Infusing Japanese Texts into an Upper-Level Composition Course on Life Writing.” Her essay explained the course she designed that combines Japanese and western authors, looking at how radically different authors construct a narrative self in the autobiographical mode.
Dr. Thorndike presented on “Tendai Buddhism and the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei.” His essay discussed the founder of esoteric Buddhism in Japan (Saichō) and the extreme physical accomplishments of the Buddhist monks on Mt. Hiei, who run rough mountain trails in darkness, covering distances up to 84 kilometers each day for 100 days.
Paine and Thorndike led last summer’s Japan Study Abroad trip, and the 2009 Belmont in Japan Program will be led by Paine, Stover, Dr. Cynthia Bisson (History) and Dr. Marieta Velikova (Economics). Scheduled for May 13 to June 3, the program will offer two different academic options: “From the Tokugawa to Toyota: Japan, 1603 to the present” and “Japanese Life Writing in Kyoto.”
