Project Schedule

2018-19 is the third year of the grant, in which we:

• Hosted the Akutagawa Prize-winning writer Takiguchi Yusho. During his three months in the United States, he participated in panel discussions and gave public readings of his work in Iowa City, Davenport, New Orleans, and at Beloit College. He participated in bilingual readings with members of the Workshop in Japanese Literary Translation.
• Brought to campus the tea-ceremony teacher Miki Mika, a practitioner of the Omotesenke school of tea, for a series of workshops and public demonstrations.
• Sponsored "Noh Theater Now," which brought to campus Noh practitioner and playwright David Crandall and prominent maskmaker Kitazawa Hideta.
• Funded two graduate students and three faculty members to conduct research in Japan.
• Acquired visual and classical materials for our Japanese collection.
• An international conference, "Travel is Home: Representing Travel and Landscape in Japanese Literature, Art, and Culture"
• A tour to Japan for UI faculty not in Japanese studies, "Japanese Journeys"

2017-18 was the second year of the grant, during which we:

• Sponsored a tour to Japan for UI faculty not in Japanese studies, “Regional Japan: Culture from the Margins.”
• Hosted the Akutagawa Prize-winning writer Fujino Kaori in the UI's legendary International Writing Program. During her three months in the United States, she participated in panel discussions and gave public readings of her work in the Iowa City area, at Carleton College, at the University of Minnesota, and at the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference. She participated in bilingual readings with undergraduate members of the Workshop in Japanese Literary Translation, and read for and met with students at Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids, IA.
• Held a grand opening for the new reading room for the East Asian Collection on the second floor of the University of Iowa main library.
• Premiered a documentary film of our April 2017 Artists and Scholars event, “The Medium is the Messenger: 50 Years of Japanese Writers at the International Writing Program” by documentary filmmaker Toko Shiiki.

• Sponsored "Japanese Documentary Now," which brought to campus three of the most exciting documentary filmmakers working in Japan today, for screenings and talks: Mori Tatsuya, Kana Tomoko, and (via video) Nakamura Takayuki.

• Sponsored "Japanese Poetry Now," which brought to campus two award-winning young Japanese poets, Nagae Yuki and Kanie Naha, together with the translator and spoken-word artist Jordan AY Smith.

• Invited back to campus the award-winning translator Takako Lento (MFA 1967) for a week of readings, workshops, and recorded archival interviews, in "Takako Lento and the Early Days of the International Writing Program."

• Hosted a summer course on Japanese culture for junior-high school students at the Belin-Blank Center.

• Acquired library materials--in particular, collections of visual materials for research and teaching.

• Funded three graduate students and four faculty members to conduct research in Japan.

2016–17 was the first year of the grant, during which we:

• Hosted a summer workshop on Japanese culture for K-12 teachers in Iowa and the Upper Midwest.
• Hosted the Akutagawa Prize-winning writer Shibasaki Tomoka in the UI's legendary International Writing Program. During her three months in Iowa City, she participated in panel discussions and gave public readings of her work in the Iowa City area. She participated in bilingual readings with undergraduate members of the Workshop in Japanese Literary Translation, and read for and met with students at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, IA.
• Hosted the conference “Tradition in Search of a Rationale: The Future of Hunting in Japan and North America,” with traditional matagi bear hunters of northern Japan joining us, as well as Japanese scholars of their tradition.
• Sponsored the workshop “Voices of Fukushima: Art, Community, and Information after 3-11.” Filmmaker Toko Shiiki and composer Erik Santos were present for a screening of their film Threshold: Whispers of Fukushima.
• Held the weeklong event “A Half-Century of Japanese Writers in Iowa: Writing and Translating at the International Writing Program, 1967–2017” to kick off celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the International Writing Program. The great Japanese poet Yoshimasu Gozo (IWP 1971) read and performed with three of his translators to celebrate the release of a new collection of English translations of his poems, Alice Iris Red Horse. The writers Nakagami Nori (IWP 2002) and Kyoko Yoshida (IWP 2005) also returned to Iowa and read from their recent work, and two scholars of the influential postwar writer Nakagami Kenji (IWP 1982) delivered papers on his life and work.
• Constructed a new reading room for the East Asian Collection on the second floor of the University of Iowa main library.
• Acquired library materials, in particular a substantial increase to our manga collection.
• Sponsored a visit by translator Sho Sugita, who read from Spiral Staircase, his new translation of poems by the Japanese Futurist Hirato Renkichi.
• Funded three graduate students and two faculty members to conduct research in Japan.

2015–16 was a preparatory year during which we:

• Hired an assistant professor of Japanese premodern literature and visual culture, Kendra Strand, in the Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures.
• Made preparations for the active years of the grant.