Call for materials for an E-zine Library!

D-WAN (Documentary-WAN) is scheduled to archive booklets for and by women who cleared the path of Japanese feminism and open an online library in 2013 to pass on information to the next generation.

To start, D-WAN sent out a call for materials for an E-zine library so that people can get specific and ongoing information about the preparation for the library. The library is going to carry essays on the history, significance, and episodes of Japanese women.

Any information, for example “I know such and such mini publication,” is welcome! You can contact D-WAN at the following e-mail address: document@wan.or.jp

 

This effort was reported by Kyodo News.

On the WAN website, you can see a statement calling for participation, a prospectus, and occasional librarian newsletters (http://wan.or.jp/reading/?cat=47). Please check it out.

Original article on the WAN website (August 13, 2012)

Translated and adapted by Naoko Uchibori.

Grassroots Women’s Movement to Change Society through the Power of Information Exchange

WAN debuted at the summer forum of the National Women's Education Center of Japan (NWEC) holding a workshop on how women, especially local women, can perform key administrative roles in exchanging information.

In the workshop, the Chief Director of WAN, Chizuko Ueno, made a keynote speech regarding how local women’s exchange of information can change society. Following Ueno’s lecture, a panel discussion was held to talk about achievements and problems of a joint project called “Book Talk,” which was about a twelve-volume collection, Feminism in Japan, New Edition, and took place in some places around Japan. In the panel discussion, participants discussed the effective and practical ways to share and disseminate reliable information with women, for women, and by women in the local areas of Japan.

★WAN Workshop at the NWEC Forum

Date: August 26, 2012 Time: 10:00 am-12:00 pm Place: National Women’s Education Center of Japan            Large Conference Room, Seminar Hall

 
・Keynote Address
Theme: Grassroots Women’s Movement to Change Society
              through the Power of Information Exchange
Speaker: Chizuko Ueno (Director of WAN, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo)

・Panel Discussion
Theme: Achievements and Issues Revealed by “Book Talk”
Facilitator: Chizuko Ueno

Panelists: Jyunko Kaneko (SOLE, Kochi Gender Equality Center)
Hiroko Tanaka (NPO, Aomori Gender Equality Research Institute)
Atsuko Sugawara (Sapporo Gender Equality Center)

The day before the official workshop program, WAN held an exchange party, “WAN Night.” The party room was packed with many participants from all over Japan. A variety of people: people who wondered “What is WAN?,” people who had made statements on the WAN website, people who already knew WAN, came together and had fun at WAN Night!
 

Original Articles on the WAN website (August 6, 2012) (August 27, 2012) 

Translated and adapted by Naoko Uchibori

 

The Tenth Retreat “Women’s Bodies / My Body”

This tenth retreat will include a number of panel discussions and workshops on issues that concern women’s bodies, such as pregnancy, infertility, birth, contraception, abortion, reproductive technology, and sexual violence. Discussions also include problems that were revealed in the aftermath of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and problems surrounding nuclear power. Participants meet women from different generations and with backgrounds. 

When: November 2 (Fri) to November 4 (Sun)

Where: Fujino Geijutsu no Ie 

(4819 Makino Fujinomachi Sagamihara-shi, Kanagawa)

Map: http://www.fujino-art.jp/access.html

Fee: 

3 days: 17,000 yen (includes lodging, 6 meals, and reception fee)

2 days: 13,000 yen (including lodging, 3 meals, and reception fee. 10,000 yen without reception fee)

1 day: 3,000 yen (participation fee for one day. Does not include meal or reception fee)

Reception fee: 3,000 yen

Accompanying children: 3,000 yen per child per night

Contact: 

Onna no Karada kara Gasshuku Jikkou Iinkai, Soshiren

8-27 Tomihisa-cho Room 305, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

soshiren.camp2012@gmail.com

For details and to sign up for the retreat, please visit the organization’s website: 

http://www.soshiren.org/gassyuku2012.html

Translated and adapted by Eiko Saeki

Symposium on the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake - Report from Women in Miyagi

A year and half has passed since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake. Women from the affected areas reported the current situations, what still needs to be done, and the importance of women’s perspectives in the recovery effort. 

September 17 (Mon), 1:45-5:30pm, reception to follow

Bunkyo Kumin-Center, Large Conference Room (2^nd floor)

4-15-14 Hongounkyo-ku, Tokyo 

Map: http://www.city.bunkyo.lg.jp/gmap/detail.php?id=1754 

03-3814-6731

Fee: 1000 yen

Access:

2 minutes walk from Exit A2 of Kasuga Station (Toei Mita Line, Oedo Line)

5 minutes walk from Exit 4B of Korakuen Station (Marunouchi Line) 

5 minutes walk from Exit 6 of Korakuen Station (Tokyo Metro Nanboku Line)

15 minutes walk from the East Exit of JR Suidoubashi Station

Contact:

Igarashi Minako at Tosho Shuppan Seikatsu Sisousha 

03-5261-5931

GFD05112@nifty.com

Sponsored by Miyagi Joshiryoku Shien Project, Miyagi no Josei Shien o kirokusurukai

Part 1: Symposium (1:45pm)

Experiences of LGBT individuals and their support by Uchida Yumi (Sexuality and Human Rights Network, ESTO)

Support for women initiated by volunteers working on gender equality projects in a local government office: Sudou Akemi (Miyagi Tome Egao Net) and members of the group

Domestic violence and the opening of a relaxation space for women in evacuation facilities (Hearty Sendai,  Miyagi Jonet)

Part 2: Afflicted Areas as Seen through a Viewfinder (4:15pm)

Comments and Q&A by Katanoda Hiroshi (photojournalist)

Translated and adapted by Eiko Saeki

Eulogies to Kazuko Takemura (7): Trinh T. Minh-ha

To honor the memory of the late Kazuko Takemura, a feminist famous for her activism as well as introducing theorists such as Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Gayatri Chaktravorty Spivak and Trinh T. Minh-ha to Japan, WAN is posting a series of eulogies delivered by her fellow activists and scholars both from Japan and overseas.

                                                                                                                                         

In Memoriam of Kazuko Takemura

All the right words seem to escape me.
I was left speechless for days when I realized how suddenly my dear friend Kazuko has left us. 
It was only over a year ago when we saw each other at the International Colloquium Fazendo Genero (August 2010) to witness and partake in, together with thousands of scholars from Latin America and from around the world, the exhilarating force and contribution of Gender Studies. I would always remember Kazuko's witty, playful and generous presence in all the events we attended, in Brazil, in Japan, in the US., more particularly during the year when she came to our department at the University of California Berkeley as a visiting distinguished feminist scholar (2009).
Today, Kazuko vividly appears to me as Spring blossoms brighten anew Berkeley’s every street corner and alley. What poignantly comes back to mind was the memory of the time when I was mourning the loss of my younger sister, Quynh, who passed away peacefully in March 2009,  right in the midst of Spring. As I shared mine and my family’s utter grief with Kazuko, she sent me a most beautiful note, one that I would like to share with you since it speaks volume for the radiant Kazuko whose generosity as a scholar and courage as a translator and a feminist I have greatly benefited from.
After having written kind words of condolences, reminding me how “even though we have been informed of the seriousness of illness, the death of our beloved person always comes to us all of sudden,” Kazuko sent me a poem originally written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye, a housewife, for her friend who was mourning for her departed mother.  The verses were translated and made into the very popular song titled "As a Thousand Winds," sung by the Japanese tenor, Masahumi Akikawa. Here they are, exuding Kazuko’s radiant image:

As a Thousand Winds
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there;
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die

Yes, Kazuko did not die. She is still vividly with us.

Trinh Minh-ha

                                                                                                                                         

Note: This message was originally read at the Kazuko Takemura memorial ceremony held in Tokyo on March 11, 2012. The sender of this message has agreed to have it uploaded here honoring Kazuko’s memory.

Posted by Aya Kitamura

Eulogies to Kazuko Takemura (6): Gayatri Chaktravorty Spivak

To honor the memory of the late Kazuko Takemura, a feminist famous for her activism as well as introducing theorists such as Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Gayatri Chaktravorty Spivak and Trinh T. Minh-ha to Japan, WAN is posting a series of eulogies delivered by her fellow activists and scholars both from Japan and overseas.
                                                                                                                                         

The best way to pay tribute to Kazuko Takemura, to pay tribute to the range of her vision, for me, is to celebrate our work together.  At Ochanomizu, in many e-mails, and not enough face-to-face encounters, there were always plans for future work.  A future that can now no longer be shared.  She honored me four months before her death, by considering me capable of taking on a task that she had herself initiated, editing an issue of the International Journal of Okinawan Studies. I attempted to perform it with a sense of responsibility toward her astuteness, and her integrity, both intellectual and moral and I offer a few words from the Foreword as my tribute. 
The last time I spoke in Japan, at Waseda University, specifically on development, Kazuko Takemura was in the audience.  I had begun with the idea that in the current context the nation-state is not the most important theater. Development must be thought of in terms of globalization, although it is still measured by the nation-state.  Kazuko knew, of course, that our work together was based on this assumption!
I remember Kazuko bustling up to the podium, with her radiant smile, after I had finished.  She never simply stated her approval and agreement, she radiated it.  This was no different.  On that visit, she honored me with an invitation to her home.  There, among much laughter and good cheer, the serious discussion of the distinction between the postcolonial and the contemporary continued.  She had liked my book Other Asias, where this argument is developed.  She had arranged to have its five chapters translated by five different women.  We were to have a conference, where the five translators would put questions to me, and out of our public conversations would emerge a theory of embodied translation as well as a theory of a continentality that could take the difference between the postcolonial and the contemporary on board.  Who could have foretold that we would never see one another again?  Kiyomi Kawano, her loving friend in work and life, assures me that the work will go on.  But she and I both know that the difference will overwhelm us every step of the way.  We will finish that task, as now I have finished this one.  Farewell, dear friend.  I will not see the like of you again.  Gayatri
                                                                                                                                         

Note: This message was originally read at the Kazuko Takemura memorial ceremony held in Tokyo on March 11, 2012. The sender of this message has agreed to have it uploaded here honoring Kazuko’s memory.

Posted by Aya Kitamura

Eulogies to Kazuko Takemura (5): Judith Butler

To honor the memory of the late Kazuko Takemura, a feminist famous for her activism as well as introducing theorists such as Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Gayatri Chaktravorty Spivak and Trinh T. Minh-ha to Japan, WAN is posting a series of eulogies delivered by her fellow activists and scholars both from Japan and overseas.

                                                                                                                                         

I am honored to offer a few words in memory and in celebration of my friend, Kazuko Takemura. It is with great sadness that I begin to write these words, but I must also confess: the thought of Kazuko brings a smile to me. Of course, she was an extraordinary intellectual: daring, sharp, careful, and imaginative. But she was also generous and playful, and had a sense of mischief about her life, her writing and her relations with others. It is this mischief that comes before my mind when I say her name or think about her, as I do quite often, as I am sure we all do, during this time when we must learn to live without her living presence. As you know, Kazuko Takemura was a brilliant translator, which meant that by translating works into Japanese, she connected whole worlds with one another that were not quite connected in that way before. She brought my work, the work of Slavoj Zizek, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Trinh T. Minh-ha into Japanese, but she also changed what the work is, and what the work might mean. In this way, she opened a future for our work and for our lives that they would not otherwise have. As a translator, she connected worlds, but she also provided new life for work that existed elsewhere, and she found a way to remake the language of Japanese in new ways. She took risks, and she always had that mischievous look in her eye when she did so. She did not shy away from difficulty, including difficult writing and thinking: she was interested in it, and she entered it fearlessly. She was a translator, but she had her own work. And that work that was hers concerned the topics of post-feminism, violence and sexuality, trans-pacific intertextualities, biopolitics, the relation between the human and the inhuman, film studies, and gender. These were fearless endeavors. But in her translations and in her own work, she was trying to bring modes of thought together, speaking and writing about what could not easily be spoken or written. She built worlds. She crossed worlds, and she was committed to the slow, patient, and thoughtful task about how to develop a new form of thinking, one that acknowledged violence and countered its force, one that probed the aggressive strands in sexual life and opposed lethal forms of political violence. In her gentle and probing way, she asked us to live and think at the most fundamental levels, where all the questions are at once simple and difficult: how shall I love? What do I desire? Where is violence in the life of desire? How do we think gender without making it fixed? And how do we live in a region and a world with a violent history and yet move beyond that legacy and counter its pull? What hope is there to be found in the imagination, in theory as imagination? How do we live, and how do we die? We have lost her, but her questions remain, and they are ours. Just as she remains with us, in us, a constant thought, a beacon of light, and a smile of mischief.
                                                                                                                                         

Note: This message was originally read at the Kazuko Takemura memorial ceremony held in Tokyo on March 11, 2012. The sender of this message has agreed to have it uploaded here honoring Kazuko’s memory.

Posted by Aya Kitamura

Girl's World connecting women---A film by the women for the women

Maiden in Uniform 

Girl's World connecting women---A film by the women for the women

(DVD/ 87 minutes/ Publisher IVC)

Lita

On February 1, 1933 the German film, Madchen in Uniform (1931) (Mädchen in Uniform) was released in Japan. It is a well-known episode that Kashiko Kawakita, wife of the president of Towa Shoji Goshi Co. Ltd. at the time (later Toho Towa Company, Ltd.) took fancy to the film during her honeymoon trip to Europe and bought out its distribution right. The film, made entirely by female director, scriptwriter as well as unknown casts, won the Best Foreign Film Award at the annual Kinema Junpo (a Japanese film magazine which began publication in 1919) that year.

The scene of the film takes place in an all-girl boarding school for daughters from poor soldier families, strictly administered by ridged rules of the Prussian principal. The film opens with a cut of girls in broad-striped dress and black cap walking in a line in silence lead by one of their teachers. Girls are not allowed to chat while walking. Manuela, whose mother just died, is brought into the scene. Under the reign of the principal forcing severe rules and orders, not only the students are deprived of freedom, but also the teachers are so harshly oppressed that they cannot stand against the principal with an iron hand.

Like the rest of the girls, Manuela develops a crush on Ms. Bernburg, a warm-hearted beautiful female teacher.  On the occasion of the principal’s birthday, Manuela plays the main character of Schiller’s Don Carlos in the school play. At the student-only party after the play, Manuela gets drunk drinking a little too much of alcoholic punch and announces her passionate love for Ms. Bernburg in front of all the students gathered in the dining hall. Upon hearing about this scandalous incident, the principal imposes strict punishment on Manuela, banning her from seeing other students and Ms. Bernburg. Having severed contact with Ms. Bernburg, deeply distressed Manuela attempts suicide, but was discovered and saved by some students in the nick of time. Finally, the girls in the boarding school decide to stand against the tyrannical principal.

Listening to such scenario, readers may get an impression of the story as a revolt of oppressed girls against the authoritarian adults. But the film critics of that time highly evaluated the film for doing a good job of portraying delicate sensitivity of young girls in their puberty. However, I believe the real charm of this film is in its descriptive power which displays girl’s world in general. I prefer the scenes of girls having fun to serious ones. For example, I like the scene where Manuela’s room-mate, Iruze takes Manuela to show a photo of her favorite movie star secretly posted on the inside door of her locker as a gesture of welcoming the newcomer to the boarding school. I also like scenes such as girls in underwear making a racket in the washroom, or the scene after the school play where girls are having fun dancing to pop songs in the dining hall. The atmosphere created by these scenes is still so vivid and alive even eighty years after the first release of the film. These scenes displayed the girls living and enjoying their lives to the fullest extent despite having limits and oppressions placed upon them. (continue…)  

Original Article on the WAN Website. Written by Lita on Sep. 2, 2012
Translated  by Yoko Hayami

Eulogies to Kazuko Takemura(4): About Kazuko Takemura by Miho Ogino

To honor the memory of the late Kazuko Takemura, a feminist famous for her activism as well as introducing theorists such as Judith Butler to Japan, WAN is posting a series of eulogies delivered by her fellow activists and scholars both from Japan and overseas.

                                                                                                                                         

I got to know a name of Ms. Kazuko Takemura first time as a translator of “Gender Trouble” which was published in 1999[1].  Actually, I translated only the first chapter of “Gender Trouble” in a journal named “Shiso” (thought) in 1996 or 97.  Ms. Butler’s discussion about sex and gender was very stimulus and was an eye-opener to me.  However, it was very hard for me to go on reading such difficult writing.  When I was asked to translate the whole book, I declined politely.  Therefore, when I saw the book was translated by Ms. Takemura, I was amazed from bottom of my heart how great she was to accomplish such a work !

Soon after Ms. Takemura accepted to be one of referees of my dissertation which I submitted to Ochanomizu University.  While I was talking with Ms. Takemura, I told her that Ms. Butler’s writing was difficult to read.  Then she replied that it was easy for her to understand Ms. Butler’s writing and she felt Ms. Butler’s writing expressed what she always thought. I was amazed again when I heard what she said and realized how smart she was.    After that Ms. Takemura translated Butler’s book one after another besides her work.  She invited Ms. Butler for lecture to Ochanomizu University and went to University of California, Berkeley where Ms. Butler’s workplace for overseas research. Ms. Takemura kept having a strong tie with Ms. Butler.  I think, as a scholar and as an individual, it was happiness of Ms. Takemura’s life to meet such a great partner, Ms. Butler who understood and sympathized each other.  But if it made her even more busy and urged her “workaholic”lifestyle, and made her forget to treat her body, we feel regrettable a little.

When WAN(Women’s Action Network) was established, Ms. Takemura was at Berkeley, CA.  I asked her by e-mail, she willingly consented to become a lifetime member of WAN. After that we had contacted each other for a while.  I asked her to write an article to WAN or asked her to play around when she visited Kyoto where her aunt had lived etc…. But she became not to contact.  Shortly, I heard that she was sick. I was tried to go to a hospital but I could not… and… . The total time I spent with Ms. Takemura was not so long.  However, each scene and memory of word of Ms. Takemura is so bright to me. That will occupy an important part of my heart.

---

[1] J. Butler, J., 1990, Gender trouble, New York, Routledge.

Original Article by Miho Ogino (Sep 9, 2012)

Translated by M. OGAWA