Travel in Japanese Representation Culture: Its Past, Present and Future

Call for Papers:

The 2006 AJLS annual meeting will be held, for the first time, in the
summer (July 1-2, 2006) in Japan (at the new Tokyo campus of Josai
International University). The conference will be chaired by Professor
Mizuta Noriko and organized by Professor Miki Sumito and will feature
the theme of travel in Japanese literature and in Japan's representation
culture as a whole. From religiously charged pilgrimages to
leisure-oriented tourism, traveling has impacted people's lives on
various levels from ancient days to the present. With drastic
technological changes, the notion of travel today expands itself both in
terms of space and time: We can travel to the universe, travel to the
micro-cosmos of our own body, and even take a trip to the future. What
can and should we discuss about the current expansion of the notion of
travel in relationship with its representational tradition?

The mythological image of traveling gods, expressed through the folkloric
term of "kishu ryuuri," is recurrently recaptured in classical stories
focusing on socio-politically motivated transfer of important characters.
Traditional visits to temples and shrines were visitors' expressions of
religious faith; literary pilgrimages, visiting well-known places rich in
poetic associations, were great literary inspirations for travelers. At
the same time, these experiences allowed travelers to discover the joy of
traveling itself. From Meiji period on, people took a trip to individually
explore new "scenery" so as to appreciate its previously unnoticed beauty.
Modern literature was an inspiration for the development of tourism
culture.

Today, literature has become an integral part of media culture (together
with painting, photography, TV shows, and cinema), which by mass-producing
images of fashionable scenes, serves to further enhance the institution of
modern tourism. When the government claims that tourism is one of the key
areas of Japan's national promotion, and when travel agencies and the
media industry work together so as to sell literature as a part of the
travel experience, concepts of both travel and literature demand
redefinitions as necessary players of today's late consumerist economy.
From this broad interest in the concepts and representations of
traveling in Japanese literature, the conference organizers solicit
paper/panel proposals, which can shed new light on this theme. Please
consider, in particular, exploring concepts listed in the following as
key components constituting this theme:

• Traveler's expressive selfhood: i) narrator's points of view and
  awareness of readers' eyes; ii) gender and travel; iii) oral narrative and
  strolling minstrels; iv) representations of michiyuki ; v) travel and
  poetic expressions (waka, renga, and haikai)
  
  
• Traveler's search for inner self: i) religious journeys (monomoude,
  junrei, shugyou, kanjin); ii) travel in coming-of-age novels with the
  pursuit of a true self; iii) travel literature as a genre of fiction; iv)
  travel in the genres of utopian literature, fantastic literature, and
  children's literature
  
  
• Traveler's experiences of otherness (transfer and border transgression;
  contact and communication with foreign cultures): i) travel by gods in
  the Origuchi concepts of "kishu ryuuri" and "marebito," as well as
  political exiles (rural position appointment by the government, demotion,
  refugee, etc.); ii) expression of borders between past and present,
  between city and country, between home and abroad, and between dailiness
  and fantasy; iii) approaches to foreign cultures (acceptance,
  appropriation, and denial); iv) superior/inferior observer's standpoint
  (tour of a colonial inspection, accounts by seasonal workers and
  immigrants); iv) discovery of a traveler's own cultural identity through
  trips to foreign lands; v) culture shock through school trips, study
  abroad, international internship, etc.
  
  
• Travel in contemporary culture: i) media and travel literature; ii)
  current trend of tourism and literature (sightseeing, search for
  healing, and eco-tourism); iii) an aging society, traveling, and literature
  

The proposal deadline is March 1, 2006. A 250-letter proposal, together
with the proposal form, should be mailed to: AJLS 2006, Josai
International University (Tokyo Kioi-cho Campus), 3-26 Kioi-cho,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, JAPAN 102-0094. For inquiries, contact conference
administrators (Professors Kawano Yuka, Okada Miyako, or David Luan) by
e-mailing at: ajls2006@jiu.ac.jp or by faxing to: 03-6238-1299.

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PAPER/PANEL PROPOSAL FORM
Travel in Japanese Representation Culture
DEADLINE: March 1, 2006
Title:
Name:
Status:
Institution:
Address:
Telephone:
Fax:
E-mail:
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Please attach your 250-letter proposal to this form and send to: AJLS
2006, Josai International University, 3-26 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo,
Japan 102-0094.