The AAS Conference - Podcast Series

The Samurai Archives podcast, which has been in process for the last 14 months has finally stepped up and started broadcasting.  Before we start the regular, standard format, we first put together the Samurai Archives Conference series, bringing you podcasts recorded live from the AAS/ICAS (The Association for Asian Studies and the International Convention of Asia Scholars) Conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii, from March 31st to April 3rd, 2011, as well as two follow up podcasts (one of which was released yesterday, and one which will be released next week).  After that, the regular podcast will start production.

As far as the conference series goes, here is a rundown of what you'll find in the first 4 episodes of the new Samurai Archives podcast:

Episode 1 - AAS/ICAS Conference, Day 1 (4/3/11)

For the first podcast in the conference series, we commandeered a table in the exhibition hall and discussed the first few seminars that we had attended. The seminars included: Security Policy in Asia, Religion Goes Pop: Manga and Religion in Post-1995 Japan, and Monks of the Five Mountains and Shogunal Patronage of Zen in the Making of Muromachi Culture (which we were pleased to find was done in Japanese).


Episode 2 - AAS/ICAS Conference, Day 1, Part 2 (4/4/11)

For part 2 of our live day one coverage, we broke into an empty conference room and did a pirate podcast from there.  The conference rooms in the Honolulu Convention Center have amazing acoustics, and this episode really benefited from that.  Although we had janitors meander in and take their sweet, sweet time in emptying the garbage cans, we were able to go over a few more of the seminars we had attended, including Digital Archives and the Study of Japanese Foreign Relations, and Language Ideologies in Japan: Power and Identities.

Episode 3 - AAS/ICAS Conference Wrap-up (4/11/11)

This episode was recorded after the conference, and serves as part one of our two part conference wrap up.  Joining the mix is Travis Seifman, author of the recently published article Seals of Red and Letters of Gold - Japanese Relations with Southeast Asia in the 17th Century, and also a conference attendee, and this time we cover a variety of conference topics, including:


Okinawa, Furusato, and the Creation of a Postwar Vision of Japaneseness, Thomas O’Leary
Celebrations of the Heart – Romantic Lit by Yuikawa Kei, Eileen B. Mikals-Adachi
Portraits of Modern Japanese Working Women – the Literature of Hayashi Mariko, Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase
To Be Beautiful, Or Not To Be Beautiful, That Is The Question—Himeno Kaoruko’s Seikei Bijo, Satoko Kan
Who is Aiko? ~ The Absent ‘Father’ in Natsuo Kirino’s I’m Sorry, Mama., Kayo Takeuchi
“Food Imagery and Parody in 16th Century Japan: About the Shuhanron Emaki (The Illustrated Scroll of the Sake and Rice Debate)”, Claire-Akiko Brisset
“From Warming Stone to Memorial Stone: Rethinking the History of Japanese Tea Cuisine”, Eric C Rath
Wine and Eau-de-Cologne: From the Introduction of Western Food to the Birth of Yoshoku, Shoko Higashiyotsuyanagi


Episode 4 - AAS/ICAS Conference Wrap-up Part 2 (4/18/11)

Our last podcast in the conference series covers the seminar that forced me to pony up the sizable fee to attend the conference in the first place - Negotiating One's Place in Japan's Long Sixteenth Century, and to say it was worth the price of admission would be an understatement. Not only was it extremely interesting, but it was superbly done, and was probably the best organized and run seminar I had attended over the four day period. The presentations in this seminar were:


Local and Social Space Factors in Merchant Success in the Late 16th Century, Suzanne Gay
So Many Choices (And So Few Options) For Local Warriors, David Spafford
This Land is My Land: Masuda Motonaga and the Politics of Territorial Redistribution in Choshu Domain, David A. Eason
Warrior Conflicts With Their Daimyo in Early Seventeenth Century Japan, Luke S. Roberts

Here are some links you'll want to keep track of, please subscribe to the podcast, and make sure you rate it on Itunes too, to help us increase our exposure:

• Samurai Archives Podcast Blog
• Samurai Archives Podcast on iTunes
• Twitter: @samuraiarchives

That covers the conference podcasts, and we'll have one more interview recorded last year, an interview with Travis Seifman about his paper mentioned above. After that, the standard podcast will kick off, with each episode covering a specific event or topic in Japanese history, and should be informative and fun, so look forward to it - we are.