East London Tour Guide for the 2012 Olympics

In preparation for the Olympic games in 2012 this training course/module might appeal to you.

Train as an East London tour guide in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Birkbeck, University of London is to offer a new module on East London tour guiding in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

The ten-week course has been officially endorsed by the five Olympic Boroughs, and will be held at the Museum of London in Docklands and the Bishopsgate Institute on Tuesday afternoons, starting on Tuesday 4 October. It is designed to give students hands-on training in guiding, together with an introduction to the history of East London.

The course is run by John Finn and Chris Everett, who each have ten years’ experience as badged guides and who regularly work for both the Museum of London and the London Metropolitan Archives. As well as learning practical skills, such as how to construct a walk and carry out research, students will visit sites such as West India Dock and Olympic Stratford, and learn about key phases in East London’s history, such as the Roman era, the Huguenot immigration and the Second World War. The tutors will discuss how the city has been shaped by migration and settlement from the 1880s to the present day, and examine the area’s radical past, taking in such seminal events as the Match Girls’ Strike, the Docks Strike, and the activities of the Anarchists, Suffragettes and Socialists.

At the end of the ten weeks, students will undertake a short practical exam and a presentation (with a 2,500 word research portfolio). Completion of this module qualifies the student for 15 CATS points, which are credit points recognised by Birkbeck, the Open University and the University of East London. CATS points in this and further programmes of study in London history can contribute to the equivalent of the first year of an undergraduate degree.

The cost of this module is as little as £115 for applicants who qualify for concessionary rates. A limited number of full bursaries are also available for students who have no previous higher education degree or who are in receipt of state benefit.

For further information on how to enrol contact Mike Berlin at Birkbeck on m.berlin@bbk.ac.uk or 020 7631 6647

Midwife and Manga Heroine: Oine Siebold, Nagasaki and the Birth of Modern Japan

Midwife and Manga Heroine: Oine Siebold, Nagasaki and the Birth of Modern Japan
Ulrich Heinze, Sasakawa Lecturer in Japanese Visual Media

Sainsbury Institute and Centre for Japanese Studies, University of East Anglia

20 June 2011, London

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Khalili Lecture Theatre, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

This lecture unravels the historical meaning of the city of Nagasaki for the cultural exchange between Japan and the West in the first half of the nineteenth century. To pursue this inquiry, Heinze will refer to three key source materials: David Mitchell’s new novel The 1000 Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, depicting the Phaeton-incident of 1808; Hendrik Doeff’s (1764-1837) Recollections of Japan, which is now available in English; and Masaki Maki’s manga Oine Siebold, on the career of the first female physician and obstetrician in Japan.
Dr Ulrich Heinze is Sasakawa Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Visual Media. His position is jointly shared with the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures and the Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. A sociologist, he received his Ph.D. at Free University Berlin and was an EU-Postdoctorate Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo where he also later held the position of Associate Professor. In 2004, he was awarded the venia legendi (habilitatio) in Sociology from the University of Freiburg. Specialising in Japanese media studies, intercultural communication and visual arts, Heinze’s research interests include Japanese popular culture, manga, television and film. His third book entitled Media Theory Update: Technical Acceleration and Communicative Action is forthcoming in 2012. Heinze has also worked as a journalist and broadcasting editor for North German Radio (NDR) in Hamburg.

Admission Free but Booking recommended. To book your place, please contact the Japan Society office on tel: 020 7828 6330 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

After the Shock: Prospects for Recovery and Reconstruction in Post-quake Japan

An interesting event at SOAS.

Monday, 16th May 2011, 6.45pm

School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Khalili Lecture Theatre
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG

“Moderated discussion in support of the ‘Japan Society Tohoku Earthquake Relief Fund’.”

In Collaboration with the Japan Research Centre (JRC) at the School of Oriental and African Studies

Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis – on 11 March 2011 everything changed for the residents of Northeast Japan. Media reports have emphasized the dramatic, tragic devastation left in the wake of one of the strongest earthquakes in human history. ‘After the Shock’ shifts the discussion towards grappling with the prospects for recovery and reconstruction in Japan’s northeastern rural communities. Participants will have the opportunity to join in a moderated discussion between a geo-physicist with expertise in earthquake mitigation, an NPO director working with community and voluntary organisations in Northeast Japan, a nuclear industry analyst, and an historian whose research examines rural life in Japan and community relationships with the nuclear industry.

Roundtable Participants:

Professor Peter Sammonds is Professor of Geophysics at University College London, Department of Earth Sciences. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and a member of the Royal Society Environmental Advisory Network. He is past Chair of the JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) UK Alumni Association, and was Visiting Professor at the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo. Professor Sammonds investigates the mechanics of the Earth’s crust and ice sheets by studying the fundamental physics and mechanics of geological materials, particularly research directed towards studying the impacts of climate change and natural hazards.

Phillida Purvis MBE is Founder and Director of Links Japan which was established in 1998 to promote sharing between civil society organizations in the EU and Japan. She has run exchange programmes between NPOs, NGOs and community organisations on a range of social sector issues, such as community regeneration, social inclusion, social enterprise as well as international development cooperation. As a member of HM Diplomatic Service she undertook Japanese language training and served at the British Embassy in Tokyo during the 1980s.

Malcolm C Grimston began work for the Atomic Energy Authority in 1987.  In 1995 he joined Imperial College as a Senior Research Fellow and in 1999 became a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, where he is now an Associate Fellow investigating the future of civil nuclear energy. He is author of numerous articles and co-author of two books as well as a regular media contributor on energy and nuclear matters.  He is an elected Member of Wandsworth Council and until 2009 had executive responsibility for environment and leisure.

Dr Martin Dusinberre is Lecturer in the History of Modern Japan at Newcastle University. He specialises in the social and cultural history of modern Japan, including the nuclear power industry. His book Hard Times in the Hometown: A Microhistory of Modern Japan is forthcoming from the University of Hawaii Press. An article on Japanese civil society and the rise of the nuclear power industry, co-authored with Daniel P. Aldrich, is forthcoming from the Journal of Asian Studies.

Moderated by:

Dr Christopher Gerteis is Lecturer in the History of Contemporary Japan at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He has held research and teaching positions at Hosei University and Sophia University in Tokyo and Yale University in the United States. He is a specialist in the history of modern and contemporary Japan.

Co-organised by:

Booking Information:
To book your place, please contact the Japan Society office on
tel: 020 7828 6330 or email events@japansociety.org.uk

Pop Culture from a Multipolar Japan

Another interesting event organised by DAIWA.

Is there something more to the West’s fascination with Japanese anime and manga? How are anime films and manga comics cultural channeling zones, opened by the horrors of war and disaster and animated by the desire to assemble a world of new looks, feelings and identities?  Lecturer at the University of Tokyo, Sophia University and the University of the Sacred Heart Tokyo, Roland Kelts addresses the movement of Japanese culture into the West as sign and symptom of broader reanimations.  With uncertainty now the norm, style, he argues, is trumping identity, explaining, in part, the success of Japanese pop and fashion, design and cuisine in the West.

Roland Kelts is a half-Japanese American writer, editor and lecturer who divides his time between New York and Tokyo. He is the author of Japanamerica : How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US and the forthcoming novel, Access. He has presented on contemporary Japanese culture worldwide and has taught courses in Japanese popular culture at numerous universities in Japan and the US, including New York University and the University of Tokyo. His fiction and nonfiction appear in such publications as Zoetrope: All Story, Psychology Today, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Japan, Adbusters magazine, The Millions, The Japan Times, Animation Magazine, Bookforum, and The Village Voice. He is the Editor in Chief of the Anime Masterpieces screening and discussion program, the commentator for National Public Radio’s series, Pacific Rim Diary, and the author of a weekly column for The Daily Yomiuri newspaper. Click here for his blog.

Lecture details:

14 April 2011

4:00 – 5:00pm, followed by a drinks reception to 6:00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

BOOKING FORM