Lecture and Dialogue Series “Language and Identity” Beginning on November 8

What is an ‘identity,’ and what does it mean to have one? How is an identity expressed through language use? With a spotlight on cultural, gender, and national identities, this lecture series explores a wide range of approaches to the intersections of language and identity.

Language and Identity Lecture and Dialogue Series

Session 1: Identity and “Kyara”
2021.11.8 (Monday)
Speaker: SADANOBU Toshiyuki (Professor, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University)
Commentator: Hannah DAHLBERG-DODD (Project Researcher, Tokyo College)
Moderator: Viktoria ESCHBACH-SZABO (Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Tübingen / Invited Professor, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo)

Session 2: Gendered First-person Pronouns in Japanese: Ideologies and Innovations
2021.11.9 (Tuesday)
Speaker: NAKAMURA Momoko (Professor, College of Business Administration, Kanto Gakuin University)
Commentator: Maria TELEGINA (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tokyo College)
Moderator: Viktoria ESCHBACH-SZABO (Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Tübingen / Invited Professor, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo)

Session 3: Script choices as a means of indexing identities in Late Edo Japan
2021.11.10 (Wednesday)
Speaker: Sven OSTERKAMP (Professor of Japanese Language and Literature, Ruhr University Bochum)
Commentator: Michael FACIUS (Associate Professor, Tokyo College)
Moderator: Maria TELEGINA (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tokyo College)

Session 4: Translingual Words: Is Sushi a Japanese Word or an English Word?
2021.11.11 (Thursday)
Speaker: Jieun KIAER (Young Bin Min-KF Associate Professor of Korean Language and Linguistics, University of Oxford)
Commentator: Maria TELEGINA (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tokyo College)
Moderator: HOSOKAWA Naoko (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tokyo College)

Session 5: Recent Policy Reforms in English Language Education: Towards a New Generation of Bilingual and Multicultural Japanese?
2021.11.12 (Friday)
Speaker: Michael HOFMEYR (Specially Appointed Associate Professor, Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University)
Commentator: HOSOKAWA Naoko (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tokyo College)
Moderator: Maria TELEGINA (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tokyo College)

Session 6: Queer Excess: Language labour and re(creating) “authentic” queerqueen talk in the taidan (conversational dialogue) format
2021.11.13 (Saturday)
Speaker: Claire MAREE (Associate Professor & Reader, Asia Institute, University of Melbourne)
Commentator: Michael FACIUS (Associate Professor, Tokyo College)
Moderator: Hannah DAHLBERG-DODD (Project Researcher, Tokyo College)

Session 7: Screams of Slaughter, Superstition, and Samurai: Exploring Language, Identity, and Premodern Japan in Japanese Extreme Metal
2021.11.14. (Sunday)
Speaker: Wesley ROBERTSON (Lecturer of International Studies, Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature, Macquarie University)
Commentator: Hannah DAHLBERG-DODD (Project Researcher, Tokyo College)
Moderator: Michael FACIUS (Associate Professor, Tokyo College)

Session 8: Language and Identity in Japan: Past, Present and Future
2021.11.25 (Thursday)
Speakers:
Viktoria ESCHBACH-SZABO (Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Tübingen / Invited Professor, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo)
Hannah DAHLBERG-DODD (Project Researcher, Tokyo College)
HOSOKAWA Naoko (Postdoctoral Researcher, Tokyo College)
Maria TELEGINA (Postdoctoral Researcher, Tokyo College)
Michael FACIUS (Associate Professor, Tokyo College)

Sessions 1-7 will be released on the Tokyo College YouTube Channel on the dates indicated. Session 8 will be conducted live as a webinar. For more details, please see our Events page.