The Asian Studies Initiative invites all continuing faculty to participate in a year-long faculty seminar and a trip to Japan in the Summer of 2005. This year's seminar, funded through the Asian Studies Initiative grant from the Freeman Foundation, is entitled, "Recreating Japan: Arts and Images of Identity."          The seminar will focus on the various ways Japanese express themselves today, visually, performatively, literarily, and artistically. Topics will include various art forms, old and new, from "Zen Aesthetics to Hi-Tec Anime" -- theater, dance, music, film, color prints, geisha, festivals, folk arts, design, gardens, architecture, and literature. How do these different artistic and cultural expressions, some conceived as "traditional arts" and others as contemporary "pop culture," express Japanese identities? What roles do Japanese arts and images play in imagining such fundamental ideas as culture, nature, race, ethnicity, gender and Japan itself? The seminar's key text will be Tessa Morris-Suzuki's Reinventing Japan--Time, Space, and Nation.          Grant funds will be used to bring guest speakers to campus, provide texts and resource materials, and enable the study group to travel to Japan in June of 2005. Seminar leaders are Mark MacWilliams (Religious Studies) and Yoko Chiba (Modern Languages and Literatures). Seminar participants are required to add new Japan-related components to existing courses or develop new courses. If you have any questions, email Mark MacWilliams mmacwilliams@stlawu.edu or Yoko Chiba ychiba@stlawu.edu.

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