japanamerica

MEIJI UNIVERSITY COOL JAPAN PROGRAM July.25(mon)-Aug.5(fri),2011 Tokyo+Kyoto MEIJI UNIVERSITY Profiles of Lecturers and Brief Abstracts of Lectures for Cool Japan Summer Program 2011 Date: Tuesday, July 25 Lecturer: Roland Kelts 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 < http://japanamericabook.com/ > 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 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...

本を読むだけでは飽き足らない！文学、アート、映画、音楽、ストリートカルチャー他 タワーレコードならではの分野のスペシャリストをお招きしてお贈りする定例イベント。 教養は大人の嗜み、生の言葉の価値を一緒に感じてみませんか？ ユニークな文芸誌『モンキービジネスの英語版』が生まれました！ ブルックリンの人気文芸誌『A Public Space』の協力で、年一回、 日本版のなかからベストの作品を選りすぐって刊行。第1号は4月に ニューヨークの書店に登場、ゴールデンウィークには小澤實、川上弘美、 古川日出男、スティーヴ・エリクソン、レベッカ・ブラウン、といった面々が 参加して刊行記念イベントが行われ、大好評を博しました。今回 TOWER BOOKSには英語版編集者のテッド・グーセン、柴田元幸が 登場、刊行に漕ぎ着けるまでの涙の物語を語ります！！ ******************************************* 猿、アメリカに行く　--『モンキービジネス』英語版刊行を記念して 出演：　柴田元幸（東京大学教授、翻訳家） 　　　　　テッド・グーセン（ヨーク大学教授、日本文学研究者、翻訳家） 日時：　2011年6月12日（日）　16：00スタート 場所：　タワーレコード渋谷店　7F TOWER BOOKS トーク終了後にサイン会を予定しております サイン会参加券は対象商品いずれかをお買い上げの方に差し上げます 観覧フリー 座ってご覧いただけるお席の数には限りがございます。 お座席のご予約はお電話でも承ります ご予約は　タワーレコード渋谷店　03-3496-3661 ******************************************* 【出演者プロフィール】 柴田元幸（しばた・もとゆき） (c)島袋里美 東京大学教授。ポール・オースター、スティーブン・ミルハウザー、 スチュアート・ダイベックなどアメリカ文学の翻訳多数。季刊文芸誌 『モンキービジネス』（ヴィレッジブックス）責任編集。 テッド・グーセン（Ted Goosen) ヨーク大学（トロント）教授。英訳日本文学アンソロジーの定番 『The Oxford Book of Japanese Shortstories』編者。 志賀直哉、村上春樹、井伏鱒二らの作品をいち早く翻訳している。 今回の『モ...

[ Monkey Busines s editors and translators, Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen] Susan Hamaker on the Monkey Business launch party at BookCourt bookstore in Brooklyn, NYC: In his 1956 rock 'n' roll tune "Too Much Monkey Business," Chuck Berry laments the Groundhog Day-ness of everyday life. "Monkey Business" the song is much like Monkey Business the literary magazine: Straightforward and no-nonsense. Impressed by the song's frankness of attitude, essayist Motoyuki Shibata and his cohorts decided to name their journal of writing from Japan (and other places) after it. Five years ago A Public Space , a literary journal in Brooklyn, published a portfolio of Japanese literature that included an interview with Shibata, who is considered one of the foremost translators of American literature into Japanese. A year and a half ago, Shibata approached A Public Space with the idea of producing an English-language version of the Japanese Monkey Business . Brigid Hugh...

SOFT POWER HARD TRUTHS / Fantasy, art--and the real Japan Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri For several years, I have been trying to marry my two chief interests in Japan's contemporary culture--its popular arts, represented by anime, manga, fashion and design, and its literary voices: fiction writers and poets whose visions of a surreal 21st century Japan use postmodern conceits with a preternatural calm, as if skies full of falling frogs (Haruki Murakami) and swimmers with suddenly detached limbs (Yoko Ogawa) were perfectly commonplace in today's Nippon. In my book, Japanamerica, and in my lectures, I incorporate comments from Murakami and woodblock prints by Katsushika Hokusai alongside stories about Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki, with splashes of Pokemon, Naruto and Hello Kitty. If I'm successful, the integration feels organic. If not, I feel like a hustler. But last week, I had the good fortune to participate in an evening that gracefully wedded both. Amid ...

Allegedly, the newspaper boasting the world's largest circulation:

Me and Motoyuki Shibata in Paper Sky . Roland Kelts: When you’re traveling, are you able to translate and write as easily as you do at home in Japan? Motoyuki Shibata: Oh, even better. RK: How so? MS: Well, let’s say I’m in a park, or in an open air café, and I’m translating something, and people are talking around me. In a Tokyo park, they would be speaking Japanese, so I would be catching all of their comments and that would interfere with my translation work. But if I’m overseas, I would be hearing English conversation, and if I don’t concentrate, I wouldn’t know what they were talking about. Just sounds—like nice background music. Read the rest online here .

Hear us online here: http://www.scpr.org/programs/madeleine-brand/2011/05/09/roland-kelts/

Thank you / Arigato . Translator Chisato, Hideo Furukawa, Steve Erickson, Motoyuki Shibata, Roland Kelts @ The Japan Society, Tuesday, May 3, 2011.

LECTURE Seeing Stories: Fiction, Manga & Graphic Novels Tuesday, May 3, 6:30 PM © The Brother and Sister Nishioka. American and Japanese artists have been inspiring each other for decades. Tonight, authors Hideo Furukawa and Steve Erickson share their strong apocalyptic imaginations, and Roland Kelts, half-Japanese author of Japanamerica , will discuss the mutual influences in narrative visual art. Haruki Murakami’s love of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver is well known; Susan Sontag and Paul Auster have professed their love of the filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and Ozu’s seemingly quintessentially Japanese films were created after he immersed himself in Hollywood movies during the war. American comics and animation by Walt Disney, Max Fleischer and others were transformed by Japanese artists into manga and anime , which now enjoy an enormous following among American youth. The panelists discuss how and why as they launch Monkey Business International , the first trans-national lit...

Wonderful crowd, Monkey Biz wine and electrifying readings at the Monkey Business launch party in Brooklyn last night . Gynormous thanks to Katie Assef from APS for making arrangements, Brooklyn Brewery and Monkey Business wine, BookCourt bookstore, the stellar writers and editors from Tokyo, Los Angeles, Toronto and NYC, and the standing-room-only audience. One more event tomorrow . Monkey Biz wine. The readers: Rebecca Brown, Hiromi Kawakami, Minoru Ozawa, Hideo Furukawa, Motoyuki Shibata, Steve Erickson and Ted Goossen. Old geezer and Shibata.

We had an overflow crowd (several additional chairs were necessary) at yesterday's first launch event for Monkey Business: New Voices from Japan at the Asia Society in Manhattan. Thanks so much for the support. Launch party tonight in Brooklyn ; final event on Tuesday night at the Japan Society . Order issues online here . Hitomi Yoshio, Minoru Ozawa, Ted Goossen, Joshua Beckman and Motoyuki Shibata @ Asia Society, NYC. Hiromi Kawakami, Hitomi Yoshio, Minoru Ozawa, Ted Goossen, Joshua Becman, Motoyuki Shibata, Rebecca Brown and Asia Society Executive Director Michael Roberts.