East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University

A reminder that Verbal Arts of Japan II will take place at Yale tomorrow, Sunday March 30, 2025, at 4pm at the 35 Wall Street Auditorium.
Come one, come all—it's free!
There'll be some of the big names in the field: San'yutei Hakucho, Kanda Yoko, Ryutei Komichi, and Edoya Nekohachi. This time we're trying to recreate the Japanese vaudeville/yose experience with rakugo, kodan, and an iromono performer, while also experimenting with newly written pieces, and rakugo rewritten from a woman's perspective. There will be some portions in English, but most will be in Japanese with English subs.
The show will then tour Chicago and UCLA after the Yale performance.

Verbal Arts of Japan II: Rakugo, Kodan, Iromono Sun, Mar 30 2025, 4 - 6pm |

If you're near New Haven, come to our screening of Obayashi Nobuhiko's Lonely Heart this Saturday, February 22, 2025, at 7pm in HQ L02. The director of House turns his lens towards youth and the nostalgic cycles of time in a film that best represents Obayashi's own approach to shojo (girl's) culture.
https://macmillan.yale.edu/eastasia/events/2025-02-22/lonely-heart

COMIC LEGACIES ON THE JAPANESE SILVER SCREEN, with director Ogigami Naoko

As many of you know, we at Yale have been running a 13-film series of Japanese film comedies since February. The last event in the series will be this Saturday, April 20, 2024, and will feature the screening of two films and a panel discussion with two special guests.

7:00: Kamome Diner (かもめ食堂 , 2006)
directed by Ogigami Naoko
1h 42m, 35mm

8:50: Q&A and Panel Discussion featuring director Ogigami Naoki and NFAJ curator Tomita Mika, with Xavi Sawada and Aaron Gerow

10:00 Make Way for the Jaguars! (進め！ジャガーズ 敵前上陸, 1968) (pictured)
directed by Maeda Yoichi
1h 23m, 35mm
World premiere of an English subtitled version made at Yale.

Location: Alice Cinema (L01), Humanities Quadrangle, Yale
Free and open to the public

https://ceas.yale.edu/events/double-feature-kamome-diner-2006-make-way-jaguars-1968-director-panel

I hope people in the vicinity can come and join us.

I also urge you to download the 20-page pamphlet for the series that the students and I prepared:
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ceas_film_series/3/

Come to Yale this Saturday to see the penultimate night of films in Comedic Legacies of the Japanese Silver Screen. This time we will show the initial versions of two of postwar Japan's most popular comedy series: first, the initial film in the "Company President" series poking fun at corporate Japan; and second, Gambler's Luck, a preliminary version of the Tora-san series that also reflects Yamada Yoji's love of rakugo.
https://ceas.yale.edu/events/double-feature-nest-egg-1956-gamblers-luck-1966

Join us tomorrow for a screening of Yonghi Yang's Soup & Ideology at Yale University. The director will be present to talk about her film. For those who want to study up on her, you can watch the recent NHK documentary on her now showing on NHK World:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/3016161/

Great double feature this Saturday in our Comic Legacies on the Japanese Silver Screen series at Yale. The wild and crazy Noh gangster musical comedy Oh, My Bomb (Okamoto Kihachi) plus Sai Yoichi's award-winning zainichi comedy All Under the Moon.
https://ceas.yale.edu/events/double-feature-oh-my-bomb-1964-all-under-moon-1993

Reminder that our Comic Legacies on the Japanese Silver Screen film series at Yale resumes this Saturday, March 30, at 7pm in HQ L01, with two films based on stories by Ibuse Masuji. Kawashima Yuzo's Room for Rent is one of my favorite Japanese comedies, but Shibuya Minoru's Doctor's Day Off is also a fascinating work.
https://ceas.yale.edu/events/double-feature-room-rent-1959-doctors-day-adventure-tokyo-1953

The second night in our film series "Comic Legacies of the Japanese Silver Screen" will feature two of my all-time favorites: Yamanaka Sadao's Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo and Itami Mansaku's Akanishi Kakita. The first has the best sword fight parody in Japanese film history, the second, the best cat scene in Japanese cinema. Join us Saturday, March 2, in HQ L02 at Yale University, starting at 7pm.
https://ceas.yale.edu/events/double-feature-sazen-tange-and-pot-worth-million-ryo-1935-akanishi-kakita-capricious-young

Comic Legacies on the Japanese Silver Screen begins this Saturday, February 24, 2024, at 7pm in the Alice Cinema! A rare program showing some of the classic comedies of Japanese cinema and featuring archival prints and a visit by director Ogigami Naoko. The series starts with films by Ozu Yasujiro, Makino Masahiro, and Saito Torajiro—and features slapstick ghosts and singing samurai! The series is co-sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies, the National Film Archive of Japan, and the Yale Film Archive, with support from the Japan Foundation. My students and I created a pamphlet that will be available for download from Saturday.
https://ceas.yale.edu/series-taxonomy/comic-legacies-japanese-silver-screen

The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University seeks to make a tenure-track appointment at the rank of either assistant or associate professor in premodern Japanese literature and/or related humanities fields, to begin July 1, 2024. The search invites applications from scholars whose research focuses on pre-20th century topics and who are able to teach Kobun/Bungo. We encourage applications from scholars with any area of specialization in the humanities, including those whose work is interdisciplinary, traverses multiple East Asian languages, and/or is comparative in method. We also welcome scholars whose work engages with forms of premodern language other than Kobun/Bungo and/or have expertise in related fields such as paleography, manuscript cultures, visual and performance cultures, and material history. Applications from early-career scholars are particularly welcome. The teaching expectation is normally four courses per academic year, plus service to the program.

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This academic year, a bumper crop of 8 doctoral students in EALL received their PhDs. Not all were able to participate in the Commencement festivities on May 22, but we celebrate all of their tremendous accomplishments! Join us in congratulating:
Dr. Bo An
Dr. Jason Douglass
Dr. Nina Farizova
Dr. Nick Frisch
Dr. Adam Haliburton
Dr. Drisana Misra
Dr. Loren Waller
Dr. Dihao Zhou
Several attended the reception the department held after the diploma ceremony.

SOMAI SHINJI FILMS at Yale

We're fortunate to be able to present this week two of the less-known films of Somai Shinji, arguably the director who has influenced contemporary Japanese cinema the most, especially for his masterful use of the long take. These screenings are a kind of preview of the large Somai retro at the Japan Society in NYC April 23 to May 13.

PP Rider (ションペン・ライダー, 1983)
7pm, Friday, April 14, 53 Wall Street Auditorium
https://ceas.yale.edu/events/pp-rider-1983-somai-shinji-film-screening

The Catch (魚影の群れ, 1983)
7pm, Saturday, April 15, Alice Cinema, HQ
https://ceas.yale.edu/events/catch-1983-somai-shinji-film-screening

Both films will be shown with English subtitles, and are free and are open to the public.