東京大学大学院 情報学環・学際情報学府 The University of Tokyo III / GSII

ニュース News

February 9, 2016

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Summer Program 2016 “Animating Life” : July 4, 2016 — July 14, 2016

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

*FOR APPLICANTS FROM OUTSIDE JAPAN*

Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation Presents

Summer Program 2016 “Animating Life” : July 4, 2016 — July 14, 2016

APPLICATIONS DUE: March 10, 2016

The Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation, in conjunction with the University of Tokyo, will host an annual Summer Program focusing on various aspects of Japanese popular media culture. The theme of this year’s Program is “Animating Life.” With Anne Allison as the main organizer, the Program invites 10 graduate students from universities around the world, who will collaborate with graduate students from the University of Tokyo. Our hope is that the participants will take advantage of the Program to build new social networks and pursue work related to Japanese media and popular cultures in the future, whether as researchers, artists, or teachers. Please see below for application instructions.

PROGRAM THEME: Animating Life explores limits of intimacy and forms of companionship creatively reorganized in today’s Japanese popular culture. Taking ‘animation’ and ‘life’ as key concepts, the Program examines how the popular cultural imagination animates ? breathes life into ? a variety of relationships people establish with human and nonhuman others. How do characters come to life? How do dogs come to talk? How do robots come to care? Building on the aesthetic of animation long cultivated in Japanese film, anime, and other expressive genres, we hope to expand the concept of animation to consider the enchantment of life in a wide range of practices and phenomena, including (but by no means limited to) virtual idol fandom, technology of care, gaming, anime pilgrimage, translation, digital sex, social media and political mobilization, and animal sociality. We seek to discern convergence, feedback, and crossing among diverse dimensions of animation. To that end, we welcome applicants interested in any facet of Japanese society where the concepts of ‘animation’ and ‘life’ may be productively mobilized for analysis. The range of topics and disciplinary backgrounds for consideration is wide open.

What kinds of encounters, with what kinds of others, in what iterations of
intimacy and companionship, are coming to take the place of human-human
sociality? How are human relations thereby being transformed? How are fans,
creators, programmers, urban dwellers, protesters, and other social actors
navigating what once constituted the terrain of the social through
alternative, manufactured, virtual, commodified means? In order to rethink
intimacy and companionship against the background of such globally
circulating images of contemporary Japan as ‘relationless,’ ‘sexless,’ and
‘singlified’ — images often uncritically linked to a pathology of
sociality — we turn to media contents and cultural practices, and to media
technologies of various kinds, as a site of creative experimentation in the
animation of life.

PROGRAM FEATURES: An intensive ten-day event, the Program takes place
between July 4, 2016 and July 14, 2016. Thomas Lamarre (McGill University)
will open the Program with his keynote lecture. Other lecturers tentatively
include Elizabeth Povinelli (Columbia University), Shunya Yoshimi
(University of Tokyo), Anne Allison (Duke University), Lawrence Grossberg
(University of North Carolina), Yasuhiro Yamada (Chuo University), Shiho
Satsuka (University of Toronto), Jason Danely (Oxford Brookes University),
Sachiko Horiguchi (Temple University Japan), Paul Hansen (Hokkaido
University), Grant Otsuki (Tsukuba University), Alexandra Hambleton (Bunkyo
Gakuin University), Christophe Thouny (University of Tokyo), Ryo Morimoto
(Harvard University), Patrick Galbraith (Duke University), and Shunsuke
Nozawa (University of Tokyo). Lectures are combined with roundtables and
breakout sessions to facilitate more informal dialogue among lecturers and
participants. The Program also features experiential forays into Tokyo
social life through field trips. The Program is open only to participating
members, except for some selected events.

The Program will be conducted mainly in English. However, we expect
participants to have sufficient Japanese proficiency to facilitate
scholarly interaction and communication outside of the classroom.

DATES: July 4, 2016 to July 14, 2016

LOCATION: The University of Tokyo, Japan

FINANCIAL SUPPORT: The Program has no tuition or registration fees.
Instead, we will be offering (1) financial support up to 100,000 yen for
travel expenses and (2) a 23,000 subsidy for accommodations during the
period of the Summer Program to all participants.

Conditions for receiving financial support:

Participants must attend the entire Program and may not be absent from
the Program without prior written consent from the program administration
office.

When the travel expense is paid in a currency other than JPY, it will be
converted to JPY at the exchange rate determined by the University of
Tokyo. Reimbursement of airfare will be made only upon completion of the
Program.

Financial support may not be used for purposes other than Program
participation. Reimbursement may be denied if expenses are judged to be
extraneous to the Program.

HOW TO APPLY

DEADLINE

Application submissions will be closed at 24:00 on March 10, 2016 (Japan
Standard Time). Selection results will be announced in mid April via email.

ELIGIBILITY

Applicants are eligible if they are currently enrolled at an institution
outside Japan in a Master’s or Ph.D. program, or have recently obtained a
Master’s or Ph.D. in art, humanities, or the social sciences. Upper-level
undergraduates, who intend to pursue graduate study in a related field in
the future, are also welcome to apply.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

You are required to submit your application form by email. We will not
accept applications sent through the mail, unless you are instructed to do
so by the program administration office.

1.

Download and Complete Application Form

Application Form is available for download at: https://goo.gl/k7zlqQ

1.

Submit Application Form

Send your Application Form as a Word-formatted attachment to:
animatinglife2016.applications@gmail.com

IMPORTANT: Matters to be noted when you prepare the application form.

(1) General Matters:

Please note that the mailing address should be the one at which you
receive official documents from the school and any concerned ministries
and/or agencies. If you have a different mailing address when you are out
of town for a considerably long period, please indicate both addresses.

Your email address must be the one that you use regularly. You are
responsible for maintaining communication through this address.

Language level:

Please indicate your language level in English and Japanese. The Program
will be conducted mainly in English. However, we expect you to have
sufficient Japanese proficiency (especially listening) to facilitate
scholarly interaction and communication outside of the classroom.

(2)  Recommendation:

A recommendation letter is not required at the time of application.
However, you are required to confirm that the person you indicate in the
online application form will write a recommendation letter on your behalf;
confirm this with the person prior to submission. The person named in the
application may be contacted directly by us during the selection process.

(3) Resume/CV:

This should include description of any work experience, responsibilities,
projects, or publications relevant to the Program’s main theme. It should
also briefly explain any courses you have taken or will take as well as
prizes and awards that are relevant to the Program’s main theme. Include
your Resume/ CV directly in the Application Form.

(4) Cover Letter (500 Words):

Include your Cover Letter directly in the Application Form. Your Cover
Letter must be no longer than 500 words in English. Respond to the
following prompts:

1.

Briefly, and concretely, contextualize your research in relation to the
Program’s main theme. Explain the relevance of the concepts “animation” and
“life” to your research: how are you using these and related concepts for
your work, and how does your work contribute to a deeper understanding of
them?
2.

At the end of your cover letter, indicate one or two keywords/concepts
that most directly characterize your work, most deeply excite your
thinking. Just keyword(s)/concept(s), no explanation.

(5) Academic Record (transcript):

Academic transcripts are not required at the time of application. However,
when you are selected as a successful candidate, you must submit an
academic record from each university that you have attended for one full
academic year (two semesters, three quarters or trimesters) or more,
regardless of the number of credits received.

NOTE: Any discrepancy between the submitted materials by the applicant and
the official record received after the selection process may result in the
rejection of your application or withdrawal of our offer of admission.

For inquiry please contact: animatinglife2016.inquiry@gmail.com (do not
send applications to this address)

For more information please visit our website:

http://kadokawa.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/summer_program2016/