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13-14 APRIL 2018

0220 STEPHENS HALL, TOWNSEND CENTER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

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Rethinking Labor: Work and Livelihood in Japan

13-14 April 2018

University of California, Berkeley

The UC Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies presents its fifth annual graduate student conference: Rethinking Labor: Work and Livelihood in Japan. The conference will explore how historically situated configurations of “work,” “labor,” and “livelihood” operate in Japan ranging from the household to the transnational. We invite proposals for papers from current graduate students from all disciplines that use conceptions, manifestations, and representations of labor as a framework in the study of Japan across all historical periods.

Labor has and continues to be an important analytic in Japan Studies as it illuminates diverse phenomena such as macro-economic change, state-society relations, and industrial development, among other topics. Yet, drawing upon recent approaches in anthropology, sociology, and legal studies, we also seek to invoke the concepts of work and livelihood, which can emphasize subjectivity, sociality and the material conditions to sustaining life in ways that complement and complicate previous studies focusing on traditional concepts of labor. While we welcome papers focusing on labor configurations in Japan such as the salaryman, craftsman, guilds, and factory and day laborers, we also invite papers that reframe what constitutes “labor” by invoking “work” and “livelihood” as a means of addressing categories such as domestic structures, underemployment, volunteerism, care and unwaged labor, among other topics.

This year's keynote speaker is Anne Allison (Duke University), author of Precarious Japan (2013).

The Conference

LOCATION

Location

Geballe Room | 220 Stephens Hall
The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities

Stephens Hall is located in the central part of the campus near Sather Tower (the clock tower). It is a cream-colored stucco building with a large arched breezeway in its center.

From the south entrance at Telegraph Avenue, proceed across the plaza to Sather Gate and turn right, walking up the hill past Wheeler Hall and South Hall. Stephens Hall is on your right, directly south of the clock tower. Once you are in in the breezeway of Stephens Hall, take the door on the right, walk through the hallway, and exit to the terrace; walk across the terrace to the Center’s entrance.