The Asian Ethnology Podcast

In this episode of the Asian Ethnology Podcast, Ben Dorman speaks with Benjamin Huffman about the FIRE Program (First Year Innovation & Research Experience) and its efforts to encourage students to think critically and ethically about development, social change, and human flourishing from the very beginning of their university education. Huffman discusses how the program combines interdiscipli...

An unexpected discovery raises a larger question: how do scholarly books end up in AI training datasets? This episode looks at shadow libraries, academic publishing, and the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and scholarly knowledge. This episode reflects on publicly reported discussions about AI training datasets and scholarly publishing.

In this episode, Asian Ethnology co-editor and managing editor Ben Dorman discusses the journal's ongoing move to the Scholastica publishing platform and the broader commitment to open access and sustainability that drives it. Asian Ethnology has been publishing research on the peoples and cultures of Asia since 1942, first as Folklore Studies , then as Asian Folklore Studies , and now in its...

Interviewer: Ben Dorman, co-editor  Asian Ethnology Recorded 8 June 2017, Nagoya, Japan Peter Knecht was the editor of  Asian Folklore Studies  from 1980 until 2007. The journal changed its name to  Asian Ethnology  in 2008. In this extended interview, Peter discusses his experiences working as the editor of  Asian Folklore Studies . He talks about when he first encountered the journal working und...

Interviewer: Ben Dorman In this episode, John Powers (Deakin University) discusses an interdisciplinary project involving historians, anthropologists, scientists, and folklorists concerning rivers that originate in Tibet, which play a key role in global hydrological cycles yet are in crises as a result of multiple threats.  

Interviewer: Ben Dorman, co-editor  Asian Ethnology Recorded 11 March 2011 In this episode, anthropologist Susanne Klien discusses her recent book  Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-growth Society (SUNY Press, 2020). She touches on her motivations for doing the research, the reasons for migrants relocating to rural areas, and some of the challenges they face after...

Interviewer: Mark Bookman Recorded: Wednesday Feb 17th 2021 This episode features a discussion with Steven Fedorowicz, cultural anthropologist, visual anthropologist, and associate professor at Kansai Gaidai University. Steven will be giving a talk on "Representations of Deaf People in Japan: Inspiration, Outrage and Real Life," as part of the "Disability and Japan in the Digital Age S...

Interviewer: Mark Bookman Date recorded: 26 October 2020 This episode of Asian Ethnology Podcast features Frank Mondelli, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. Frank recently returned from research in Japan and is currently working on his doctoral dissertation on the social, technical, and political history of assistive technologies for deafness and hearing impairment in 20th century Japan....

Interviewer: Ben Dorman Date recorded: 3 November 2020 In this episode, Mark Bookman discusses a new series of lectures entitled "Disability and Japan in the Digital Age," which is run through the Anthropological Institute, Nanzan University. He talks about the significance of the series at this time. Mark will also be presenting interviews with the participants in Asian Ethnology Podcast...

In this episode Yoshiko Okuyama talks about her most recent monograph, Reframing Disability in Manga (University of Hawai'i Press, 2020). Okuyama explains that her work examines representations of disabled people in manga serialized throughout the 1990s and 2000s, focusing on portrayals of deaf, blind, paraplegic, and autistic individuals, as well as those with gender dysphoria. Bookman asks O...

In this episode anthropologist Andreas Riessland discusses his research on Japanese biker gangs ( bōsōzoku ) and a project involving Shugendō Buddhist and Shinto groups that ended in failure due to various struggles between the groups. He also discusses how he came to terms with the failure, and offers advice to researchers who confront "failure" in fieldwork.

Interviewer: Thomas David DuBois In this episode, we speak with China historians David Faure and He Xi of the Chinese University of Hong Kong about historical anthropology. Faure discusses the university's Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society AOE, and assesses what it accomplished in its eight-year run. He Xi explains how fieldwork shaped her perspective on China's boat communities a...

In this episode, Gopalan Ravindran, Professor and Head of Department of Journalism and Communication at the University of Madras, talks about media literacy in India in general, his initial interest in journalism and communication, and then discusses two specific initiatives related to media literacy and journalism among marginalized communities in Southern India.  

In this episode, we speak with Jin Feng, Professor of literature at Grinnell College, Iowa, and author of a new book on Chinese foodways. Jin discusses how the experience of leading a study trip to China and Russia helped shape her personal interest in food into a research program, how she expanded her circle of foodie friends into a professional network of chefs and restaurant entrepreneurs, and...

This episode features Mark Bookman, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting researcher at the university of Tokyo. Mark is completing his doctoral dissertation on the history of disability policy and related social movements in Japan. Mark discusses his personal challenges researching while using a wheelchair, changing research topics from Buddhism to disability in Ja...

This episode features historian Thomas David DuBois, who is currently Professor of Humanities at Beijing Normal University. Thomas discusses his original reasons for studying China, the application of historical anthropology in his work, his interest and work in Chinese food, the effect of the death of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain had on his thinking about human relations and food, and finally...

In this episode of Asian Ethnology Podcast, McComas Taylor, Associate Professor and Reader in Sanskrit at the Australian National University, discusses how his research lies at the intersection of contemporary critical theory and Sanskrit narrative texts. What makes these texts powerful? What makes them authoritative? What makes them worth copying out by hand century after century? In exploring th...

This Asian Ethnology Podcast episode features Roald Maliangkay of the Korea Institute at the ANU College of Asia & the Pacific. In this episode, Roald talks about  his interest in anti-Japanese folksongs in Korea during the colonial period as well as K-Pop and the contemporary scene. He discusses about his monograph, Broken Voices: Postcolonial Entanglements and the Preservation of Korea's...

This episode's guest is Tom Bauerle, the author of Kanashibari: True Encounters with the Paranormal in Japan . Although this is not an academic work, the author discusses the folkloric elements of ghost stories, in addition to presenting some of the content of his book. 

  Originally recorded as a video interview (Dec 5, 2019). In this conversation, Robert Campbell discusses the National Institute of Japanese Literature (NIJL), its vision for archiving and preserving Japan's literary heritage, and the institute's involvement in media and public outreach.    

Interviewer: Ben Dorman, co-editor Asian Ethnology Recorded 22 March 2018, Washington D.C.   This episode's guest is Guha Shankar, Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Asian Ethnology Editorial Board. Episode Summary   Intro :32 Association with Frank Korom, co-editor of Asian Ethnology 3:50 The story behind the film H...

Intro :35 Religion in contemporary Japan since the publication of Religion in Contemporary Japan (1991) 4:15 Lack of evidence concerning "new spirituality movements"; the importance of considering decline in popularity of religion 5:45 Revisiting Agonshū since the death of the founder; work with religious studies scholar Erica Baffelli 11:39 Transformation of Agonshū founder and leader Kir...

This episode's guests are Ian Reader, professor emeritus of The University of Manchester, and Erica Baffelli, senior lecturer in Japanese Studies who is also at The University of Manchester. Ian Reader's work on Aum Shinrikyō is widely known in Japan and overseas. Erica Baffelli is also well-known for her work on media and post-Aum religions (Aleph and Hikari no Wa) as well as work with fo...

This episode's guest is Erica Baffelli, senior lecturer in Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester. Erica's research interests include religion in contemporary Japan, new religions, religion and media, and religion, women and violence. She discusses her work interviewing members of Japanese new religions and the issues researchers face while producing research on these groups.    

In this second episode in the Editors' Interviews, Ben Dorman discusses his research interest in Japanese new religions and media, and his experiences working as the associate editor for Asian Folklore Studies and Asian Ethnology .