News and Events
April 15, 2021
4:00pm (Eastern Time)
Online via Zoom
In the last decade, technological advancements have enabled a boom in the use of computer assisted language learning (CALL) for Japanese language learning. Recent research (Zimmerman and McMeekin, 2019) shows how new directions are breaking ground, moving beyond the drill-based Japanese CALL: A review, a critique, and suggestions for future directions with Dr. Abigail McMeekin behaviorist/structural approach of previous decades into areas of inquiry that focus on more integrative and even ecological approaches to technology use. This talk reviews major findings on the effects of CALL on learning, teaching, and acquisition of the Japanese language, identifies gaps in the research and discusses specific observations/suggestions for the direction of future Japanese CALL research.
To join us, please click on the link here: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91533690028
Abigail McMeekin is an Associate Professor of Japanese and head of the Japanese program in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Lethbridge. Her research focuses on Japanese pedagogy and second language acquisition, study abroad, computer-assisted language learning, conversational analysis, and intercultural communication. Use of technology in and out of the classroom is a current focus of her research. She received an MA in Japanese pedagogy from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Japanese language and linguistics from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
April 23, 2021 starting at 7:30 am
Online via Zoom
Register Below
Join the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures in the annual REALL DEALL Undergraduate Research Conference!
The conference will feature a keynote speech by Dr. Cuilan Liu, Department of Religious Studies, as well as presentations by EALL Capstone students.
Tune in for the award ceremony that will honor the best presentation and best poster from the conference.
To register, please click on the link here: https://pitt.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJclcemrqD4jGNXe7ndgmXw3rJqKSXN6uN_A
Thursday, April 29, 2021
6:00pm - 8:00pm (Eastern Time)
Online via Zoom, Registation Below
The Japanese art of flower arrangement has its origins in the formal offering arrangements used in the altars of Buddhist temples, but became more prominent in daily life with the development of the architectural feature tokonoma, or alcove. Join us for a presentation on the relationship of ikebana to the practice of tea as well as to daily life from the 1600s to today. We will look at how ikebana was part of an expansion of artisan products and landscape design in the last four centuries, and how that has carried through to today’s use of flower arrangements in Japan. Some attention will also be given to the balance between control and lack of control in ikebana, for much like the art of landscape design, there is a interaction between the designer and the natural features of the plants and environment in these types of arts.
Following the lecture, we will be showing the short film Ikebana, a multifaceted perspective as both a documentary cataloging Ikebana and as an experimental art piece that images Ikebana’s abstract art concepts as cinema. Directed by master practitioner (and son of the founder of the Sogetsu school of Ikebana) Hiroshi Teshigahara, the film maps the role of Ikebana in modern, post-war Japan. The film uses different cinematic traditions, including animation and abstraction, to play with tradition and modernism, concepts which drove Japanese art in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Following the film, attendees will have the opportunity to observe an artist demonstration and Q&A with local Pittsburgh Sogetsu instructor Reiko Nakajima.
Dr. Jordan is the Director of the University of Pittsburgh national coordinating site for the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA) and the Japan Studies Coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies Center. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Kansas specializing in 19th Century Japanese art history. Dr. Jordan specializes in the history of Japanese art, particularly the paintings and woodblock prints of the 19th century.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania and the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
To register, please visit: https://www.japansocietypa.org/event-4098023