The University of California, Los Angeles, will be hosting the Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies (AJLS) in 2003. The conference will be held from November 21-23, 2003, at UCLA. In this conference presenters will analyze the nature of their daily critical endeavors, and will discuss issues related to the hermeneutical paths (past, present, and future) that have been, are, and will be guiding us in the discussion and interpretation of Japan’s literary texts. Papers should deal with hermeneutical practices relevant to the interpretation of Japan’s literary heritage. We solicit papers and panels related to the following topics: 1) methodologies relevant to the study of modern Japanese literature such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, new-historicism, feminism, deconstruction, cultural studies, film studies, etc; 2) methodologies relevant to the study of pre-modern Japanese literature such as the study of poetics (karon, hairon, rengaron, nohgakuron), commentaries (chûshakusho), and other rhetorical techniques; 3) hypotheses on future methodologies to be envisioned in light of the current digital revolution.

Proposals are due by June 30, 2003. E-mail submissions are preferred.

The Eleventh Annual AJLS Meeting, "Japanese Poeticity and Narrativity Revisited," was held October 4-6, 2002, at Purdue University. Four guests from Japan provided us with thought-provoking lectures and a moving poetry reading performance. Twenty-nine AJLS members presented their papers discussing a variety of aspects of poetical and narrative characteristics in Japanese literature. The conference was organized by Eiji Sekine and his student and staff members from Purdue University. The reception, held at the Sekine’s home, offered a good opportunity for the participants to interact with each other extensively. A stimulating and friendly ambiance of the conference, together with its successful organization, was highly appreciated by all participants and audience members.

An annual meeting is organized by an elected Conference Chair(s) and held at the host institution. A call for papers is announced in the spring issue of the AJLS Newsletter. A program of the meeting is published in the fall issue of the Newsletter.

All papers presented during the annual meeting can be included in an officially registered serial titled PAJLS (Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies).

The annual fee is $25.00 for regular, student, and institution members ($35.00 for overseas members outside North America). Membership for 2003-2004 provides you with:

• Panel participation for the 2003 meeting to be held at UCLA (if your proposal is selected).
• Two newsletters
• One copy of the proceedings of the year 2002 meeting to be published in Fall, 2003.
• One free copy of a back or additional current issue of the proceedings if you are a student member.

Our publication activities depend on your membership support. If you have not yet joined us, please do so this time. Inquiries and orders (with checks payable to AJLS) should be sent to: AJLS, Purdue University, 640 Oval Drive, W. Lafayette, IN 47907-2039, USA.

We are looking for people who will be willing to chair our 2004 and later conferences. If you are interested in hosting an AJLS meeting, please contact Professor Ann Sherif at: ann.sherif@oberlin.edu or 440.775.8827 (Tel).

For subscription, send a message, “subscribe jlit-l” to: majordomo@purdue.edu. After being confirmed, you can send your messages to: jlit-l@purdue.edu. If you have a new email address, delete your old address and add the new one so as to avoid receiving duplicated copies. When you privately respond to the sender of a message posted on the list, be careful not to send your message to all subscribers of the list. If you have questions or problems with the list, email to its owner at: esekine@purdue.edu.

Our apology for the delay of the publication of our 2001 conference proceedings, “Japan from Somewhere Else," PAJLS, vol.3. The volume is scheduled to be out in February, 2003. Its table of contents will be posted on our web site at: http://www.sla.purdue.edu/fll/AJLS.

Back issues of the proceedings are available. Each copy is $10.00 for AJLS members and $15.00 for non-members. Orders should be sent to the AJLS office. (Add $10 for mailing if you order from outside the North American area.)

Please email and let us know if you are interested in any of our out-of-print issues. We are considering reprinting some of our most popular issues.

• Poetics of Japanese Literature: vi + 207pp, 1993. Nine essays and addresses by Kawamoto Kôji and Watanabe Kenji.

• Desire for Monogatari: vi + 133 pp, 1994. Eleven essays and an address by Mizuta Noriko. [out of print]

• Japanese Theatricality and Performance, PMAJLS, vol. 1: v + 218 pp, 1995. Eleven essays and address by Donald Richie. [out of print]

• Revisionism in Japanese Literary Studies, PMAJLS, vol. 2: vi + 336pp, 1996. Ten essays and addresses by Earl Miner and Takahashi Tôru.

• Ga/Zoku Dynamics in Japanese Literature, PMAJLS, vol. 3: vii + 458 pp, 1997. Nineteen essays and addresses by Ueno Chizuko, Watanabe Kenji, Ibi Takashi, and Kigoshi Osamu. [out of print]

• The New Historicism and Japanese Literary Studies, PMAJLS, vol. 4: xxiii + 432 pp, 1998. Twenty-four essays and addresses by Karatani Kôjin and Komori Yôichi, with an introduction by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen.

• Love and Sexuality in Japanese Literature, PMAJLS, vol.5: vi + 352 pp, 1999. Twenty-seven essays and addresses by Saeki Junko and Inaga Shigemi.

• Issues of Canonicity and Canon Formation in Japanese Literary Studies, PAJLS, vol. 1: vi + 532 pp, 2000. Thirty-one essays and addresses by Kubota Jun, Takahashi Mutsuo, and Suzuki Sadami.

• Acts of Writing, PAJLS, vol. 2: ix + 428 pp, 2001. Twenty-two essays and addresses by Zdenka Avarcova and Ohsawa Yoshihiro.