Ku Anthropologist
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Volume 20 Page 1 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS KU ANTHROPOLOGIST VOLUME 21 FALL 2008 Geisha Guys: IN THIS VOLUME Affect Economy in Tokyo’s Host Clubs EDITOR’S NOTE 2 by Akiko Takeyama clubs, fantasy spaces spend hundreds—and in where mostly young work- some cases thousands—of LABORATORY 3 ing-class men facilitate dollars per nightly visit. OF BIOLOGICAL On September 26 a group of Japanese womens‘ roman- While piles of cash are ex- ANTHROPOLOGY graduate students, faculty tic and erotic fantasies. I changed in the club, a host FACULTY NEWS 4 members, family, and friends started with a video clip is filmed surreptitiously attended a special potluck from a Japanese TV docu- ―dating‖ clients at an Italian GLOBAL INDIGENOUS 5 NATIONS STUDIES dinner and discussion at my mentary on host clubs, restaurant. This 26-year-old home. It was wonderful to which showcased the ex ―number-one‖ host EXPLORING ARCHAEOLOGY 5 have such a diverse group of flashy looks and lifestyles brings in one client after AT KU AND BEYOND people come together from of some of Tokyo‘s so- another to the same restau- ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY: A 6 different sub-disciplines and called ―top-ranking‖ hosts rant, where he sits down at CONVERSATION WITH outside the department. A big and their extravagantly the same exact table and FELIX MOOS surprise was just how talented decorated workplaces. orders the same exact dish SUMMER ARCHAEOLOGICAL 7 some of our anthropologists each time. This mechanical, FIELD SCHOOL are in the kitchen. The food In the luxuriously yet affective dating— decorated club, a fruit plate THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL 8 was excellent. I‘m looking smoothed over with the RESEARCH CENTER costs about 100 US dollars forward to another dinner and host‘s witty conversation GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS 10 discussion like this. and a bottle of champagne and seductive masculine $1,000. Hosts are shown BOOK REVIEWS 14 I presented my cur- drinking up the bottles like RECENT GRADUATES 15 rent project on Japan‘s host fish. Their female clients (continued on page 2) Professor John Hoopes Receives Kemper Fellowship Hieroglyphic text from the year twenty professors tion for critical thinking and Indigenous Nations Studies ancient Maya city of Tikal throughout the University the value of hard work. I'm Program at the University tells of an ‗arrival of strang- received awards. very cognizant of the his- of Kansas. Congratulations! tory of knowledge and try ers,‘ and so it seemed befit- When asked to discuss to help students appreciate ting that during John Hoopes‘ how he imparts his anthro- that, although they can ancient Maya class last Au- pological knowledge to the never step into the same gust, there too was an ‘arrival KU community, Professor stream twice, its always of strangers‘. While there Hoopes stated, ―Teaching worth a splash.‖ was no tribute made in the for me is all about exciting form of jade or exotic feath- students' imagination and Hoopes has been on the ers, Hoopes was awarded the encouraging a desire for faculty since 1989 and has Kemper Fellowship for learning while at the same also taken on the role of Prof. Hoopes is presented with the Kemper Fellowship, August 2008. Teaching Excellence. This time instilling an apprecia- Director for the Global Page 2 Editor’s Note by Anne Egitto You start working on the newsletter in comment on anthropological issues. August and before you know it, it is Other new items include This year has brought about some December! However, as anthropolo- book reviews, a peer-reviewed exciting changes to the KU Anthro- gists, we have a lot to say. Therefore, graduate paper award—winning pa- pologist. In previous years, back be- we have returned to printing the news- pers will be printed in the Spring fore many of us graduate students letter bi-annually. newsletter—and an anthropologi- were here, the KU Anthropologist cally themed cartoon. We hope you was published twice a year. In re- In addition to the usual gradu- enjoy the new look and the changes cent years this has not been the case ate and faculty updates, this newsletter in content. Lastly, thank you—this and I can certainly understand why. also features a new column titled newsletter could not have been com- Being only 16 pages long, the KU ―Anthropology Today‖ in which differ- pleted without your submissions. Anthropologist has this knack for ent faculty members will be interviewed consuming large quantities of time. and have the opportunity to discuss and in their interviews with me. In these bursting of the country‘s ―bubble (continued from page 1) interviews, I as a researcher became a economy‖ in the early 1990s has in- feminine audience who feigned to ap- creasingly promoted entrepreneurial image—brings his clients back to the preciate hosts‘ masculine display. In my creativity, self-responsibility, and club repeatedly. interviews with female clients, I be- flexible labor. Consequently, hosting The video clip inspired a lot came like a friend of theirs, but I later has become an employment opportu- of laughs but also brought forth learned that they were friendly and co- nity for working-class men who do many methodological and theoretical operative not because they understood not fit into Japan‘s corporate system questions. Some in the audience and supported my research, but because and dream of instant wealth to effect were interested to know how I was they wanted to learn about what went their upward class mobility. At this able to conduct my research at such on backstage at the host club and also juncture of postindustrial consumer- an expensive establishment and also impress their hosts by handling their ism and neoliberal capitalism, com- if I did participant observation. Oth- interviews well. Thus, my interviewees modification of the male body, sexu- ers wanted to know how I was had their own agendas and, ality, and romantic relationships treated by hosts and female patrons. I accordingly, my positionality as a re- have become imaginable and even discussed my direct—and rather bold searcher shifted constantly from one idealized as a means to ―free‖ indi- for Japan—approach of contacting context to next. viduals from conventionally hege- monic middle-class conventions such the club owner and personally asking One question from the audience as corporate masculinity and self- for his permission to study the club. I sought to clarify how the host club phe- devoting femininity in Japan‘s mar- also addressed my ambivalent posi- nomenon fits in Japan‘s socioeconomic riage and family system. Thus, the tionality because of my insider and history, particularly its corporate- host club, which is still a subculture outsider status as a Japanese female centered social structure. I situate the and rarely represents the lives and researcher. My gender, age, and cul- host club at the nexus of Japan‘s neolib- experiences of most Japanese, none- tural capital impacted my relation- eral reformation and postindustrial con- theless epitomizes Japan‘s sociohis- ships with the hosts and the women I sumerism, where people consume not torical transformations in corporate met and interviewed. Hosts tended to only material objects but also signs, and family system, gender relations, be paternalistic and emphasized their images, and symbolic meanings. Ja- entrepreneurial masculine identities pan‘s neoliberal restructuring since the and labor and commodity forms. Volume 21 Page 3 Laboratory of Biological Anthropology by Great Plains Diabetes Institute, Biology 20(6): 726-731. Dr. Michael Crawford KUMC) have applied for a pilot study Dr. Maged el-Zein, M.D. and doc- of LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes Research Programs toral candidate from Alexandria, in adults) in KUMC patients. CONY- Egypt has successfully completed his We are continuing several research CET of Mexico has awarded a post comprehensive examinations in the programs: (1) Genetic Susceptibility doctoral fellowship to Dr. Alvaro Diaz Genetics Program and is currently to Tuberculosis in Juarez and Chihua- -Badillo to map genes associated with writing his dissertation. hua populations of Mexico. Two pilot LADA. He is also a candidate for a 2- projects have been funded: one grant year Pew fellowship for research was awarded to Dr. Ravi Duggirala by within the LBA. a foundation associated with the Anne Justice has successfully com- Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Congratulations to Graduate pleted her MA thesis on the Anthro- Research; and one to Tom Weaver by Students from the LBA: pometric Variation in Aleut and Es- kimo Populations of the Pribilof Is- University of Arizona, entitled: ―A Bi Mark Zlojutro successfully defended lands and St. Lawrence, Island. She -national Assessment of the Disease his dissertation (Genetic Structure of was hooded at the MA ceremony this Burden of Tuberculosis in Mexican Eastern Aleutian Populations) on Sep- past May 2008. Indigenous Migrant Communities in tember 10th. He received an Honor‘s Sonora and Arizona.‖ Consortium pass and immediately began a 3-year member, Dr. Weaver, will be receiv- post-doctoral fellowship in the Depart- Dr. Rohina Rubicz and her family ing the Malinowski Award at the ment of Genetics at the Southwest forthcoming Society for Applied An- returned to Lawrence for the doctoral Foundation for Biomedical Research, hooding ceremony at the University thropology annual meeting. A 5-year San Antonio. His research on the ge- of Kansas Graduation. research joint US-Mexican grant pro- netics of schizophrenia is being super- posal on TB susceptibility is being vised by Dr. Laura Almasy. submitted through the SFBR by the Jay Sarthy, Self Fellow in the LBA, International Consortium for the is completing his Ph.D. dissertation Study of Tuberculosis to NIH in Janu- Phil Melton defended his dissertation on telomeric attrition and aging. He ary, 2009.