Complete Timeline of CJS Lectures

Past Lectures & Events

Winter 2025

February 27: Glynne Walley (University of Oregon)
“His Sword Bore Well Its Name: (S)wordplay and Manhood in Eight Dogs”

February 11: Louise Young (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
“The Prewar Origins of Japan’s Middle-Class Myth”

January 30: Carol Gluck (Professor Emerita, Columbia University)
“Meiji Japan: Becoming Modern, Making History”

Fall 2024

Japanese Language Learning Today Lecture Series

November 7: Koji Tanno (University of Kentucky)
“Katakana Words: Tracing the Journey of Words into the Japanese Language”

October 17: Haruko Minegishi Cook (University of Hawai’i)
“Going from Student to Company Worker:  The New-Employee Orientations of Japanese Companies”

October 10: Takako Aikawa (MIT)
“Navigating the AI Tsunami: AI's Impact on Japanese Language Learning”

Spring 2024

June 14: PSU Students Perform Kyogen
"Trickery, Laughter, & Love"

Kanpai Japan II Food and Culture Series
May 30: Katarzyna Cwiertka (Leiden University)
“The Jumble of the Senses: Constructing Taste in Contemporary Japan”

May 16: Marcus Pakiser(Saké Samurai, Director, & Sommelier)
“What Makes Saké So Cool?”

May 2: Satomi Fukutomi (Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey)
“Ramen Noodles and Onigiri: Mundane Japanese Foods that Comfort You”

April 11: Ulrike Schaede (UC San Diego)
“Business Reinvention of Japan”

Winter 2024

February 8: Takatoshi Ito (Columbia University)
“Cheap Japan: Monetary Policy, Exchange Rate Policy and Productivity”

January 25: Mark Metzler (University of Washington)
“Capitalism, Endless Growth, and Japan”

January 16: William Grimes (Boston University)
“Cooperating in Tense Times: Buttressing East Asian Financial Cooperation”

Winter 2024 Lecture series

Spring 2023

May 25-28: PSU Students Perform Kabuki
“The Adventures of High Priest Kȏchi”

May 16: Laurence Kominz (Professor Emeritus, Portland State University)

“The Remarkable Story of Japan’s Lost Bunraku Masterpiece: The Adventures of High Priest Kȏchi & Its Return to the Stage”

May 4: Koichi Nakano (Sophia University)
“Why Is Japan’s Contemporary Far Right Invisible to the West?”

April 20: Levi McLaughlin (North Carolina State University)
“Religion in Japan after the Abe Assassination: Activism in a Tumultuous Age”

Fall 2022

Kanpai Japan: Japanese Food Culture Series

November 2: Naoki Kuze (President & CEO of St. Cousair, Inc.)
“The St. Cousair Story”

October 25: Kenji Kano (President & CEO of Hakutsuru Saké)
“Understanding and Enjoying Saké”

October 12: Marc Matsumoto (NHK World Presenter & Food Blogger)
“Bento: The Art of the Meal”

Spring 2022

May 25-28: PSU Students Perform Kabuki
“The Sardine Seller’s Net of Love” A Kabuki Play by Yukio Mishima

May 10: Laurence Kominz (Professor Emeritus, Portland State University)
“Yet another Mishima Identity: Kabuki Playwright Extraordinaire”

April 27: Andrew Bernstein (Lewis & Clark College)
“Fuji: The Making of a Global Mountain”

Photo by Dale Peterson of "Sardine Seller" Performance, 2022.

(Photo by Dale Peterson, from performance of "Sardine Seller's Net of Love," 2022. )

Winter 2022

March 1: Doug Etzel (served as President of the Asia region for leading software companies including Vignette, Netezza, & Veeva Systems), Gabe Rosen (Proprietor, Biwa Restaurant), & Aimee Zink (Screenwriter, actor, & Japanese translator)
“Alumni Stories: Career Forum”

February 17: Lon Kurashige (University of Southern California)
“Two Faces of Wartime Confinement: Racism and Blind Spots in Japanese American History”

February 8: Jon Holt (Portland State University)
“Homelessness and Artistry in Japan: Azuma Hideo’s ‘Disappearance Diary’ Manga”

January 27: Alisa Freedman (University of Oregon)
“Naomi Osaka: Defining the Activist Athlete in Twenty-First Century Japan”

January 12: Kristin Roebuck (Cornell University)
“‘Mixed-Blood’ Children as Hope and Horror: Racial Nationalism from World War to Cold War in Japan”

Fall 2021

November 30: Jeff Kingston (Co-opted and Compliant Media in Japan: NHK)
“Co-opted and Compliant Media in Japan: NHK”

November 10: Yu Miyaji (Staff Writer, Asahi Shimbun)
“Media and Misinformation in Japan”

October 27: John Cheney (President and CEO, Fujimi Co.)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, and Japan in Business
“The Fujimi Story”

October 7: Bill Emmott (Author and Former Editor of The Economist Magazine)
“Digital disruption, political pressure and new opportunities: the future of mass media and its impact on Japan”

The rest of the timeline is still under construction, but please feel free to browse.
 

Spring 2021

May 18: Laurence Kominz (Professor Emeritus, Portland State University)
“Hilarity Unleashed: Japan's Ever-popular Stage Comedy - Kyogen”

April 28: Amanda Imasaka, Matthew Shores, & Joshua Hunt (PSU Graduates)
“Making a Career after Japanese Studies at PSU”

April 7: Ken Endo (Hokkaido University)
“Japan in the Age of Fraying International Order”

 

Winter 2021

Remembering the Works of Mishima, 50 Years Out Series
March 9: Miyamoto Amon (Tokyo-based Director), David Kaplan (New York-based Director), & Jerry Mouawad (Portland-based Director)
Round Table #3: "Directing Plays by Mishima: Appeal, Challenges and Rewards"

February 25: Patrick Terry (Portland State University)
“Sun and Celluloid: The Films of Yukio Mishima”

February 11: Tomomi Yamaguchi (Montana State University) & Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
Roundtable #2: “Yukio Mishima and the Far Right in Postwar Japan”

February 4: Nathaniel Bond (University of Wisconsin) & Sam Bett (Independent translator)
Roundtable #1: "Mishima's Popular Literature- Travesty and Entertainment" (Issues in Publication, Reception, and Translation)

January 26: Susan Napier (Tufts University)
“Mishima Yukio: Performance Artist?”

Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
December 1: Bob Lewis (President and Co-Owner, Columbia Vista Corporation)
“How Can you Afford to Do Those Things?”

 

Fall 2020

November 17: David Janes and Mary Collins (OIST)
“The OIST Experiment:  Building a World Class Science and Technology University in Okinawa”

Race, Citizenship, and Inclusion (or Exclusion) Fall 2020 Lectures Series

November 5: Glenda Roberts (Waseda University)
“Demographic Decline, Population Aging, and Immigration in Japan:  Changes in Store for the Ethno-nation?”

October 20: Tessa Morris-Suzuki (Australian National University)
“Citizenship in Japan: From “Closed Country” to “Unity in Diversity””

October 6: Scott Kurashige (Texas Christian University)
“Japanese Americans in Postwar Portland”

 

Summer 2020

July 7: Robert Hegwood (Independent scholar of Japanese and Japanese American history, with a PhD in Modern Japanese History at the University of Pennsylvania)
“Barriers to Re-entry: the Racial Exclusion of Japanese-American in Postwar Portland”

 

Spring 2020

May 7: Laurence Kominz (Professor Emeritus, Portland State University)
“Yukio Mishima's Remarkable Kabuki Plays”

 

Winter 2020

February 25: Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“The Future of Japan: The Imperial House as a Window into Changing Definitions of What it Means to be Japanese”

February 6: Carol Gluck (Professor Emerita, Columbia University)
“Postwar Japan:  A Pre-Postmortem”

 

Fall 2019

November 21: Richard Samuels (MIT)
“Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community”

October 29: Aiko Doden (NHK World)
“Reinventing Japan: The Way Forward through Women’s Empowerment”

October 10: Haruo Shirane (Columbia University)
“Demons and Vengeful Ghosts in Japanese Culture”

 

Spring 2019

May 9: Betty Izumi (Portland State University)
3rd Installment in the Kikkoman Japanese Food Culture Lecture Series
“Shokuiku: Japan’s Radically Holistic Approach to School Lunch (That Kids Love!)”

April 25: Noriko Tsuya (Keio University)
“Japan’s Low Fertility: Patterns, Factors, and Policy Responses”

April 10: Park Young-June (Korea National Defence University)
“A Korean Perspective on Japan's Changing Security Policy”

 

Winter 2019

March 5: Katsutoshi Takami (Professor Emeritus Sophia University)
“The History of Article 9 (the no-war clause) of the Postwar Constitution of Japan: Its Establishment, Evolution, and Hollowing Out”

February 12: Helen Hardacre (Harvard University)
“The History of Religious Freedom and Separation of Religion from State Under the Constitution of Japan”

January 29: Koichi Yokota (Professor Emeritus Kyushu University)
“Constitutional Amendments for the Future”

 

Fall 2018

November 1: Bin Sugawara (Poet)
“What if Poems were Water?”

October 22: Joshua Hunt (Author, Journalist, and PSU Japanese Studies Alumnus)
Special Book Signing Event
“University of Nike: How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education”

October 11: Ryutaro Nakagawa (Director of Summer Blooms, August in Tokyo, Tokyo Sunrise)
“Japanese Films in the Modern Era”

October 4: Leo Kominz (Founder of THYNK and CEO of Blank Inc.)
“Surviving the Creative Industry in Japan”

 

Spring 2018

June 7: PSU Student Japanese Theater Performance
Kyôgen! Dance! Drums!

May 22: Professor Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“The Abdication of Japan’s Emperor Akihito in Historical Perspective”

May 1: James Farrer (Sophia University)

Kikkoman Japanese Food Culture Lecture Series
“Tucking Inn: Small Culinary Spaces in Tokyo”

April 20: Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“Japanese tourism to Nanjing, Mukden, and Qufu from 1938 to 1943”

Winter 2018

March 8: Yamato Watanabe (Denstu Ventures)
Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Japan Series
“Redefining Creativity: Reinventing Advertising Agency Business”

February 15: Mayuko Yamaura (Co-Founder of Edison.AI)
Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Japan Series & Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“What It Takes To Be a Global Entrepreneur: A Perspective From Japan”

January 30: Danny Kim (Portland State University)
“Colonial Korea’s Short Haired Rebels: Actresses, Cross-dressers, Gisaeng, and the Refashioning of Femininity in 1920s Korea”

January 25: Joshua Fogel (York University)
“A Friend in Deed: Lu Xun and Uchimura Kanzo in Shanghai, 1927-1936”

January 16: Hajime Kuwayama (Co-founder and Founding CEO of Emotion Intelligence, Inc.)
Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Japan Series & Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“Contemporary Startup Scene in Tokyo”

 

Fall 2017

November 30: Junichi Isomae (International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto)
“Hear the Voices of the Dead? Religious Experiences and the Northwest Japan Disaster”

November 1: Tim Boyle (President and CEO of Columbia Sportswear)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“How Japan Saved Columbia Sportswear”

October 13: Matthew Canepa
Art and Archaeology of the Silk Road Series (The Center for Japanese Studies Co-Sponsored)
"The Lord of the Seven Climes: Iran at the Center of Eurasian Exchange."

October 12: Annette Juliano
Art and Archaeology of the Silk Road Series (The Center for Japanese Studies Co-Sponsored)
"The 'Iconic' Silk Road: Asset and Liability."

October 11: Daniel C. Waugh
Art and Archaeology of the Silk Road Series (The Center for Japanese Studies Co-Sponsored)
"Searching for the 'Silk Road': How will We Know that We have Found it?"

 

Spring 2017

May 30 - June 1: PSU Student Japanese Theater Performance
“Kabuki, Dance, Drums: The Castle Tower & The Puppeteer”

May 24: Cody Poulton (University of Victoria)
“Izumi Kyōka’s Castle Tower: Love, War, and Spirits of Another Sort”

May 9: Katarzyna Cwiertka (Leiden University)
“Washoku and Japanese Culinary Nationalism”

April 20: Eiichiro Azuma (University of Pennsylvania)
“A Japanese American Origin of Japanese Studies in the United States: Intersections of Minority Ethnic Politics and State-sponsored Academic Propaganda”

April 6: Nobuto Hosaka (Setagaya-ku Mayor)
“Issues Faced by a Mayor in Japan”

 

Winter 2017

March 2: Carol Gluck (Professor Emerita, Columbia University)
“What the World Owes the Comfort Women”

February 9: Brett L. Walker (Montana State University)
“Natural and Unnatural Disasters: 3/11, Asbestos, and the Unmaking of Japan's Modern World”

January 19: Cheol Hee Park (Seoul University)
“Korea-Japan Relations in an Era of Power Transition in East Asia”

 

Fall 2016

November 29: Nissim Otmazgin (University of Jerusalem)
“Hello Kitty to Cool Japan: The Political Economy of Japanese Popular Culture in Asia”

November 15: John Junkerman (Tokyo-based Filmmaker)
“Screening of the documentary film Okinawa: The Afterburn followed by a discussion with the film’s director”

October 20: Laurence Kominz (Portland State University)
“How the Danjuros Created Kabuki Super-heroes—from Humiliation to Innovation”

October 6: Chari Pradel (Cal Poly Pomona)
“The Tenjukoku Shūchō  Mandara within the East Asian Context”
 

Spring 2016

May 17: Andrew Gordon (Harvard University)
“Toward a Social History of Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’”

April 28: Hideaki Shibata (Hokkaido University)
“Protecting Welfare in Japan—Keeping Article 25 Alive”

April 7: Yoshiaki Shimizu (Professor Emeritus, Princeton University)
“Two Painterly Responses to Nuclear Weapons Over the Pacific, 1945-1954”

March 7:  Dr. Donald Keene (Professor Emeritus Columbia University) and Tsuruzawa Asazo
“A Journey through Sin, Redemption, Miracles and High Adventure:  The Tale of the High Priest Kõchi.”  This was a combined lecture/ performance of a recently rediscovered proto-bunraku play text.

 

Winter 2016

February 25 – March 6: English Kabuki at PSU: The Revenge of the 47 Loyal Samurai:  A total of eight kabuki performances

February 19:  Linda C. Ehrlich (Case-Western University)
“A Century of the ‘Revenge of the 47 Loyal Samurai’ on Film:  From the Silent Screen to Keanu Reeves”

February 4: Maribeth Graybill (Curator, Portland Art Museum)
“The 47 Loyal Samurai in Ukiyo-e Prints”

January 21: David Atherton (University of Colorado)
“The Art of Vengeance in Early Modern Japan: Realities and Imagination”

 

Fall 2015

November 5: General Eiji Kimizuka (Chief of Japan’s Land Defense Forces at the time of the triple disaster)
“Operation Tomodachi: The Cooperation Between Japan’s Self Defense Forces and the U.S. Military in the aftermath of the 11 March 2011 Triple Disaster (Earthquake/Tsunami/Fukushima Nuclear Plant Meltdown)”

October 29: Hiroshi Komiyama (President Emeritus, University of Tokyo)
“Beyond the limits to Growth--New ideas for Sustainability from Japan”

October 13: Mort Bishop III (Pendleton Woolen Mills)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The Story of Pendleton Woolen Mills in Japan”
 

Spring 2015

June 3:  Fourth Annual PSU Student Japanese Theater Performance
Drama! Dance! Drums!

May 21: Jay Rubin (Professor Emeritus, Harvard University)
"How Not to Write a Book on Murakami Haruki”

May 1: Ryuhei Kawada (House of Councillors, Parliament of Japan)
“The Truth About Japan’s HIV-Blood Scandal”

April 16: Sheldon Garon (Princeton University)
“The Transnational Destruction of Cities: What Japan and the U.S. Learned from the Bombing of Britain and Germany in World War II”
 

Winter 2015

February 26: Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“Master Narratives of Modern Korean History Told in Museums in Korea”

February 12: Hikari Hori (Columbia University)
“Momotaro’s Wars: Images of Disasters and Transnational Cinema in Japan”

January 15: Jeffrey Alexander (University of Wisconsin)
“Brewed in Japan: Beer and the Entrepreneurial Spirit in Japan”

 

Fall 2014

November 18: Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“Memory Wars in East Asia I: Pluralistic Memories in Japan”

October 29: Jim King (Japanese Art Proprietor)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The Making of Shogun’s Gallery”

October 8: Kunitoshi Kineya (Kabuki Artist)
“One-Man Kabuki Storyteller”

 

Spring 2014

June 6: Third Annual PSU Student Japanese Theater Performance
Drama! Dance! Drums!

April 24: John Breen (University of London and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies)
“Tales of Ise: The shrines, their priests and patrons in post war Japan”

April 8: Cemil Aydin (University of North Carolina)
“Understanding Muslim Admirers of Japan’s Shinto Emperor: Entangled Histories of the Middle East and East Asia in the Age of Modern Empires, 1839-1919”

 

Winter 2014

February 13: Mark Frandsen (New Seasons Foods Inc.)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“How Japanese Corn Soup Transformed an Oregon Food Processor”

January 30: Carol Gluck (Professor Emerita, Columbia University)
“Modernity in Common: Japan and World History”

January 12: Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“What became of the Samurai in Modern Japan?”

 

Fall 2013

November 20:  Presentation and Discussion PSU Faculty featuring Professors Kominz, Suwako Watanabe, Patricia Wetzel, Emiko Konomi, and Jon Holt
“What Makes PSU's Japanese Language Program among the Best in the World?”

November 8: Richard Samuels (MIT)
“3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan”

November 7: Debra Samuels (Japanese Food Writer and Stylist)
“Japanese Culture in a Box”

October 23: Shawn Bender (Dickinson College)
“Taiko Boom!”

October 11: Toshimitsu Shigemura (Waseda University)
“A Japanese Perspective on North Korea”


Spring 2013

June 6: Second Annual PSU Student Japanese Theater Performance
Drama! Dance! Drums!

May 7: Gabe Rosen (Proprietor, Biwa Restaurant)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The Biwa Story: Establishing and Managing a Japanese-style Pub in Portland”

April 29: Leith Morton (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
“Fascism and Modernism in Maekawa Samio’s Tanka”

 

Winter 2013

February 28: Naoko Shibusawa (Brown University)
“America’s Geisha Ally”

February 5 – March 19: Loomis and Linda Tamura
Coming Home (Oregon Nikkei Endowment)”

January 17: Sho Dozono (Azumano Travel)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The “From Oregon with Love” Story”

 

Fall 2012

November 15: Hiro Ito (Portland State University)
“What Lies Behind the Territorial Disputes between China and Japan?”

October 18: Brant Reiter (Fuji Television)
“The Global Outreach of Japanese Popular Culture: The Influence of “Iron Chef” on American TV Programming”

October 4: Haruo Shirane (Columbia University)
"Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts”

 

Spring 2012

May 16-21:  Donald Keene will be a guest of the Center for Japanese Studies
Multiple lectures and other events

April ?: Beate Sirota Gorden

April 13: Yuzaburo Mogi (CEO of Kikkoman)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“Kikkoman’s Global Business”

 

Winter 2012

February 28: Greg Robinson (University of Quebec at Montreal)
“Japanese Redress in North America and its Larger Legacy."

February 16: David Adler (University of Idaho)
“National Security and Civil Liberties in Wartime: The Internment of Japanese Americans.”

January 26: Davinder Bhowmilk (University of Washington)
“The Spirit of 1968 and 1969 in the Basetown Literature of Ikezawa Natsuki and Murakami Ryuu”

January 18: Ayşe Selçuk Esenbel (Bogaziçi University)
“Japan’s Global Claim to Islam: Transnational Nationalism & World Power 1900-1945”

 

Fall 2011

November 29: Patricia Wetzel (Portland State University)
“It’s Not About You: Language Clutter on the Japanese Landscape”

November 3: Haruo Kurata (Former Corporate Vice President at Ajinomoto Co. Inc.)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The Case of Ajinomoto”

November 2: Ken Belson (The New York Times)
“Fukushima – What Lies Ahead”

October 13: Mika Tsutsumi
"Why my book 'Poverty Superpower America' Sold 500,000 Copies in Japan."  

October 4: Woon Do Choi (Northeast Asian History Foundation, Seoul)
What Would It Taker for Korea to Forgive Japan for the Past?”

 

Spring 2011

April 14: Ms. Mika Tsutsumi (Journalist and Author)
“Poverty Superpower: The United States”

May 12: Dr. Richard Samuels (MIT)
“Japan-China-U.S. Relations”


 

Winter 2011

January 12: Dr. Brian Hayashi (Kyoto University)
“Asian-Americans in the American Spy Service in Asia”

January 31: Doug Smith (Port of Portland)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The Inspector Story”

February 8: Dr. Yoshio Kayano (Meisei University)
“Restoring Ainu Culture, Identity, and Community in Greater Tokyo”

February 25: Dr. Ken Ruoff (Portland State University)
“Imperial Japan at Its Zenith”

 

Fall 2010

October 14: Dr. Gavan McCormack (Australian National University)
“The US-Japan Alliance at 50 and the Question of Okinawa”

October 26: Mr. Junki Yoshida (Founder of Yoshida Foods, International, LLC)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The American Dreamer” (in Japanese)

October 28: Mr. Junki Yoshida (Founder of Yoshida Foods International, LLC)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
“The American Dreamer” (in English)

November 4: Dr. Yoshiharu Tsuboi (Waseda University)
“Intensifying the Japan-Vietnam Relationship”

 

Spring 2009

April 17: Donald Keene (Professor Emeritus, Columbia University)
“Behind the Scenes with Mishima Yukio; A Conversation with Donald Keene”

April 16: Donald Keene (Professor Emeritus, Columbia University)
“World War II and Japanese Writers: A Journey through their Diaries”

April 3: Natsu Nakajima
“A Woman’s Path in Butoh”

 

Winter 2009

January 20: Maribeth Graybill (Curator of Asian Art at the Portland Art Museum)
Led a Walk-through Tour of Reingold Collection

January 15: Donald Jenkins (Emeritus Curator of Asian Art at the Portland Art Museum)
“The Appeal of Postwar Japanese Prints: Form and Imagination”

January 13: Ed and Ellen Reingold (Collection Owners)
Led a Walk-through Tour of their Collection in the Littman Gallery

January 8: Norman Tolman
“The World of Postwar Japanese Prints”

 

Fall 2008

December 4: Hitsujiya Shirotama
“Using Just the Human Body”

November 17: Nishiura Kihachiro (a Kôdô master from Japan)
"Japanese calligraphy: From Genji to Today"

November 3: Katsura Kan
"Post-War Japan and the Origins of Butoh and the Avant-Garde”

October 13: Nishiura Kihachiro (a Kôdô master from Japan)
"Genji Incense: Enjoy the Fragrances Yourself"
 

Spring 2008

May 22: Van Gessel (Brigham Young University)
“On Murder and Missing Husbands, and Flying Squirrels: Tsushima Yuuko's Literary Processing of Her Son's Death”

April 23: Mark Oshima
“Kabuki Song & Dance: Creating a Flow of Beautiful Moments in Kabuki Dance and Music Performances of the kiyomoto song & buyo dance, “U no Hana”: Performance and Explanation”

 

Winter 2008

March 13: Carl Horn (Dark Horse Comics)
“The Business of Adapting Japanese Comics for the U.S. Market”

February 27: Laurence Kominz (Portland State University)
“The Uses of Disguise, Deception, and Deceit: New Mishima Play Translations”

February 6: Tim Clark
“Swordless Samurai: Bushido in Today’s Japan”

January 29: Linda Angst & Leila Wice (Lewis and Clark College)
“Kabuki Girls and Beauty Queens: Women, Class, and Propriety in the Edo Period and Postwar Okinawa”

 

Fall 2007

November 20: Lynn Katsumoto (Research Associate at the Portland Art Museum)
Led a Walk-through Tour of Noh Costumes Exhibition

November 16: Donald Jenkins (Emeritus Curator of Asian Art at the Portland Art Museum)
Led a Walk-through Tour of Kôgyo Exhibition

November 6: Maruki Yasutaka (Pacific University)
Transformations of the Main Character in Noh Drama”

November 1: Bruce Coats (Scripps University)
“Kôgyo’s World: Japanese Theater Prints”

 

Spring 2007

May 10: Ulrike Schaede (University of California, San Diego)
“Japan’s Corporate Renewal: Business Strategies in the 21st Century”

April 12: Nina Marini (Microsoft)
Competing in the Japanese Online Market: The Challenge of Balancing Global and Local Resources

 

Winter 2007

March 12: Michael Hutchison (University of California, Santa Cruz)
“Financial Crises in East Asia and Around the World:  Could it happen again?”

February 17: Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
“Fighting for Civil Rights in an Era of Terror”
 

Fall 2006

November 28: Ed Kawasaki (Atomic Bomb Survivor Speech)
“The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima: A Survivor’s Story”
November 10: Lisa Yoneyama (Professor of Literature, UCSD)
“Competing Views on the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima”

 

Spring 2006

June 30: Dr. Kenji Tominomori
“Will Japan Really Reform? A Clash Between the Old and New”

May 18: Dr. Tom Willet (former Director of International Research at the US Treasury and Horton Professor of Economics at Claremont Colleges)
“The Growing Role of Asia in the Global Economy: Challenges and Opportunities”

April 4: Ken Belson (New York Times Reporter)
“Hello Kitty: How Japan's Feline Phenom Turned into a Billion Dollar Lioness and the Lessons to be Learned.”

 

Winter 2006

February 20: Dr. TJ Pempel (University of California, Berkeley)
“The Koizumi Surprise: Japan Moves to a New Politics”

February 9: Dr. Hugh Patrick (R.D. Calkins Professor of International Business Emeritus at Columbia University)
“Japan’s Economic Future in Historical Perspective”

February 2: Mr. Alex Sokol-Blosser (President of Sokol-Blosser Winery)
Success Stories of Oregon, Washington, & Japan in Business
"Sumo, Sushi, and Selling Oregon Pinot Noir in Japan"


 

Fall 2005

November 4: Mae Smethurst (University of Pittsburgh)
“The Roots of Anime in Traditional Japanese Theater”

November 3: Dr. Richard Smethurst (Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh)
“Going Along or Going Alone: Japan and World War II”

October 20: Franziska Seraphim (Professor of History at Boston College)
"The Political Landscape of War Memory in Japan”


 

Spring 2005

May 12: Dick Samuels (MIT)
“Japanese Security Policy: The Times They are a Changing”

April 27: Yoko Tawada & Aki Takase
“Japan in Europe: Fiction and Jazz”

April 21: Tim Clark (Translator and Entrepreneur)
“Saying Yes to Japan: How Outsiders Are Reviving a Trillion Dollar Services Market”

 

Winter 2005

March 15: Takeshi Hara (Meiji University)
The Use of Time in Governing the Japanese Empire

March 11: Teruo Kurosaki (Founder and Chairman of Idée’) & John C. Jay (Co-Creative Director of Weiden + Kennedy)
“Tokyo Design Revolution”


January 18: Tim Clark (Translator and Entrepreneur)
Lessons from the Seven Dwarfs: Translating Between Japanese and English”

 

Fall 2004

December 1: Eleanor Jorden (Professor Emerita, Cornell University)
“A Forward-Looking Retrospective”

October 21: Laura Hein (Northwestern University)
“What is the point of an economy? Citizenship and Consumption in Postwar Japan”

 

Spring 2004

May 7: Donald Keene (Professor Emeritus, Columbia University)
"The United States and Japan: Their Postwar Literary Connection"

April 8: Takie Sugiyama Lebra (Professor Emerita, University of Hawaii)
“Addressing ‘You’ in Japanese: Triadization and Lococentrism”

 

Winter 2004

March 5: Mark Oshima
“Song,Dance,and Acting: the Basic Ingredients of Kabuki

February 26: Dr. James Brandon (Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii)
“Democracy and Kabuki under the U.S. Occupation: 1946-49”

February 5: Yumiko Kawamoto (Waseda University)
“What Japan Knew About America Before It Opened”

January 29: Gil Latz
“Challenges for Japan: Democracy, Business, Gender, Aging, and International Relations”


 

Fall 2002 - Spring 2003

?

More research required

Spring 2002

May 2: Donald Keene (Professor Emeritus, Columbia University)
Emperor Meiji and his Foreign Guests

 

Winter through Fall 2001

Donald Keene (Professor Emeritus, Columbia University)
?

 

Winter through Fall 2000

Origins of the Center of Japanese Studies
Bruce Brent on his Friendship with Emperor Akihito