Past CJS Events (2020 - Present)

Fall 2025

October 7: Shin Kawashima (University of Tokyo)
“Uneasy Neighbors: Japan-China Relations Today"

October 29: Kazuhiro Takii (Nichibunken)
“Fashioning Japan: The Empress's Dress and the Meiji Constitution”

November 13: Naoko Tamura (OHSU)
“The Chef Naoko Story: A Journey of Discovery through Food and Healing”

Spring 2025

June 14: PSU Students Perform Kyogen
“Hijinks, Hoodwinks, & Histrionics”

May 22: Patrick Terry (Portland State University)
“It’s Tough Being a Film Studio: Consumption, Tora-san, and Bubble Economy Productions”

May 6: Bill Tsutsui (University of Ottawa University)
“Godzilla Vs. The Bubble: Consumption, Conceit, & Compulsion in Late-Capitalist Japan”

April 17: Ikuho Amano (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
“The Evanescent Economy: Causes, Effects, & Consumer Culture of Late 1980s Bubble Japan”

April 3: Jon Holt (Portland State University)
“The Daily Life of Japanese Spider-Man: Seikatsu and Superheroes”

Flyer for Spring 2025's Lecture Series on Japan's Bubble Era

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”

Winter 2025 Lectures before Professor Gluck Addition

(Flyer from before Professor Carol Gluck was added to Winter Program)

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”

Fall 2024 Lecture Series: Japanese Language Learning Today

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”

Kanpai Japan II: Spring 2024 Food and Culture Lecture Series

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”

Fall 2023

Writing in (and out of) Japan Lecture Series

November 21: Chris Lowy (Carnegie Mellon University)
“What We (Don’t) Talk about When We Talk about Literature: The Visual Representation of Languages and Why It Matters”

November 9: Zev Handel (University of Washington)
“Chinese Characters Across Asia: Using ‘Kanji’ to Write in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese”

October 25: Naoko Fujii & Iyoko Okano (Master Calligraphers)
“Brushwork in the History of Calligraphy”

Fall 2023: Writing in and Out of Japan 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”

Winter 2023

The Interplay between JPOP and KPOP Series

March 9: Noriko Manabe (Temple University)
“Say What You Think: The Discourse of Japanese Women Rappers”

February 16: Marianne Tarcov (McGill University)
“The Break-up of a Boyband and the Rise of Entrepreneurial Masculinity in 2010s Japan”

January 26: Michelle Cho (University of Toronto)
“K-pop, Race, and Platform Capitalism”

Winter 2023 Kpop & Jpop Lecture Series Flyer

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”

(View Flyer for Kanpai Japan Events)

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”

(View lecture series postcard by clicking here.)

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”