In late July and early August of 2017, we took a 10-day trip to Japan, sponsored by the Japan Foundation. Our group consisted of 6 faculty members from the University of Iowa. The purpose of the trip was to make us more aware of Japanese culture so we can include Japanese elements in our future teaching and research. My expectation wasn’t high. Until the trip ended, I didn’t expect to learn anything to fundamentally change my view of Japan in 10 days.  

I was part of the 2017 Japan Foundation faculty tour, “Regional Japan: Culture from the Margins” between July 26 and August 8, 2017. The two-week trip from Tokyo to the town of Sakaiminato in Tottori, to southern Shikoku, and to Kyoto—and many other cities and villages en route—offered me an invaluable experience of being immersed in Japan’s historical and contemporary culture and experiencing both its cosmopolitan and rural regions.

It took me a fair amount of reading, but just a few minutes in Tokyo’s Nakano arcade, to realize that, aside from the U.S., Japan is the country whose visual artists have the greatest influence on global youth today.

With the generous support of the Japan Foundation Institutional Support Grant to the University of Iowa, and with additional support from International Programs, I was able to accompany a small group of my faculty colleagues on my first trip to Japan in late July and early August of 2017.

Two of my areas of specialization are World War II in Europe and post-war memory - so a trip to Japan was a natural for me. One of my ambitions is to develop a course on World War II as a global event, which is a deviation from the more typical courses which focus on either Asia or Europe, and append the other theater as a footnote (while neglecting North Africa and Europe's overseas colonies entirely). I have also spoken to an academic press about writing a global history of sexuality in World War II; this trip provided fodder for thought for that project.

The Japan Foundation, International Programs, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, and the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures are pleased to invite master woodcarver Kitazawa Hideta and noh performer and playwright David Crandall to the University of Iowa campus for a three-day event of workshops, and performances (November 12-14). ​​​​​​

The Japan Foundation New York together with International Programs, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the Obermann Center, and the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures present a workshop and bilingual reading with Murata Sayaka and Ginny Tapley Takemori on Tuesday, October 30, 2018.

Join the UI Japanese Program for two evenings (October 15 & 16) of bilingual readings with author Takiguchi Yūshō.  Takiguchi Yūshō, winner of the Akutagawa Prize and 2018 International Writing Program participant, will read selections from two of his works in the original Japanese, and members of the Workshop in Japanese Literary Translation will read their English translations. Both events are free and open to the public. 

The City of Literature will celebrate Japanese literature this week in a series of events.

A Half-Century of Japanese Writers in Iowa: Writing and Translating at the International Writing Program, 1967-2017

The Center for Asian and Pacific Studies and the Japan Foundation will present "Voices of Fukushima: Art, Community, and Information after 3-11" on February 27-28. The two-day event will highlight the grassroots activism by Fukushima residents after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters of March 2011. This event is free and open to the public.

"Tradition in Search of a Rationale," an upcoming international conference at the UI, will bring together scholars and guest speakers Friday and Saturday, December 2-3, 2013, on the University of Iowa campus to address the future of hunting in Japan and North America.