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

Want to learn more about traditional Japanese culture? Join the UI Center for Asian and Pacific Studies Program and the Japanese Program as they host their first Japanese culture festival (文化祭 bunkasai) on Thursday, November 10, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in 1117 University Capitol Centre. 

The Japan Foundation Institutional Project Support (IPS) Grant is funding graduate students to conduct research in Japan, with additional support from the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (CAPS). Laurel Taylor is a second-year student in the UI's MFA in Translation program who conducted research on the culture of translation in Tokyo in the summer of 2016. At Iowa, she is translating short stories and a novel by the contemporary Japanese novelist Shibasaki Tomoka, a participant in the International Writing Program for 2016.

With rising interest in Chinese and South Korean studies, many universities across the U.S. fear waning enrollment in Japanese studies. The UI, however, has managed to buck the trend, with Japanese studies enrollment numbers on the rise the past 3 years.

This year marks the tenth year of exchanges between the University of Iowa and China Daily, China's largest English-language newspaper. In honor of this long-standing collaboration, International Programs and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication will hold a tenth anniversary celebration on Friday, April 24 from 3:00-4:30 p.m. in the Adler Journalism Building rotunda.