Tamae Prindle, Colby College, 2006-2007 Resident Director
Tamae K. Prindle, Oak Professor of East Asian Studies at Colby College, received her B.A. in English Literature from SUNY at Binghamton, a M.A. in English from Washington State University, a M.A. in Asian Studies from Cornell University, and a Ph..D. in Modern Japanese Literature from Cornell University. She has taught at Colby College since 1985. Her major publications include: Made in Japan and Other Japanese "Business Novels" (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1989), Kazuo Watanabe's Labor Relations: Japanese Business Novel (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1994), and Ikkô Shimizu's The Dark Side of Japanese Business: Three "Industry Novels" (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1995). She also guest edited Japan Studies: Publication of the Center for Japan Studies at Teikyo Loretto Heights University No. 3 Japan in the 20th Century (1999).
Erik Lofgren, Bucknell University
Erik Lofgren is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Bucknell University, in "centrally isolated" Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He earned his B.A. at Oberlin College, his M.A. at Indiana University, and his Ph.D. at Stanford University. At Bucknell, Professor Lofgren teaches courses in Japanese language, literature, and film. His research to date has focused on issues of self-definition and death. His current book project reflects his AKP course offering and explores the issue of desire in Japanese cinema. He has been a VFF once before--in Spring 2001--and lived in Kyoto for three years after college. His favorite Kyoto nomiya is Kushihachi.
Michael Flynn, Carleton College
Michael Flynn is Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Linguistics Program at Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts in 1980. He joined the Carleton faculty in 1986, after having taught at a number of institutions, including the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in The Netherlands and Nankai University in the People’s Republic of China. He has been the Resident Director of the Japan Study Program at Waseda University in Tokyo, and has been a Visiting Professor of Linguistics at Keio University, also in Tokyo. He is married to Angelique Dietz, and they have two daughters Marieke (17) and Nora (13). He is enthusiastic about Japanese food, especially sushi, and enjoys small izakaya.
David Boggett, Seika University
David is a professor of the Humanities Faculty of Kyoto Seika University, where he has been teaching for the past 30 years. He earned his BA and MA in History at Cambridge University, where he was also the first elected President of the Cambridge Students’ Union. He originally came to Asia as a representative of the University to investigate South Korean human rights abuses involving Korean students at Cambridge, and has been here ever since! David first worked as a journalist and editor of a small magazine before being invited to Seika University to teach contemporary Asian history, and has made his “home” in Chiangrai, North Thailand. He has contributed articles to various English and Japanese language journals and magazines, chiefly about South Korea and Thailand, and jointly authored a Japanese book on the Pol Pot administration in Cambodia. His research interests are Thai-Japanese relations during World War II, and he has published a long series of articles on the Thai-Burma Railway in the Journal of Seika University. Largely self-taught in Asian history, David has been leading courses on the history of Kyoto for over ten years, not only at Seika, but also at other overseas student programmes, including those of Friends World College and Antioch University, in addition to AKP. He is an avid collector of old (pre-war) postcards of Japan and its colonies, and is presently cooperating with the South Korean MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) in producing a documentary on human rights abuses under the Park Chung-hee administration.
Walter Edwards, Tenri University
Walter Edwards is the Chair of the Japanese Studeis Program at Tenri University in Nara, where hwe has been teaching since 1993. He has taught courses there and also for the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies and the Konan International Exchange Center. He earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1984 in anthropology, and his reaserch interests include modern Japanese perspectives on history and its relation to national identity; Japanese archaeology (Yayoi through early historic periods); Japanese imperial tombs; archaeological prospection (especially with ground-penetrating radar); cultural history of Japan (ancient to modern); Japanese gardens in historical perspective; contemporary Japanese society (social organization and cultural values); and Japanese language education; anthropological study of symbolism, ritual, and of complex societies.
Jonathan Lipman, Mount Holyoke College
Jonathan Lipman has been teaching Chinese, Japanese, and Korean history at Mount Holyoke College since 1977, including courses on economic, intellectual, and political history; ethnicity and nationalism; gender; and international relations. His research has focused on relations between China and the Islamic world and on Japan in the age of imperialism. Prof. Lipman has authored Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China and Imperial Japan: Expansion and War, as well as many scholarly articles, and edited two volumes of essays. He is currently writing a textbook of modern East Asian history. In addition to history, Prof. Lipman enjoys studying anthropology, food cultures, and religion.
Jacques Hymans, Smith College
Jacques E. C. Hymans is Assistant Professor of Government at Smith College, where he has taught since 2003. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard College in 1994 and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard in 2001. Professor Hymans' research centers on international security, national identity, and international norm diffusion. His first book, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, will be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2006. His second book project is an investigation of the nature and sources of the threat perceptions of America and its allies. He also has an active research agenda on the measurement of national identity, using a wide range of data sources from history schoolbooks to paper money. On a personal note, Hymans loves Japanese food but, unlike his colleagues, is not a particular fan of sushi.