Manzanar, Diverted is a powerful documentary film on the linked histories of Indigenous dispossession, Japanese American incarceration, and struggles over water in the desertified Owens Valley of California, lands once known as Payahüünadü—the place where the water always flows. Join us for a screening of the film and discussion with director Ann Kaneko. Ann will be

Manzanar, Diverted is a powerful documentary film on the linked histories of Indigenous dispossession, Japanese American incarceration, and struggles over water in the desertified Owens Valley of California, lands once known as Payahüünadü—the place where the water always flows. Join us for a screening of the film and discussion with director Ann Kaneko. Ann will be

Today, Americans are some of the world’s biggest consumers of black teas. In Japan, green tea, especially sencha, is preferred. Through an examination of the history of the Japan-U.S. tea trade, Robert Hellyer will take us through the relationships of how these national partialities are deeply entwined and also offer us examples of how Japanese

Read the annual newsletter of the UW Japan Studies Program! We are excited to share what our faculty, alumni, and students have been doing over the past year. We wish you a safe and healthy holiday season, and appreciate you being a part of our community.

Ghosts in the Neighborhood: Why Japan is Haunted by its Past and Germany is Not is now available for pre-order. In his newest book Walter Hatch debunks the conventional wisdom about why Japan remains haunted by its militarist past in Asia, but Germany does not face such ghosts in Europe. Read about it in his

The Indo-Pacific region is facing big demographic change. Core US allies Japan and South Korea – and adversaries Russia and China — are rapidly aging and have shrinking working-age populations, while other regional states are growing. Despite demographics, Japan’s military is the most powerful it has ever been…

Hafu (2013 Producer/Director/Videographer Megumi Nishikura) With an ever increasing movement of people between places in this transnational age, there is a mounting number of mixed-race people in Japan, some visible others not. “Hafu” is the unfolding journey of discovery into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experience in modern day Japan.

In the 1950s, high-rise housing projects called danchi appeared on Japan’s urban perimeters to address the nation’s urgent housing crisis after World War II. With modern kitchens, private baths, and steel doors that locked out intrusive neighbors, and inhabited by aspiring middle-class families that could afford refrigerators, washing machines, electric rice cookers and other new objects of

In anticipation of travel to Japan again being available, applications are now open for a UW Study Abroad program in Matsuyama, Japan, over spring break 2023. The program will focus on “glocal” culture—how the local and the global, including food, culture, and commerce—connect the United States, including the Puget Sound region, with Japan, including Ehime

Robert Pekkanen has recently received the “Outstanding Research Award” by JANPORA (Japanese Association of NPO Research), which is the nonprofit studies association of Japan, for a co-authored article titled, “Distinguishing Providing Public Services from Receiving Government Funding as Factors in Nonprofit Advocacy.” The article, authored by Itaru Yanagi, Yohei Kobashi, Robert J. Pekkanen, and Yutaka Tsujinaka was