On November 13 award-winning author Tomoka Shibasaki joined us at the UW for a screening of ‘Asako I & II’, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s (Drive my Car) 2018 award-winning film following Shibasaki’s mysterious pop romance novel ‘Nete mo Samete mo’. The story begins with Asako, a young woman who meets and falls madly in love with a

UW Japan is screening three movies in November featuring Documentary / Drama / Diversity it is a full month.  First up on November 7 our documentary Carving the Divine (2019, 99 min.) a film that offers a rare look into a 1400-year-old Buddhist woodcarving tradition and the practitioners struggling to preserve its legacy in a

The UW Japan Studies Program is pleased to announce that the Waseda Global Leadership Fellows Program (GLFP) is transitioning from its current home in the Honors Program to the UW Japan Studies Program effective October 1. Now in its 11th year the GLFP offers undergraduate students a chance to study a full year at Waseda

Join us October 23 for a presentation by Professor Joshua Mostow which explores how knowledge of the Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each) collection spread among the commoner class in Japan’s early modern Edo period (1600-1868) to become the foundation of popular literary literacy through the booming print culture, especially by means of illustrated commentaries in

On August 1, 2024 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announced Jackson School Professor Emerita Marie Anchordoguy as a recipient of the 2024 Foreign Minister’s Commendations; Anchordoguy, whose work focuses on the political economy of Japan, was acknowledged for her 35-year academic career promoting the research of Japan in the United States. “The Foreign

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Meet Raechel, a second-year Asian Languages & Cultures MA student. Raechel graduated from UW in 2021 with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Linguistics, Japanese, and Asian Languages & Cultures and has returned to UW to further her studies. Her research interests are how transgender and gender non-conforming people navigate the explicitly gendered aspects

Join us in welcoming Professor Edward (Ted) Mack to the position of Chair of the University of Washington Japan Studies Program. Professor Mack teaches modern Japanese-language prose in the department of Asian Languages and Literature. His research focuses on literary works written and read throughout the world, including in North and South America. His most recent book, Acquired

The UW Japan Studies Program congratulates ALL our students on their hard work this year, particularly those who are graduating! We hope that you take well earned lessons and rewards with you into the next adventure. YOU are what the world needs and we couldn’t be more proud of you. Keep in touch and let us

Martha Walsh, Managing Editor, Journal of Japanese Studies, and Senior Program Associate, Japan Studies Program at the University of Washington has been named the recipient of a UW Award of Excellence 2024. Walsh, who has been with the Japan Studies Program for over 40 years, was the sole person selected for the category of Distinguished Staff for Career Achievement

“Hiroshima Maidens” loosely translates genbaku otome, a phrase first used in early 1950s Japan to refer to young women who had been scarred by injuries received during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.  Ten years later, 25 such women were flown to New York, where they underwent extensive reconstructive surgery.  The “Maidens”