About the Speakers:
Dr. Kaoru IOKIBE
Professor, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics at Tokyo University
Kaoru Iokibe, University of Tokyo, received a PhD in Law from the University of Tokyo. His research comprises the political and diplomatic history of modern Japan. In 2003, he published his first book about the formation of the opposition party in Japan. His second book, published in 2010, is about Meiji Japan’s restoration of sovereignty through the revision of “unequal trea-ties.” Recently, his interest stretches to several other fields including the history of political lies and the challenges to them in the form of rhetoric and literature, although his affection for anime and manga sometimes serves as a distraction.
Dr. Robert FISH
Director of Global and Civic Exchange, The Master’s School, Dobbs Ferry, NY
Robert Fish received his B.A. in History from Yale University in 1993. He subsequently received his M.A. in Educational Administration from New York University, as well as his Ph.D. in Modern Japanese History from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. His teaching interests are on modern Japanese and Chinese histories. Mr. Fish was the Director of Education and Public Programs at the Japan Society of New York from 2006 to 2013. He is now Director of Global and Civic Exchange at The Masters School.
Dr. William M. TSUTSUI
Edwin O. Reischauer Distinguished Visiting Professor, Harvard University
Bill Tsutsui is a specialist in the economic, environmental, and cultural history of modern Japan. Educated at Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton Universities, he is the author or editor of eight books, including Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan, Banking Policy in Japan, and Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization. His 2004 book Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters was called a “cult classic” by the New York Times and a Japanese translation was published by Chūkō sōsho. He has received Fulbright, ACLS, and Marshall Fellowships, and was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 2000 and the William Rockhill Nelson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005. He currently serves on the boards of directors of the Association for Asian Studies, the US-Japan Council, and the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and was appointed to the Japan-United States Friendship Commission in 2020.
Tsutsui taught for seventeen years at the University of Kansas before becoming Dean of Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University in 2010. From 2014 to 2019 he served as President of Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, where he is currently Professor Emeritus of History. His ongoing research focuses on the environmental and business history of the Japanese fishing industry and on Japanese popular culture.