Results for tag: In Memoriam

Mark Elvin (1938-2023)

Mark Elvin, Emeritus Professor of Chinese History at the Australian National University and Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, sadly passed away on 6 December 2023 in Oxford (England). Mark Elvin was an eminent scholar of Chinese history and the author of several ground-breaking works that changed the way in which China and its […]

Robert E. Entenmann, 1949-2024

Robert E. Entenmann, a longtime member of the Association for Asian Studies, died January 7, 2024 in Northfield Minnesota, having taught Chinese history at St. Olaf College for 36 years. A native of Seattle, Bob earned a B.A. in Chinese History from the University of Washington, an M.A. from Stanford, and a Ph.D. from Harvard […]

In Memoriam: Emily Honig (1953-2023)

Emily Honig, a historian of China and retired University of California, Santa Cruz professor, passed away on October 14. She first visited the People’s Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution as part of a student delegation touring the country. Honig then embarked on graduate study in Chinese history at Stanford University and spent two […]

Photo of Lyman P. Van Slyke standing at a podium against a black wall.

In Memoriam: Lyman P. Van Slyke

Lyman P. Van Slyke—known as “Van” to his friends and colleagues— grew up in a small mining town in northern Minnesota and graduated from Carleton College in 1950. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was assigned as a naval air intelligence officer on the aircraft carrier Valley Forge during the Korean War. When his […]

In Memoriam: John MacDougall

John MacDougall, a pioneer of using the Internet as a research tool for Indonesian studies, died in Maryland on May 16, aged 83. Among his many services, he was editor and publisher of Indonesia Publications from 1984 to 2004; creator and moderator of a bilingual Indonesian and English “Apakabar Project” from 1990 to 2002 which […]

David W. Plath accepting the Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies award at the AAS 2013 Annual Conference

David William Plath (1930-2022)

By William W. Kelly, Yale University David Plath, one of our preeminent anthropologists of Japan, passed away peacefully from illness on November 4, 2022, at age 91. In a long engagement with Japan that stretched over seven decades, he was an ethnographer of deeply humanist intentions, a craftsman of precise and stylish writing, an innovative […]

Mark Ross Bookman, PhD (1991–2022)

Mark Ross Bookman, historian and activist, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on December 16, 2022, in his apartment in Tokyo. His passing creates an enormous gap in the Japanese studies and disability academic and activist communities. Mark was born on April 20, 1991, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, sixteen weeks prematurely. He was diagnosed with a […]

Franklin S. Odo (1939-2022)

Asian Studies lost an important bridge with Asian American Studies in the recent passing of Franklin S. Odo, an internationally recognized historian, scholar, and activist. As part of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Odo emerged as a leader who galvanized a coalition of students, scholars, and activists. […]

Adriana Boscaro (1935-2022)

Adriana Boscaro, Professor Emerita of Japanese and longtime director of the Department of Oriental Studies at the University Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy, died August 21, 2022 at her home in Venice. She was 87 years old. Professor Boscaro was a major figure in the field of Japanese studies in Italy and a scholar known internationally […]

In Memoriam: Chang Hao 張灝 (1937-2022)

Dr. Chang Hao, the renowned Sinologist and scholar devoted to the intellectual history of modern China, died April 21 at age 85 in Albany, California. Dr. Chang was born in 1937 in Xiamen, and after living in Chongqing and Nanjing he moved with his family to Taiwan in 1949. He studied with well-known China scholars […]

Cover image of Opening to China, by Charlotte Furth

Charlotte Furth (1934-2022)

Charlotte Furth, Professor Emerita of Chinese history at the University of Southern California, died on June 19, 2022, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 88. Furth received her B.A. in French from the University of North Carolina and her Ph.D. in Chinese history from Stanford University. Her early work was in the intellectual […]

In Memoriam: Barbara Sato (1942-2021)

Barbara Sato (née Wool) came to Asian Studies with little or no Asia in her personal background. However, as a high school student she was chosen to go to Japan under the auspices of the American Field Service, perhaps one of the last cohorts to actually make the journey by ship across the Pacific. This […]

Charles “Biff” Keyes (1937-2022)

Former Association for Asian Studies President Charles “Biff” Keyes, a longtime faculty member at the University of Washington, passed away early in 2022. The memorial post below has been submitted to #AsiaNow by the University of Washington Southeast Asia Center. It is with great sadness that the University of Washington Southeast Asia Center announces the […]

In Memoriam: Jing Wang

Submitted by Emma Teng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology We note with great sadness the passing of Professor Jing Wang on July 25. Professor Wang was the S.C. Fang Professor of Chinese Languages and Culture at MIT, having previously taught at Duke University (1985-2001) and Middlebury College (1982-1985). She served as Head of Foreign Languages and […]

Theodore C. Bestor, 1951-2021

We note with great sadness the passing of Professor Theodore Bestor on July 1, following a long battle with cancer. Professor Bestor was the Reischauer Institute Professor of Social Anthropology and Japanese Studies at Harvard, having previously taught at Columbia University (1986-1993) and Cornell University (1993-2001). He served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology […]

In Memoriam: Kenneth Kazuo Tanaka (1935–2021)

Kenneth Kazuo Tanaka was born on February 10, 1935 in the small town of Kasumi on the northern coast of Hyogo Prefecture. He was the eldest son and one of six children born to Kyozen and Kinue Tanaka. His father was a Buddhist minister at the Gangyouji JodoShu Temple. Although Kenneth was to be a […]