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, 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 […]
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, 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our friend, colleague, and mentor of Philippine and Southeast Asia history, John A. Larkin, who left us on July 29, 2021 after a long struggle against Parkinson’s disease on what was his 85th birthday. Known to all simply as “Jack,” his contribution to Philippine […]
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 […]
By James Welker Sociologist and cultural historian of Japan Mark McLelland passed away on 18 November 2020 in Wollongong, New South Wales. McLelland was well-known for his groundbreaking and influential work across a range of fields, including the cultural history of sexualities in Japan, the global history of the internet, and media and cultural studies. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Ezra F. Vogel (1930–2020) was a lifetime member of the Association for Asian Studies. This small band of colleagues and friends were assembled from the late 1960s, under Ezra Vogel’s direction and encouragement, to support each other as we moved through our graduate student life passages. Ezra (and yes, he insisted on being called “Ezra”) […]
Roger L. Janelli, an anthropologist and folklorist, passed away in the early morning of January 19, 2021 in Seoul. Janelli was among the first generation of Korean folklore and anthropology scholars in the United States, and his work as an educator, researcher, and writer was critical to the foundation of Korean Studies. He was Professor […]
It with great sadness we report the death of our colleague, teacher, and friend, former AAS President Tetsuo Najita, who died peacefully at home on January 11, 2021 in Kamuela, Hawaii after a long illness. Known widely as “Tets,” Najita was a pre-eminent scholar of early modern and modern Japanese intellectual history, political economy, and […]
Sue-Je L. Gage, a cultural anthropologist and pioneering scholar in the study of Amerasians in South Korea, passed away suddenly on May 10, 2020. She was an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Affiliated Faculty in the Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity and Women and Gender Studies at Ithaca College, where she […]
By Carol Gluck Readers, writers, and scholars in Japan and the West celebrated the life and work of Donald Keene in the days after his death on February 24. At the same time, a smaller, but still quite large, group of his former students consoled one another in criss-crossing e-mails that recounted the importance of […]
Wm. Theodore “Ted” de Bary passed away on July 14 at the age of 97. Professor Emeritus at Columbia University and author of some of the most important foundation texts in the field of Asian Studies, de Bary was a longtime member of the AAS and served as President in 1969-70. I asked Columbia professor […]
By John Stratton Hawley It is my sad duty to report that Ainslie Embree died on the morning of June 6, 2017 at the age of 96. Anyone who knew him will remember his capacious intellect, his deep belief that the past is important to know, and equally, that the present is important to live. […]
