University of Tokyo

Jooeun Noh is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Socio-information and Communication Studies at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, University of Tokyo, Japan. She received her Master’s degree in Area Studies from the University of Tokyo. Her research interests include the modern history of East Asia, particularly China, Japan and Korea. Her dissertation explores the history of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, especially focusing of the aftermath of the earthquake. During her stay at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, she will carry out archival research at Harvard-Yenching Library and work on her dissertation.

Misook Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Socio-information and Communication Studies at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, Tokyo University, Japan. Her research examines the possibility of a transnational public sphere beyond international borders in the case of democratization movements in South Korea in 1970s and 80s. Transnational solidarity for South Korean democratization movements from overseas, including from Germany, Japan and the U.S., has been reported on since 2000. However, there is little academic research examining the method and reasons why overseas citizens formed transnational solidarity. Her research tries to articulate the process and the meaning of transnational solidarity within the issue of Korean democratization movements, especially focusing on activities in Tokyo. Tokyo was the center for sending Korean grassroots underground information to overseas and the location of many foreign missionary and correspondent offices. In her dissertation, Lee Misook’s goal is to understand the work and meaning of transnational advocacy networks (including overseas Korean communities, Christian networks, and intellectual activist groups) in empowering democratization movements in South Korea.

OKI Yasushi is Professor of East Asian Literature. The main subject of his research is Chinese Literature of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. He received his B.A. (1981), M.A. (1983) and Doctor of Literature degree (1998), all from the University of Tokyo. Before being appointed to his current position in 2002, he was a Research Associate at the Institute of Oriental Culture, the University of Tokyo (1986), Associate Professor at the faculty of letters, Hiroshima University (1989) and Associate Professor at the faculty of Letters, the University of Tokyo (1991). He stayed at Harvard Yenching Institute as a visiting scholar from 1999 to 2000 and at National Central University in Taiwan as a visiting professor from 2006 to 2007.He has long been interested in Feng Menglong (1574-1646, born in Su-zhou), who is well known as a compiler of the vernacular short stories "San-yan". He has been researching various aspects of culture and society in late Ming Jiangnan, such as popular literature, civil service examinations, publishing businesses, intellectual friendships and courtesan culture, approaching these topics as different facets of Feng Menglong's work and life. Recently he is interested in Mao Xiang, another man of letter in Jiangnan in the late Ming and early Qing.
His publications include A study of Mao Xiang and his Reminiscences of the Convent of Shadowy Plum-blossoms (Tokyo: Kyuko-shoin, 2010, 539pp.), A Study of the Publishing Culture in late Ming Jiangnan (Tokyo: Kenbun-shuppan, 2004, 268pp.), A Study of Feng Meng-long's Shange (Tokyo: Keiso-shobo, 2003, 840pp.), Chinese Gay Quarters, the World of Courtesans in Nanjing, Qinghuai in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Tokyo: Seidosha, 2002, 293 pp.), History of Chinese Literature from the Point of View of Discontent (Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 1996, 245 pp.), and An Unorthodox Intellectual in the Late Ming: Feng Menglong and Suzhou Culture , (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995, 254 pp.).

Professor Yutaka Suga is Professor of Folklore at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo. He received both his MA (in Folklore) and PhD (in Literature) from the University of Tsukuba.

Professor Kimiya teaches comparative politics in the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He received his M.A. in Politics from the University of Tokyo and his Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from Korea University. His past research has focused on the political economy of South Korea and Northeast international relations. He has also done research on Taiwan, the United States, China, North Korea and Russia.

Dr. Takahiro Nakajima has been working at the Center for Philosophy at the University of Tokyo for several years, where his major research field is Chinese Philosophy.  In 2007, he published two books on Chinese Philosophy – The Chinese Turn in Philosophy, and The Reverberation of Chinese Philosophy: Language and Politics.  Currently, Dr. Nakajima is preparing to publish a book on Zhuangzi. At the same time, he is interested in broadening his academic focus to include Japanese Philosophy.  In this regard, he has joined two projects—“Sourcebook in Japanese Philosophy” at Nanzan University and “Key Texts of Japanese Philosophy”, run by Vrin, a French publishing company.

Tokumori Makoto is lecturer in the Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in comparative studies of Japanese literature and culture. He has been working on a shared research project on rethinking ancient Japanese literature as part of East Asian Classical tradition. His current research focuses on textual analyses of the oldest historiographical texts in Japan and the history of their interpretations. In addition he has been interested in the currents of thought in eighteenth century Japan. His book about a comparative study of a Confucian economist in eighteenth century Japan will be published in 2012.

Hiroko Matsuzaki is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Tokyo. Her doctoral dissertation is on Taiwanese literature, focusing on the works of post-World War II Taiwanese writers such as Tzeng Ching-Wen. She is interested mainly in the multi-faceted cultural and linguistic identities of writers like Tzeng who grew up during both the Japanese Occupation (1895-1945) and subsequent KMT rule in the post-war period. In 2007, Hiroko was a research scholar at National Taiwan University after receiving a fellowship from the Interchange Association. While there she investigated how post-war Taiwanese Literature was integrated into high school Chinese textbooks in Taiwan. Now, as a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Hiroko will continue doing research for her dissertation by examining how Tzeng's readings of Western literature with a Japanese lens affected, and in many ways shaped, his own writing.