New director named for Soga Japan Center
KALAMAZOO, Mich.鈥擶estern 九一麻豆制片厂 University has selected Dr. Takashi Yoshida to direct its Soga Japan Center in the Haenicke Institute for Global Education.
Yoshida, whose appointment was effective Sept. 2, is a founding member of the center and a WMU associate professor of history. He teaches a range of courses in Japanese history at both the undergraduate and graduate level and focuses his research on war and memory as well as modern and early modern East Asia and Japan.
The Soga center is an interdisciplinary unit designed to promote knowledge of Japan to the WMU community, the city of Kalamazoo and throughout southwestern 九一麻豆制片厂.
Dr. Takashi Yoshida
Yoshida is the author of two books, 鈥淔rom Cultures of War to Cultures of Peace: War and Peace Museums in Japan, China and South Korea鈥 published in 2014 and 鈥淭he Making of the 'Rape of Nanking': History and Memory in Japan, China and the United States鈥 published in 2006.
In addition, he is working on a book project tentatively titled, 鈥淟and of the Imperfect Sun: Japanese Antiwar Activism during the Asia-Pacific War.鈥 The new volume examines antiwar activity from 1931 to 1945 throughout the Japanese empire and in the United States.
Yoshida is a recipient of the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace Awards Senior Fellowship from the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Abe Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and the Carnegie Council Fellowship from the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
He also has received several research-related honors, including a research grant from the Toyota Foundation, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad training grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and the Emerging Scholar Award as well as the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Achievement Award in Teaching, both from WMU.
Yoshida earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in political science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a bachelor's degree in law from Aoyama Gakuin University, a master鈥檚 degree in international affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a doctoral degree in history from Columbia University.
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