Letter from the Director
September 4, 2025
Dear Friends,
I write to share greetings and updates for the start of the new academic term. I look forward to reconnecting with everyone after spending last year at Oxford University, where I was the Centenary Visiting Professor in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. I had a fruitful year working on economic security and international relations during a turbulent period for world affairs (you can view my talk on “Economic Diplomacy and Balance of Power” here). While I was away, the Program led a full series of events and hosted an excellent group of associates. I am grateful to David Howell for serving as Acting Director during the last academic year.
We have an impressive group of 14 affiliates joining us this year, including postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and practitioners. They bring valuable expertise and networks to Harvard, and conduct research on topics such as trade, industrial policy, judicial reform, and Tokyo’s transportation networks. We will feature their research in a half-day conference in the spring.
Our seminar series will continue to take place on Mondays (12-1 pm), and you can join us in person or online. On September 8, we are co-sponsoring a panel, on “The Enduring Legacies of World War II in East Asia: Reflections 80 Years Later,” with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. On September 22, we will feature David Weinstein, the Carl S. Shoup Professor of Japanese Economy at Columbia University, and a visiting professor at Harvard who will be the Program’s Distinguished Visitor in the fall. We are also excited to welcome back Amy Catalinac to present on her latest book on October 6. Please see this link for the fall schedule. In addition, together with a network of Japan scholars, we co-sponsor the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS), which features the latest political science research on Japan, and encourage you to submit your proposal to present your paper or join a session to learn about new work.
We are fortunate to have received generous support from the Japan Foundation for our project on “Policy Innovations in Crises: New Pathways for Japan-U.S. Cooperation,” which we recently concluded. And with Japan Foundation funding, we are launching a new project, on “Technology, Society, and Geopolitics: Japan in a Globalized Economy,” with its new seminar series. Please check out our website for a new project page and updates in the fall. Toshiaki Yoshida, our Japan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, will teach a course on Japanese politics in the Department of Government in the spring semester.
We continue to work with student groups at Harvard and beyond. The Harvard Undergraduate Japan Policy Network (HUJPN) offers opportunities for Harvard students with events and consulting projects focused on contemporary issues facing Japan. The Harvard Undergraduate Japan Initiative enables Harvard students to connect with students in Japan. We look forward to co-sponsoring events with the Harvard Kennedy School Japan Caucus. We also support the Vogel juku, started by Ezra Vogel, to promote collaboration and discussion on critical issues confronting Japan among the wider community of students from Japan in the Boston area. We look forward to continuing our partnership with these student-led initiatives.
This year, we have many new or forthcoming books authored by former affiliates. Such books include Dominance Through Division by Amy Catalinac; Fragile Kinships by Kathryn Goldfarb; The Future is Foreign, by Hilary Holbrow; and Misery Beneath the Miracle in East Asia, by Yumiko Shimabukuro (co-authored with Arvid Lukauskas). There are also two forthcoming books by former Akiyama Award winners: Hannah Shepherd’s The Narrowing Sea, and Subodhana Wijeyeratne’s The Islands and the Stars.
Please check out the latest research on contemporary Japan in the social sciences on our website, including the Occasional Paper Series, blogs about recent seminars, and a publications webpage listing recent work by Program-affiliated scholars. With about 700 alumni, we hope to help you stay connected through our Alumni Directory, where you can find past affiliates by name, year, and institution. For updates, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Selected recordings of our past events are available on YouTube and SoundCloud.
All of these activities are made possible by the hard work by our outstanding staff, Executive Director Shinju Fujihira, Program Coordinator Pierce Langdon, and Research Assistant Sophie Welsh. We are grateful to the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies for their continued partnership to support our activities.
May you all have a fantastic start to the new academic year and discover new opportunities to learn and share knowledge about Japan.
Sincerely,
Christina
Christina L. Davis
Director, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics
Harvard University