EXAM WEEK LUNCH BREAK!

This lunchtime brownbag chat is for any students, faculty and staff interested to meet with two visiting Japanese scholars of Southeast Asia. It will explore their research in Burma and Vietnam as well as trans-Asian comparisons and new trends at Japanese research institutions.

Masao IMAMURA is an Associate Professor of Southeast Asian History at Yamagata University. Born and raised in Kamakura, Japan, he graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio and worked as a librarian at St. John’s College in New Mexico. Based on archival research and fieldwork, his early research analyzed the conversion to Protestant Christianity of the Kachin people in northern Burma/Myanmar. He continues to pursue certain historiographical and philosophical questions about modernity from religious contexts in Burma with comparative study of minority ethnic and linguistic groups in Asia.

Hisashi SHIMOJO received his PhD from the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies at the University of Kyoto in Japan. He is currently Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University. His research focuses on the historical anthropology of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, in particular on issues of infla-politics, crossborder migration, and ethnic hybridity in the Mekong Delta.