Message From the Director

Dear Friend,

Japanese culture is more important in the world than ever before. In advanced industrial nations as well as in developing regions, people come in daily contact with Japan, whether in the form of material products, visual images, or social practices and ideas. Japan’s prominence in the world is no longer linked directly to economic performance; rather, Japan has become integral to contemporary culture in a deeper and more lasting way. Its cultural importance registers itself in everyday language, as a wide variety of originally Japanese terms, from samurai and sushi to anime and manga, have become part of a shared global vocabulary.

The Japan of today extends broadly across the map. Put another way, the dividing markers of “East” and “West” no longer make much sense in the twenty-first century. As the world grows smaller, we cannot rest content with a mere passing understanding of our global neighbors, no matter what the geographic distance that divides us. We share with them a contemporary culture that transcends national boundaries, and together we must build a common future. Yet even today, a legacy of ethnocentrism and misunderstanding continues to hamper Euro-American knowledge about Asia. The penchant for products that stream out of Japan far outstrips familiarity with the culture and history that lie behind them. But knowledge of the past alone is not enough. Since culture inevitably changes, it is important not only to comprehend the traditions out of which it originated, but to make sure that we properly appreciate its present manifestations and the possible directions for the future that they hold.

Cultural institutions have a crucial part to play. As exchange among different parts of the globe grows more conspicuous and more complex day by day, it is the responsibility of such institutions to educate the citizenry of the emerging global culture about its past origins, its present riches, and its future opportunities. The Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, together with the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University, seeks a vital role in this enterprise. We have embarked on a new initiative to expand educational resources and activities relating to Japan and its culture. The GLOBAL JAPAN: Past, Present, and Future initiative combines Columbia University’s unique institutional, faculty, and library resources in order to bring Japanese culture, in all its growing variety, to new generations and new audiences.

The GLOBAL JAPAN initiative continues the work of, and is dedicated to, Donald Keene, the renowned Columbia professor who more than any other single individual has succeeded in familiarizing audiences worldwide with the richness of Japan’s cultural heritage. In the half-century since the publication of his Anthology of Japanese Literature (1955-1956), interest in and knowledge about Japan have grown in every corner of the globe, made possible to no small degree by his pioneering labors. Much work remains to be done, and it is fitting that our new endeavor be launched in the name of such an inspiring forerunner. To celebrate the pathbreaking achievements of Professor Keene, along with the fiftieth anniversary of the first general anthology of Japanese literature in translation and the twentieth anniversary of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, we solicit wide support for the GLOBAL JAPAN initiative from institutions and individuals interested in advancing understanding about Japan into the twenty-first century.

Gregory M. Pflugfelder
Director
Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture