Donald Keene Center Visiting Fellows

Spring 2003

FUNABASHI Yoichi (Columnist & Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, The Asahi Shimbun)

Yoichi Funabashi is a leading journalist in the field of Japanese foreign policy, currently serving as Columnist and Chief Diplomatic Correspondent at the Asahi Shimbun. He is also a contributing editor of Foreign Policy. Previously, he served as correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun in Beijing (1980-81) and Washington (1984-87), and as American General Bureau Chief (1993-97). In 1985, he received the Vaughn-Ueda Prize for his reporting on international affairs. He won the Japan Press Award, known as Japan's "Pulitzer Prize," in 1994 for his columns on foreign policy, and his articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy won the Ishibashi Tanzan Prize in 1992. His books in English include Alliance Tomorrow, ed. (Tokyo Foundation, 2001); Alliance Adrift (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998, winner of the Shincho Arts and Sciences Award); Asia-Pacific Fusion: Japan's Role in APEC (Institute for International Economics, 1995, winner of the Mainichi Shimbun Asia Pacific Grand Prix Award); and Managing the Dollar: From the Plaza to the Louvre (1988 winner of the Yoshino Sakuzo Prize); and in Japanese, U.S.-Japan Economic Entanglement: The Inside Story (1987); and Neibu: Inside China (1983). His recent articles and papers in English include: "International Perspectives on National Missile Defense: Tokyo's Temperance" (The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2000); "Japan's Moment of Truth" (Survival, Winter 2000-01); "Japan's Unfinished Success Story" (Japan Quarterly, 2001); "Asia's Digital Challenge" (Survival, Spring 2002); "Northeast Asia's Strategic Dilemmas" (Assessing the Threats, 2002); and "Learning from Five Years of Trialogue" (China-Japan-US: Meeting New Challenges, 2002). He received his B.A. from the University of Tokyo in 1968 and his Ph.D. from Keio University in 1992. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1975-76) and an Ushiba Fellow at the Institute for International Economics (1987). During his Visiting Fellow stay in spring 2003, he gave numerous talks on topics ranging from North Korea to new trends in U.S. foreign policy to Japan's new course in the coming century. In addition to giving talks at Columbia, he lectured at Stanford University, the University of California-Los Angeles, the Pacific Council on International Policy (University of Southern California), Oberlin College, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Japan Society of New York, the Asia Society, the Japan Society of Boston, Harvard University, and Boston University. At Columbia, he gave a talk at the East Asian Institute; presented a lecture organized by Nihon Benkyokai, a student group at the School of International and Public Affairs; participated in a class on US-Japan relations in the postwar era; and was the featured speaker of a panel discussion on security issues in East Asia.

YOMOTA Inuhiko (Film Critic and Scholar)

Mr. Yomota is currently Professor of Film Studies and Comparative Literature at Meiji Gakuin University, in addition to being a distinguished film and arts critic. He earned his M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Tokyo in 1979 and completed his Ph.D. course in 1982. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University (1987-88) and Bologna University (1994-95), as well as a Visiting Professor at Konguk University (1979) and Chung'an University (2000), both in Seoul. He has authored various publications on Japanese and Asian cinema, films in general, literature, and Asian studies, among other subjects. His recent publications include Radical Wills in Contemporary Japanese Cinema (1999), Japanese Cinema in an Asian Context (2000), Li Xianglan and East Asia (2001), and Korea My Love (2002). He has received numerous awards for his publications, including the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities, the Inaugural Saito Ryoku Literature Award, Itoh Sei Literature Award, Kodansha Essay Award, and Japan Essayist Award. During his stay at Columbia in April 2003, Professor Yomota gave a talk on the theme of voluntary blindness in Asian film with a particular emphasis on Japanese melodramas. He then gave a presentation on "Chushingura as a Japanese Film Genre" at a symposium that explored various aspects of the Chushingura legend as represented in theater, history, and film. Professor Yomota also interacted with fellow scholars at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies.