Mộng-Lan is a Vietnamese-born American writer, visual artist, musician, dancer, and educator. Former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Fulbright Scholar, she has published seven books of poetry & artwork, three chapbooks, has won numerous prizes such as the Juniper Prize and the Pushcart Prize. Poems have been included in international and national anthologies such as Best American Poetry Anthology and several Norton anthologies. Her books include: Song of the Cicadas ; Why is the Edge Always Windy?; Tango, Tangoing: poems & art; One Thousand Minds Brimming, 2016; and Dusk Aflame: poems & art, 2018. Her latest music album releases include Arrabal de Tango: Tango por Siempre, voice & guitar, 2020; Perfumas de Amor, de Argentina y Viet Nam, , 2018; New Orleans of My Heart, jazz piano, 2019; Dreaming Orchid: Poetry & Jazz Piano, 2016. www.monglan.com
James B. Palais was an American historian, Koreanist, and writer. He served as Professor of Korean History at the University of Washington; and he was a key figure in establishing Korean studies in the United States.
John Whitney Hall was an American historian of Japan who specialized in premodern Japanese history. His life work was recognized by the Japanese government, which awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
Celine Parreñas Shimizu is a filmmaker and film scholar. She is well known for her work on race, sexuality and representations. She is currently Dean of the Arts Division at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Michael Dylan Foster is a professor of Folklore and the current Chair of the East Asian Languages and Cultures department at the University of California, Davis. He has taught in some capacity since 1989, starting in Japan teaching the English language on the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Programme, returning to the United States to teach Japanese folklore and literature. In addition to his academic career, which has mainly focused on Japanese literature and culture, he has published several short stories, articles, and novels. Much of his work on Japanese folklore has centered on tales of the supernatural—the strange and the weird. That is the subject of his first book, Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yôkai, which received the Chicago Folklore Prize in 2009. He is the current editor of the Journal of Folklore Research.
Shini-e, also called "death pictures" or "death portraits", are Japanese woodblock prints, particularly those done in the ukiyo-e style popular through the Edo period (1603–1867) and into the beginnings of the 20th century.
The John Whitney Hall Book Prize has been awarded annually since 1994 by the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). Pioneer Japanese studies scholar John Whitney Hall is commemorated in the name of this prize.
Karen Nakamura is an American academic, author, filmmaker, photographer and the Robert and Colleen Haas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Berkeley. Previously she was Associate Professor of Anthropology and East Asian Studies and Chair of LGBT Studies at Yale University.
Andrew Mark Watsky is an American academic, art historian, author and university professor.
Susan B. Hanley is an American academic, author, Japanologist and Professor Emerita of History at the University of Washington.
Donald Howard Shively was an American academic, historian, Japanologist, author and professor emeritus of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a leader of Japan studies in the United States.
Allan Georges Grapard is a French academic, historian and Japanologist.
Ala Ebtekar is a contemporary artist known primarily for his work in painting, drawing, illumination, and installation. His work frequently orchestrates various orbits and cadences of time, bringing forth sculptural and photographic possibilities of the universe, and time, gazing back at us.
Madeleine Zelin is Dean Lung Professor of Chinese Studies at Columbia University. At Columbia, Zelin is affiliated with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the Department of History, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Columbia Law School.
Ono Motohiro, also known as Ono Ranzan (小野蘭山), was a Japanese botanist and herbalist, known as the "Japanese Linnaeus".
Ike Gyokuran was a Japanese Bunjinga painter, calligrapher, and poet. She was famous in Kyoto, Japan, during her lifetime, and she remains a celebrated artist in Japan.
Whitney Chadwick is an American art historian and educator, who has published on contemporary art, modernism, Surrealism, and gender and sexuality. Her book Women, Art and Society was first published by Thames and Hudson in 1990 and revised in 1997; it is now in its fifth edition. Chadwick is Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University from the School of Art.
Susan Louise Mann is an American historian of China best known for her work on the Qing dynasty and the role of women and gender in Chinese history. She was professor of History at University of California, Davis from 1989 until her retirement in 2010.
Mayfair Yang or Yang Meihui is a Taiwanese-American cultural anthropologist of China. Her research focuses on modernity, religion and secularism, state formation, religious environmentalism, China Studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, and media studies.
James E. Ketelaar is an American scholar and historian specializing in the religious, philosophical, and intellectual history of Japan. He is professor emeritus in the Department of History, the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, where he has been teaching since 1996.
