“Japan and Its Asian Neighbors: History, Islands and National Identity”
February 25, 2014. Lecture delivered live at UMBC and by video conferencing to four other university campuses as part of the University of Pittsburgh’s NCTA Video Conference series, Japan in the Broader Context of Asia: an NCTA Video-Conference Lecture Series.
Selected Public Lectures and Speaking Engagements
“‘Shōgun’ and Samurai”
Sold-out lecture/Q&A on the FX series “Shōgun” and samurai culture, delivered for “Profs and Pints” at Penn Social, Washington, DC, April 8, 2024. Also delivered at Guilford Hall Brewery, Baltimore, MD, April 11, 2024.
“The Black Ships: Commodore Perry, American Exceptionalism, and the Opening of Japan, 1852-54.”
2023 Lipitz Professorship Lecture, UMBC, December 6, 2023, available on YouTube:
Hilary Hahn Benefit Concert for Japan after March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and partial nuclear meltdown, Baltimore, MD March 24, 2011. Opened event with short lecture “Japan Needs Us Now.”
“Earthquakes, Tsunami, and Meltdowns: Japan’s “‘Black Swan’?”
Program created at UMBC with colleague Kate Brown for public dissemination of information on Japan’s “triple disaster” in 2011.
“Picaresque Tales, Travelers, and Lawbreakers.” Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution,Washington, D.C., April 14, 2013. Lecture given to accompany the Museum’s film presentation of the entire animated series “Samurai Champloo.”
“The Social World of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Kano Kazunobu (1816-63),” Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., March 21, 2012
Lecture delivered to sixty docents at the Freer-Sackler Gallery in conjunction with the Freer exhibit “Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji” and “Masters of Mercy: Buddha’s Amazing Disciples.”
“The Samurai": From War to Peace”
Lecture presented at the Virginian Museum of Fine Arts, in conjunction with the exhibition “Samurai. Armor from the Collection of Ann & Gabriel Barbier-Mueller,” July 11, 2024.
Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsYjjzRjvJ8&t=1135s
“A Lord, a Pauper, and an Artist: Putting People Back into Samurai History.”
Dresher Center for the Humanities Forum Lecture, UMBC, December 2, 2021. Available on YouTube.
“Sake in Japanese Culture.” Lecture presented to the Smithsonian Associates, Nov. 6, 2009, Washington, D.C.
“Visual Culture and Social Upheaval: Imaging Change in Late Edo Period Japan.”
Invited panelist for public program that explored the spiritual profile of late Edo society vis-à-vis the objects on view in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery exhibitions, Masters of Mercy: Buddha's Amazing Disciples (on view March 10–July 8, 2012) and Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji (on view March 24–June 17, 2012).