Welcome to the Home Page of Ronald P. Loftus Department of Japanese and Chinese Willamette University Salem, Oregon 97301 Visiting the birthplace of Taoka Reiun (1870-1912), Kochi City, June 1996

 

Contact Information:

Address: Department of Japanese & Chinese Willamette University 900 State St Salem, OR 97301

Phone 503 370-6275 (Voice) Fax 503 375-5398 Email rloftus@willamette.edu

Personal Information:

Ph.D. in Modern Japanese History, Claremont Graduate School (1975). Studied with Professor Peter Duus and with Professors Nishida Masaru and Kano Masanao in Japan. Attended the Stanford Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo and benefitted enormously from research fellowships from the Japan Foundation (1984, 2007) and the Fulbright Commission (1976, 1990). Began teaching 1977 at Western Washington University. Moved to Willamette University 1983. Currently Professor of Japanese Language and East Asian History. Teaching interests include Japanese Language, Japanese Literature in Translation, Modern Japanese History, Postwar Japan, and Japanese Cinema.

Visit my courses at the following Links:

• Asia 210 Gateway to Asia

• College Colloquium: Changing Times

• Modern Japanese History

• Postwar Japan

• Postwar Japan: Feminism and Protest (Hist 131)

  Modern Japanese Literature

• Worldviews--Freshman Seminar

• Senior Seminar Japanese Studies

• Japanese Cinema

• Elementary Japanese I

• Elementary Japanese II

Research Interests:

Taoka Reiun (1870-1912)

a nineteenth-century literary and social critic known for his anti-modernism stance. Born in present day Kochi City on Shikoku. See Taoka Reiun International Symposium held in Kochi, Oct. 21, 2000. There was also a Forum held in November 2012 in Tokyo to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Taoka Reiun's passing. From Left to right, Christine Levy, me, Takahashi Tasashi (President of the Kochi City Pen Club) and Professor Nishida Masaru.

• Autobiography, especially autobiographies by twentieth-century Japanese women, for example, Takamure Itsue, Fukuda Hideko, Sata Ineko, Nishikado Tamie, Chiba Atsuko, Kora Tomi, Atsugi Taka, Fukunaga Misao, Oku Mumeo, Sawachi Hisae and Takai Toshio.

• My book, Telling Lives: Female Self-Writing in Modern Japan, was published by University of Hawai'i Press in July 2004. It includes translations from the autobiographies of Oku Mumeo, Takai Toshio, Nishi Kiyoko, Sata Ineko and Fukunaga Misao. To order, click on the cover.

• I recently published a sequel of sorts, Changing Lives: The 'Postwar' in Japanese Women's Autobiographies and Memoirs which is published as part of the Association of Asian Studies, "Asia Past and Present" series in 2013. It deals with postwar Japanese women's lives and features the autobiographies of Shinya Eiko, Okabe Itsuko, Sawachi Hisae, Yoshitake Teruko, Kishino Junko and Kanamori Toshie among others.

  

For Selected list of publications on autobiography, click here.

Related Web pages:

AAS Home Page

ASPAC Home Page

Resources for Women's Studies

Hiroshima Archive; See Photos here.

Japanese Links: Keiko Schneider's Page, JPNet, Japan in the World

Japanese History Links: Rape of Nanking, Duke University Japanese Studies Resources

WWII Poster Gallery, WWII Resources

Japanese Studies at Willamette Home Page

Hobbies

The Blues, Origins, More Blues

Soccer