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Dance, business, animation, royalty—no facet of Japanese life or history misses the attention of the PSU Center for Japanese Studies as it brings noted speakers and performers to campus each year.

“I’m proud of the quality of our programming,” says center director Ken Ruoff, noted expert on Japanese nationalism and democracy and associate professor of history. “But I am especially proud that we’ve done it with very little state money.”

The center relies on the active involvement and gifts of local groups and individuals. Bruce Brenn, who chairs the center’s advisory board, was instrumental in the founding of Nike Japan—presently a $600 million enterprise.

Since 2001, the center has sponsored a speaker series that showcases leading scholars from the United States and Japan. On October 20, Franziska Seraphim, professor of history at Boston College, will discuss the legacy of World War II in Japan today as part of PSU Weekend.

This past summer, Akira Kasai, considered the world’s greatest living Butoh master, taught workshops for the center’s Japanese Performance Festival—along with PSU professor Larry Kominz, an expert on Japanese theater.

Ruoff will spend the 2005-2006 academic year on sabbatical, but he is leaving the center in good hands. Kominz will oversee programming for fall and winter terms, and in spring Hiro Ito, economics professor, is organizing special lectures on the Japanese economy, which is the second largest in the world.

For more information about Center for Japanese Studies events, go to the Web site www.cjs.pdx.edu or call 503-725-8577.