TITLE: Highlights of Japan-U.S. Relationship: History, Cultural Exchange and Future Development
SPEAKER: Norman Mineta, Midori Goto, Naoyuki Agawa, Michael Auslin
EVENT DATE: 04/06/2007
RUNNING TIME: 166 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
The Asian Division hosted a symposium featuring discussion on the "Highlights of Japan-U.S. Relationship: History, Cultural Exchange and Future Development."
This symposium illuminates the long-standing exchanges between Japan and the United States that have brought the two countries to the strong partnership enjoyed today. Three speakers share the highlights of cultural exchange between the two countries that began some 154 years ago with the 1853 arrival in Japan of the U.S. naval ships commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry, followed by the signing of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity in 1854.
The esteemed speakers included in this symposium are the Honorable Norman Mineta, Violinist Midori Goto and Professors Naoyuki Agawa and Michael Auslin.
Speaker Biography: Norman Yoshio Mineta is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He is one of the most successful Asian American politicians in U.S. history. Mineta most recently served in the cabinet of Pres. George W. Bush as the United States Secretary of Transportation, the only Democratic cabinet secretary in the Republican administration. On June 23, 2006, Mineta announced his resignation after five years and six months as Secretary of Transportation, making him the longest-serving Transportation Secretary in the department's history. On July 10, 2006, Hill & Knowlton, a renowned public relations firm, announced that Mineta would join it as a partner.
Speaker Biography: Midori Goto, strings professor and the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Music at the University of Southern California, is an internationally-renowned musician whose performing career has spanned nearly 25 years. She earned her master???s degree in psychology from New York University in 2005 and her first teaching position was at the Manhattan School of Music, where she was on the violin faculty from 2001-2006. Midori has been renowned not only for her skills onstag but also for her devotion to developing new educational and community-based outreach programs. She has taken an active role in availing musical opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds through her three foundations: Midori & Friends and Partners in Performance in the U.S., and Music Sharing in Japan; as well as in annual, individually-designed residency projects with youth orchestras and universities.
Speaker Biography: Naoyuki Agawa is a professor at Keio University in Fujisawa, Japan, and a specially appointed professor at Tokyo University. He has been an attorney with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and an associate with Sony Corporation. From 2002-05 he was a politically appointed minister in charge of public affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. Agawa served as one of the University of Virgina Law School's scholars in residence from 1995-96.
Speaker Biography: Michael Auslin is the founding director of the Project on Japan-U.S. Relations at Yale and is a senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. He is the author of "Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy" (Harvard University Press, 2004), which won the Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication in the Humanities. In addition to numerous academic articles, he has published widely in U.S. and international media and has been interviewed by CNN, ABC Radio and NHK Japan Broadcasting, among others. He was also the featured commentator in the 2004 PBS series "Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire," for which he was also a script consultant. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and also was selected as a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund. In addition, he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program. A former Fulbright and Japan Foundation Scholar, he sits on the Corporate Council of the Japan Society of New York. At Yale, he has been awarded a Morse Fellowship in the Humanities, received the Director's Award from the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and been named a Junior Faculty Fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center.
