Video: Two giant Japan scholars, Donald Keene & Joyce Lebra, interviewed abt their careers, Japanese culture

David Wagner, a consultant, trainer and journalist who is originally from Colorado but has lived for years in Japan, had the opportunity to sit down and speak with two giants of Japan scholarship. Dr. Donald Keene and Dr. Joyce Lebra (a professor at the University of Colorado).

It’s a fascinating and far-ranging conversation, starting with both Keene and Lebra’s arrival in post-war Japan and how they came to be such esteemed scholars (and in Lebra’s case, how she became an India expert too). They also cover the 1970 suicide of Japanese author Yukio Mishima (whether it was a political or artistic act), and the explosion in Japanese studies over the decades.

Anyone interested in Japan or Japanese studies should take some time and view this video.