Merry White

Affiliations

Gastronomy at Boston University, Faculty Associate, E.O.Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies, Harvard University

Areas of Expertise

Urban Japan; food studies; travel and tourism; family, elderly and social change in Japan; the cafe and social spaces in Japanese cities

View Professor White’s CV – February 2025

About Professor White

Merry (“Corky”) White is Professor of Anthropology at Boston University, with specialties in Japanese studies, food, and travel. A caterer prior to entering graduate school, she has written two cookbooks, one of which—first published in the mid-1970s—was recently reissued by Princeton University Press. 

She currently has the following projects in the works:

Completing a study of Japanese food workers and conducting new research on the Japanese whisky industry, including distillery visits, interviews, and participant observation.

“Don’t Tell the Kinder,” a family history of art and rescue in the exhibition, “Try All What is Possible”: How Emil Singer’s Art Saved Lives, 1936-1942.

Co-Curator, “Objects of Use and Beauty” Exhibition of Japanese Culinary Tools, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton MA 2018

Co-author with Dr. Benjamin Wurgaft, “Ways of Eating: Exploring Food through History and Culture,” Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. Coming out in eight foreign language editions. Currently on book tour 

Selected Publications

• Book Chapter, “Body, Tool and Technique: Elements of Work in the Japanese Kitchen” in Philosophies of Food, editors, Andrea Borghini and Patrik Engisch, 2021
• Journal Article, “When Yoshu Whiskey becomes Washu Whisky” in Arena (in Japanese) Fall 2020.
• Essay, “Always More to Learn: The Contemporary Coffee Scene in Japan” in Standart, Winter 2019-2020.
• Journal Article, “Assumptions and Distortions: Dore on Equality in Japanese Schooling” in Pacific Affairs, Winter, 2019.
• Review Essay, “Consuming Life in Post-Bubble Japan” in Social Science Japan Journal, Summer 2019

Courses

• CAS AN 344/744 Modern Japanese Society
• CAS AN 308/708 Food in Place: Identity, Location and the Cultures of Taste
• CAS AN 345/745 Moving Experiences: Cultures of Tourism and Travel
• CAS AN 505 Women and Social Change in Asia
• CAS AN 309/709 Boston: An Ethnographic Exploration