This is a partial list of eligible Japan-related events.
Please check often – This page is constantly updated!
Please ask your instructor if what you find online counts for your Language Beyond the Classroom (Culture Pass)!
Recurring Events (in person)
Japanese Program Coffee Hour
Date: Thursday, April 16
Time: 5:30-7:00 pm
Place: GSU Backcourt
Nihongo Social
Date: Monday, March 2 & Friday, April 10
Time: 4:30-5:20 pm
Place: CAS 426
Please sign up from the QR code in the flyer.
Cultural & Innovative Fridays by Consulate-General of Japan in Boston
The Consulate-General of Japan in Boston organizes a cultural event series on Fridays. Please check their website for the most updated calendar.
Recurring Events (online)
One-time Events (in person)
4/24 (Friday), Karaoke - Sing in Japanese! by BU Japanese Program
Friday, April 24, 4:30-5:55 pm @CAS 533B (Geddes Language Center)
This is a Language Beyond the Classroom event.
Seats are limited. Please register here.
4/9 (Thursday), Don't be Rude! - Exploration of Politeness and Respect in East Asian Cultures by the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean clusters of the Global House
Thursday, April 9, 7-8 pm @Multi-purpose Room (610 Beacon St.)
This event qualifies for Language Beyond the Classroom.
Please sign up using the QR code in the flyer!
3/31 (Tuesday), Why Ghosts Matter: The Underground History of Japan
Tuesday, March 31, 6 pm @ The Allen & Shirley Leventhal Center (233 Bay State Road)
Speaker: Dr. Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature, Columbia University
Ghosts are a key to understanding anxieties about family, social injustice, and political violence in Japan. Unpacking four types of ghosts in Japan: political ghosts, ancestral ghosts, social ghosts, and non-human ghosts, the talk shows how these “ghost lineages” interlink, how they transform over time, and what they tell us about notions of personhood, community, power, and the non-human in Japanese history.
Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Columbia University, is the author of Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts (2012), Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (1997), The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of The Tale of Genji (1987), and other books. He is an honorary member of the Japan Academy. The Allen & Shirley Leventhal Center 233 Bay State Road March 31 – 6 PM
3/20 (Friday), Japanese Traditional Games by BU Japanese Program
Friday, March 20, 4:30-5:20 pm @ CAS B20
2/25 (Wednesday), The Diplomacy of Gift Exchange During the 1853-1854 Perry Expedition to Japan by Pardee School of Global Studies
Wednesday, February 25, 4-6 pm @Pardee School of Global Studies, 121 Bay State Road
Speaker: Dr. Matthew C. Perry
Discussant: Dr. William Grimes (Boston University)
Moderator: Dr. Grant Rhode (Boston University)
Formal relations between the United States and Japan began with Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1853-1854. Rhode Island native Perry, America’s greatest naval diplomat as well as father of the American steam navy, brought significant technology, arts, food and spirit gifts to Jana and received gifts in return from the Japanese. The importance of gift exchange as the basis for social relations, especially in the context of diplomacy, will be examined by Perry descendant and family historian Matthew C. Perry.
Register here.
2/14 (Saturday), Valentines's Day, Love and Chocolate by the Japanese Cluster of the Global House
Saturday, February 14, 3 pm- @ Global House Lounge (610 Beacon St.)
Register here.
2/12 (Tuesday), Learning from Japan: Expos Past, Present, and Future by the BU Center for the Study of Asia at the Pardee School
Tuesday, February 12, 4-5:30 pm @BU Pardee School, 121 Bay State Road, Boston, MA
With Angus Lockyer (Rhode Island School of Design)
Free and open to the public.
Register here.
1/30 (Friday), Calligraphy Workshop by The Japanese Language Program
Friday, January 30, 4:30-6:00 pm @STH B24
This workshop is for people with no or little previous experience!
Register from the QR code below.
1/28 (Wednesday), Making Sense of Japan's Defense Policy: Continuities, Changes, and Challenges by The Consulate-General of Japan in Boston and the BU Center for the Study of Asia at the Pardee School
Wednesday, January 28, 5-6:30 pm @Room 220, 595 Commonwealth Ave. Boston, MA
With KIRIDORI Ryo (National Institute for Defense Studies & University of Toronto)
Moderated by Thomas Berger (Pardee School, BU)
Free and open to the public.
Register here.
One-time Events (online)
3/3 (Tuesday), New Writing from Japan, Vol. 6 HORROR Your Host of Ghosts! by Japan Society of Boston, MONKEY
Tuesday, March 3, 7:00 – 8:00 pm (EST)
Online Launch for: MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 6 Horror Your Host of Ghosts!
Join us on March 3rd for a free online event to celebrate the worldwide launch of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 6 – Your Host of Ghosts!
From “Rashomon” to “The Ring,” no one does psychological horror better than Japan, and horror is the theme of the new issue of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, the annual English-language journal of original Japanese stories, poetry, and art. But MONKEY 6 is not only about ghosts, spirits and hauntings. Quite often it takes on something more subtle that feels almost anti-horror in spirit.
This event’s award-winning guest authors Kaori Fujino and Hideo Furukawa, and their lauded translators Laurel Taylor and Kendall Heitzman, will discuss what it means to write and translate in our contemporary world filled with its own omnipresent horrors. Hosted by Japanamerica author and contributing editor and award-winning translator and founding editor Motoyuki Shibata, this is a unique transcultural literary celebration not to be missed!
This event is open to the public, but advance registration is required.
Register here.
