Kwan-Ichi Asakawa

Kan-Ichi Asakawa (December 20, 1873 - August 10, 1948) was an American university professor and author of works on Japan. He was born at Nihonmatsu, Japan, and educated at the Fukushima-ken Middle School, Waseda University Tokyo, Japan, Dartmouth College, and Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1902. He became the first Japanese professor at a major university in the United States.

He lectured at Dartmouth College in 1902; was professor at Waseda University (1906-07); instructor at Yale University (1907-10); and became an assistant professor at Yale University in 1910. He carried on special investigations in Japan, 1906-07 and 1917-19. He became a professor at Yale University in 1937. Professor Asakawa was author of many works on Japan of sound dispassionate scholarship.

He dedicated himself to serving as a bridge between the United States and Japan to promote amicable relations.

Some of his remains are interred at Kanairo cemetery at his hometown of Nihonmatsu, Fukushima, Japan, and others are interred at Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.

Every summer, Dartmouth students who are studying Japanese abroad in Japan take a trip to Asakawa's hometown of Nihonmatsu, and pay homage by visiting both the high school where he studied, and his grave site.

In 2007 the Asakawa garden in Saybrook College, designed by Shinichiro Abe, was dedicated to mark the centennial of Asakawa's appointment as an instructor of history at Yale.

Works

He wrote: "The Early Institutional Life of Japan" (1903); "The Russo-Japanese Conflict: ­Its Causes and Issues" (1904); "The Origin of Feudal Land-Tenure in Japan" (1914), and "Some Aspects of Japanese Feudal Institutions" (1918). His works also included contributions to the publications "Japan" edited by Capt. F. Brinkley (1904); the "History of Nations Series" (1907); "China and the Far East" (1910); "Japan and Japanese-American Relations" (1912); and "The Pacific Ocean in History" (1917).

References

*Tohru Takeda "Kan'ichi Asakawa - Who Worked For World Peace ". Sakyo Takaishi, JPS Inc. (June 1, 2007). ISBN 978-4884695187

External links

* [http://www.japan-101.com/culture/kanichi_asakawa.htm Kanichi Asakawa - Japanese Historian]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7190605 Kanichi Asakawa] on Find-A-Grave
* [http://research.yale.edu/eastasianstudies/asakawa.html The Asakawa Centennial at Yale]