Lecture First in Series on World Cities by Trinity Faculty

What: Jeffrey Bayless, assistant professor of history at Trinity, will deliver a talk entitled, “There Goes The Neighborhood: Disaster and Prosperity in the Making and Remaking of Tokyo.” It is the first in a series of faculty lectures on world cities sponsored by The Center for Urban and Global Studies.

When: Tuesday, October 20 ~ 4 p.m.

Where: 70 Vernon Street on the campus of Trinity College

Background: Bayless spent a year living in Tokyo during the 2007-2008 academic year, pursuing research on a variety of projects involving minorities and minority identity in Japan.

He arrived at Trinity in 2004 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He earned an M.A. in education from Miyagi University of Education in Japan, where he lived and worked for more than 10 years.

Bayless’ research focuses on minority groups and issues of minority identity in modern Japan. He has examined how similarly disadvantaged groups, facing similar kinds of discrimination at the hands of majority society, relate to one another, and how they cooperate – or fail to cooperate – in their respective struggles for social equality.

In his courses at Trinity, Bayless challenges his students to question common assumptions about Japanese culture and history, as well as the meanings of common terminology such as “premodern,” “modern,” “Asian,” and “Western.”

A reception will follow the lecture.

For more information, please contact Jay Percy at: 860-297-5175 or at jason.percy@trincoll.edu.

back to top