Representing centers in Korea, Brazil, Mexico, the U.K., France, Australia, Massachusetts and Hawaii, the scholars discussed how best to meet the challenges currently facing the field. They touched on urgent questions of future funding, the need to improve students’ Japanese language skills, the language barriers that keep scholarship in the field canonized, and the renaissance in area studies that favors Japanese language, literature, religion and art history within a greater transnational focus.

This article offers a complete review of the Director's Talk.