THE SHINGETSU INSTITUTE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

For those of you who may not know us, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the members of the Shingetsu Board of Directors. The Board consists of only four members at this point. Since part of the mission of Shingetsu is local, all of the current Board Members are based in or near Kitakyushu. Anyway, the four board members are as follows:

Tetsuya Ohtoshi, Associate Professor, Kyushu University

Dr. Ohtoshi is a pillar of the Islamic studies community in Western Japan. His research focuses on the social history of the Arab lands, with particular reference to Egypt. He has published numerous academic articles and other reports. Most of them are in Japanese, but he also regularly publishes in English. Dr. Ohtoshi is also active in many academic societies in Japan. He is a Trustee of JAMES and on the Editorial Board of the Association for Islamic Studies in Japan. Finally, he is also quite active in giving lectures to the Japanese public about the Arab world. Last year, one of these lectures was entitled “Japan and the Middle East: Historical Perspective.”

Michael Penn, Language Lecturer, The University of Kitakyushu

Mr. Penn is a native of Los Angeles who has been living in Japan since June 1997. Since that time, the bulk of his research has been on the topic of Japanese-Islamic relations. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Shingetsu Institute. He has published more than a dozen academic articles in several countries and is beginning to contribute opinion articles to various national media outlets. His biography has been listed in the annual “Marquis Who’s Who in the World” since 2004 and his name was listed in the most recent “Morse Target: Washington’s Movers and Shakers on Japan.”

Keiko T. Tamura, Professor, The University of Kitakyushu

Dr. Tamura is a very active scholar in the field of Southeast Asian studies. Her main countries of specialization are Singapore and Malaysia, but she also deals with the international relations of ASEAN as a whole. In her writings, she often deals with themes like nationalism, gender, ethnicity, democratization, and NGO activities. She has authored three books and co-edited another three. She has also written numerous academic articles. Dr. Tamura is also active in academic societies. For several years she has chaired the Southeast Asian studies section of the Japan Association of International Relations. Although she is a prolific author, she has not yet written anything directly related to the topic of Japanese-Islamic relations.

Shintaro Yoshimura, Associate Professor, Hiroshima University

Dr. Yoshimura is an active researcher whose primary field is modern Iranian history. However, not only is he a Japanese historian of 20th century Iran, but he also has written more widely on topics like so-called terrorism and fundamentalism, the Kurdish issue, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In all, he has published literally dozens of articles for both scholarly audiences and the general public. After the September 11 attacks, Dr. Yoshimura helped to establish the Hiroshima Middle East Network to try to educate the public about Islamic cultures, ethno-religious problems, and the Palestine issue. To date, he has one publication directly related to Japanese-Islamic relations, a translation of Iranian President Seyyid Mohammed Khatami’s work that was published in a major Japanese monthly magazine.