Japan Studies Association

President

Joseph L. Overton, Ph.D.

Kapiolani Community College

E-mail: overton@hawaii.edu

Joe Overton received his B.A. in History from Loyola College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

He taught for 30 years at Morgan State University in Baltimore where he served in several capacities including chair of the Department of Political Science as well as founder and director of the undergraduate and graduate programs in International Studies.

In 2000 he was hired by Kapi'olani Community College to become the discipline coordinator for political science. Later, he chaired the Honda International Center. In 2009 he was made director of the Office of International Affairs. While at KCC Dr. Overton has been responsible for almost $4 million in international grants, including three Freeman Foundation grants, a U.S. Department Title VI grant, and, in collaboration with George Brown of Slippery Rock University, two Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grants to Malaysia and Singapore.

Dr. Overton has received numerous Fulbright grants to countries such as Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Israel and Palestine. He was awarded the Distinguished Volunteer Award by the East-West Center in 2008.

Dr. Overton is the co-founder and current President of the Japan Studies Association. In this capacity he has been awarded grants for JSA from both the Freeman Foundation and the Japan Foundation. For the last 8 years he has been the director of the three-week Freeman Summer Institutes on Japan with Nancy Hume.

In addition, he is the founder of the Asian Studies Development Program Alumni Chapter at the East-West Center. He is the co-founder of the Association of Regional Centers of the ASDP and currently serves as its Executive Director.

Vice President

Fay Beauchamp, Ph.D.

Community College of Philadelphia

E-mail: fay.beauchamp@gmail.com

JSA Vice President Fay Beauchamp, Professor of English and Director, Center for International Understanding at Community College of Philadelphia, has given conference papers at JSA yearly since 1996. Her Ph.D. in English/American literature is from the University of Pennsylvania. She is on the Senior Advisory Board of Education About Asia where she has published articles on The Tale of Genji, Hiroshima, contemporary Japanese literature, Buson, and tales of Yang Gui Fei. She has directed five two-year U. S. Department of Education Title VI and NEH grants. With Joseph Overton, Fay organized the JSA 2008 Fukuoka Workshop and the 2003 Hiroshima Workshop. In 2009, she received the Northeast Faculty Award from the Association of Community College Trustees.

Treasurer

Stacia L. Bensyl, Ph.D.

Missouri Western State University

E-mail: bensyl@missouriwestern.edu

Stacia Bensyl is the treasurer for the Japan Studies Association. She received her M.A. from University College, Dublin, Ireland and her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. An Associate Professor of English at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri, Stacia teaches postcolonial and world literatures, with an emphasis in both Irish and Japanese writing, as well as gender studies. Currently, she is completing a monograph on literary magazines from the Japanese American internment camps.

Secretary

James Peoples, Ph.D.

Ohio Wesleyan University

E-mail: jgpeople@owu.edu

Jim is an anthropology professor at Ohio Wesleyan. He is the author of Island in Trust and co-author of Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, a textbook now in its 8th edition. With a research focus on cultures of the Pacific islands, Peoples has conducted anthropological fieldwork on a small Micronesian island, where he studied the impact of American subsidies on the islands agricultural and cash economy. At Ohio Wesleyan he teaches courses in cultural anthropology, human ecology, Pacific cultures, East Asia, and Native Americans of the Southwest.

Representative At Large

MJ Sunny Zank, Ph.D.

Ohio Northern University

E-mail: sunnyzank@gmail.com

Sunny Zank, Professor of Music in the department of Music at Ohio Northern University, teaches three Asia intensive courses. Her expertise is in the traditional music of Japan and its links to modern musical compositions by Japanese composers. She writes book and CD reviews of textbooks about Japanese music and newly released works by Japanese composers. Sunny has presented papers on Japanese music to diverse groups including the College Music Society, of which she is the region Theory representative. Recently, she has published a large number of prefaces to musical scores for the German music-publishing house Musikproduktion Jurgen Hoflich. At Ohio Northern University she has served as the chair of University Council and a member of the Board of Trustees. She is the Region 5 secretary for the National Association of Schools of Music.

Representative At Large

Thomas Campbell

Institute

E-mail:

A little bit about Tom...

Representative At Large

Sandy Lopez

Trident Technical College

E-mail: Sandy.Lopez@tridenttech.edu

Sandy Lopez is Coordinator of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Trident Technical College (TTC) in Charleston, SC where she teaches sociology. Before teaching she worked 20 years as a psychiatric social worker, program or executive director in the human service field. She holds degrees in sociology from the University of Maine and Western Kentucky University. A return to graduate school for history in the mid-1990s led to an interest in Asian Studies and the participation in several seminars, field studies, and institutes. She became active in JSA in 2005. She was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in Denmark during fall of 2009.

Program Co-Chair

Cynthia Ho

Institute

E-mail:

A little bit about Cynthia...

Program Co-Chair

MJ Sunny Zank, Ph.D.

Ohio Northern University

E-mail: sunnyzank@gmail.com

Sunny is also currently one of JSA's representatives at large. Please view her biography in the Executive Board section.

JSA Journal Editor

John Paine

Belmont University

E-mail: painestover@gmail.com

John H. E. Paine has been editor of Japan Studies Association Journal since 2008. He is a professor of literature in the Department of English and the Department of Foreign Languages at Belmont University, where he teaches courses in European and World Literature and Japanese Literature and Culture, as well as French language, literature, and civilization. He co-edited Women on the Edge: Ethnicity and Gender in Short Stories by American Women (Garland, 1999) and is North American Editor of Journal of the Short Story in English. Among his current projects is a series of reflections on the teaching of world literature in the American university classroom.

Webmaster

Barbara Mason

Oregon State University

E-mail: barbara.mason@oregonstate.edu

Barbara has been an associate professor at Oregon State University since 2000. She also acts as a costume designer in Theatre Arts. Prior to her stay at Oregon State, she has taught at several different institutions including Boise State University for nine years; after which she spent three years teaching in Cairo at the American University there; and finally taught at S.U.N.Y. Geneseo in upstate New York for six years before moving to Oregon State. She earned her MFA from the University of South Carolina.