Director

North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Liberty Resources

217 Varick Road
Newton, MA 02468

TEL: (617) 916-1212
FAX: (617) 916-1221
E-MAIL: vbestor@fas.harvard.edu

CAN BE INTERVIEWED FOR: Print, Radio, TV

INTERVIEW LANGUAGES: English, Japanese

SPECIALIZATIONS:

• ART, ART HISTORY, LITERATURE, AND PERFORMING ARTS
  art, art exchange; funding for the arts; Rockefeller influences of US-Japan relations
• BUSINESS, TRADE AND ECONOMICS
  business-community relations; corporate culture; corporate identity; corporate philanthropy; Japanese corporations in the US; philanthropic foundations; public relations
• EDUCATION
  philanthropic support of education; bilateral educational and cultural exchange; cultural diversity training; education and society; international educational exchange programs; Japanese language instruction in US; pre-collegiate education; educational outreach; nonprofit educational organizations
• HISTORY
  US-Japan cultural relations in the 20th century; legacy of Rockefeller philanthropy in Japan; the history of Japan in the nonprofit sector; changing meanings of civil society and voluntary action in Japan during the 20th century
• LANGUAGE
  pedagogy
• SOCIETY, CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY
  aging and life cycle; demographics; cuisine, consumption and culture in Japan; Japanese women and the transformation of domestic roles

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Consultant to Stanford Overseas Studies Program on behalf of the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies, 1996-99; Director of Public Affairs, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art Cornell University, 1994-96; Director of Corporate Relations, S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 1993-1994; Program Director, Associate Director, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, 1987-93; Corporate Program Officer, Development Officer, Japan Society of New York, 1983-86.

IN JAPAN: 1997-98, 1988-89, 1974-76 - employment; 1979-81 - research; repeated brief trips.

MAJOR PUBLICATIONS:

You Can Learn a Lot Just by Watching: Doing Fieldwork in Japan (T. Bestor & Steinhoff, co-eds. University of Hawaii Press, forthcoming); Cuisine, Consumption and Culture: Food in Contemporary Japan (T. Bestor, co-eds. University of California Press, forthcoming); The Rockefeller Legacy in Japan: Politics, Cultural Relations, and the Evolution of Japan's Nonprofit Sector (forthcoming); Japanese Nationals in American Schools (with Wojtan) (Columbia University, 1993); "Japanese Schooling in New York" Japan Society Newsletter (March, 1988); Seeing Japan -- Curator's Handbook (with Root et al.) (Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, 1989).