In this interview, Michael Cronin, Assistant Professor of Japanese Language and Literature, discusses his research on the Japanese city of Osaka and how he’s bringing that research into the classroom this year in a course he’s team-teaching about “The City” with Prof. Rob Leventhal in German Studies. He also gives some book and film recommendations for people wanting to learn more about the culture of city life in Japan.
A new project at William & Mary is the Virtual Library of Freedom, a group started by William & Mary alumna Hannah Thornton ’10.
Melissa Woods, a student at William & Mary, writes:
The Virtual Library of Freedom (VLF) is a student organization founded in 2010 that aims to promote cross-cultural discussion online between American and Middle Eastern students. The organization has built a web-site (www.vlfreedom.org) that features a database of documents, a student blog, and discussion forum, and is working on translating the entire site into Arabic, French, and Spanish. The documents included in the database discuss the topics of civil liberties, good governance, human rights, Islam and democracy, international relations, and non-violent protest. Blogs and discussions focus on current events, such as the death of Gaddafi in Libya. The web site is still an ongoing project, but each semester we are making more and more progress! VLF also seeks to promote discussion at William and Mary through on-campus events such as the “VLF Global Activism Week.” In the future, the organization hopes to partner with student organizations at Middle Eastern universities to foster dialogue and present more diverse opinions on the site.
I recently sat down for a video interview with Jorge Terukina, one of our newest faculty members in the Hispanic Studies program at the College of William & Mary. I asked him about his research interests, his latest academic project, the courses he’s teaching, and finally, I asked for book recommendations dealing with Hispanic Studies.