The Yanai Initiative
UCLA + Waseda University
reimagining the Japanese humanities
for the world
Tadashi Yanai gives $31 million to support hub for Japanese humanities research at UCLA
The Yanai Initiative is excited & humbled to share that philanthropist Tadashi Yanai has committed $31 million to support the Yanai Initiative’s activities in the Japanese humanities, in particular its newly launched project Japan Past & Present.
The World of the Benshi
Edited by Michael Emmerich and Daisuke Miyao
Featuring more than 300 images from archives and private collections around the world, this beautiful, approachable volume will captivate anyone with an interest in film.
Click to order!
The Yūgen of Elvis: Performing Noh in English
This lavish, richly illustrated Japanese-language book, published to accompany a performance at Waseda University of the English-language noh performance Blue Moon Over Memphis, includes playwright Deborah Brevoort’s original English libretto with a Japanese translation, along with dialogues, essays, and discussions of the music, costumes, and masks. Click to order a copy!
Japanese Novellas newly published by Pushkin Press
With Yanai Initiative support, English translations of six new novellas will be published by Pushkin Press in 2023-2024.
Bungaku Bideo “Extremely Short” selected for the 56th Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.
The “Bungaku Bideo” series is an innovative effort to bring literature and film together in a new way, and to introduce the work of phenomenal artists in both forms to new audiences worldwide. The first film in the series is Extremely Short by the world-renowned animator Kōji Yamamura and based on a short story by prize-winning author Hideo Furukawa.
Extremely Short has been selected for the 56th
niou: when we were together inhaling the same scent
Now available for purchase: a limited-edition record featuring novelist Kobayashi Erika and olfactory artist Ueda Maki, pressed from a lacquer master cut before a live audience.
Open Talk: The Knowledge of "Yakuzen" in Chinese Classical Medical Texts
A lecture by Xiang Jingjing, Associate Professor at the Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University
January 17, 2025
Waseda University
In Search of Social Solidarity: Postwar Japan as a Site of Inquiry
A lecture by Amy Borovoy (Princeton University)
Friday, February 7, 2025
3:00-5:00 PM
243 Royce Hall
UCLA
Edo-Period Kabuki Play Types: Genre and the Performing Arts
A lecture by Katherine Saltzman-Li (UC Santa Barbara)
Friday, February 21, 2025
3:00-5:00 PM
243 Royce Hall
UCLA
Yanai Initiative Book Event: Towers in the Void-Li Yu and Early Modern Chinese Media
Lecture and discussion with S.E. Kile (University of Michigan)
Friday, March 7, 2025
3:00-5:00 PM
243 Royce Hall
UCLA
RequiredAttendees are encouraged to read Towers in the Void (Columbia University Press, 2023) in advance.
A poster by Kamijō Takahisa from The Poster Project (2017)
In 2017, the Yanai Initiative worked with eleven major Japanese designers to reimagine a legendary series of posters created in 1982
The Hentaigana App, released in 2015
Available for free in Japanese and English versions for both iOS and Android devices, this was the first such app ever created
A poster by Asaba Katsumi from The Poster Project (2017)
In 2017, the Yanai Initiative worked with eleven major Japanese designers to reimagine a legendary series of posters created in 1982
The BeHere / 1942 exhibition catalog (2022)
In 2022, we collaborated with the Japanese American National Museum on the exhibit BeHere / 1942, marking the passage of 80 years since the Japanese American incarceration
One of two kyogen masterclasses with Nomura Mansai and Ishida Yukio held at UCLA in 2017
Designated holders of Important Intangible Cultural Property Nomura Mansai and Ishida Yukio each held one free masterclass for participants from UCLA and the broader Los Angeles community
Nonsense Way of Thinking: A Workshop with Maywa Denki in 2019
This workshop, held at the UCLA Game Lab, served as a preface to a free lecture and performance, open to the general public
Matsumoto Seichō: Media, Adaptation, and Middlebrow Literature (2020)
This eye-opening symposium was the first in the United States to focus on the work of the versatile writer Matsumoto Seichō, best known for his detective and period fiction
Traditional Japanese Theater and Theater Studies in a Global Age (2017)
This major symposium was part of a series of events called "Five Days of Kyogen" centered on two performances by living national treasure Nomura Mansaku and his troupe Mansaku no Kai