Japanese executive and philanthropist Tadashi Yanai has made a commitment of $31 million to the UCLA College Division of Humanities, the largest gift in the history of the division.

The gift from Yanai — the chair, president and CEO of Fast Retailing and the founder of the Uniqlo clothing brand — is to the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities. The initiative was established at UCLA in 2014 following a $2.5 million gift from Yanai, and it operates as a partnership with Tokyo’s Waseda University.

In 2020, Yanai endowed the Yanai Initiative with a $25 million gift that, until now, was the largest ever from an individual donor to the Humanities Division.

“Adding to his already considerable past support, Mr. Yanai’s new gift will substantially advance the study of Japanese humanities, solidify UCLA’s position as a leading center for such scholarship and contribute greatly to our global reach and impact,” said UCLA Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt. “Thanks to Mr. Yanai’s generosity, UCLA will continue to grow as a nexus for scholars across the world to come together to explore and exchange ideas, transcending political, linguistic and cultural boundaries.”

The majority of the new gift will support a multifaceted initiative called Japan Past & Present. Based in the UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, the project not only promises to bolster UCLA’s standing as a leading center for the study of Japanese humanities, but also positions the campus as an engine for elevating the field globally.

“I am proud to support the study of Japanese humanities at UCLA and around the world because I believe in sharing and valuing the practices and artforms that shape our world,” Yanai said. “The humanities and arts make us who we are — they enable us as humans to relate to and care for one another. I look forward to seeing how Japan Past & Present will expand and enrich this critical work.”

Japan Past & Present is centered around a web-based hub that is meant to transform the field of Japanese humanities by promoting easy and equitable access to research and teaching resources and fostering greater collaboration among scholars throughout the world.

Scholars of Japanese humanities have long sought opportunities to collaborate with peers around the world, said Michael Emmerich, director of the Yanai Initiative and Japan Past & Present and a UCLA professor of Japanese literature. But, he added, it has been extremely difficult for researchers to identify and connect with one another — in some cases due to simple logistics.

Because universities outside of Japan don’t typically have stand-alone departments dedicated to Japanese humanities, researchers might be based in any number of academic programs: Asian studies, comparative literature, world languages or even, on occasion, English language or English literature.

Forging New Connections, Starting New Conversations

Emmerich said by providing funding to encourage researchers to forge connections across those institutional boundaries, as well as national and regional borders, Japan Past & Present will also bring new visibility to scholars from more diverse backgrounds.

“We want to make sure there is greater equity across the global community of scholars, in terms of both access to resources and the visibility of the work we are all doing,” he said. “And we want this digital hub to be a place researchers keep coming back to, because it will offer all sorts of resources they want and need. Creating that sort of space for scholars everywhere is key to reimagining the Japanese humanities as a truly global field.”

Scholarship in the field that is published in Japanese and English often gets the most attention, but Japan Past & Present will highlight resources in other linguistic contexts. For example, one section of the website enables scholars to discover, on a single page, recent books and journals from all around the world, in a variety of languages.

The program, which is run day to day by operations leader Paula R. Curtis, also offers funding for teams to develop research projects and teaching materials that will be housed on the site, initiate large-scale projects to digitize printed materials, and host academic symposia at UCLA and Waseda.

An “Indispensible Resource”

The Japan Past & Present website went live in March. It has been steadily adding new content since, including a project focused on disability studies in Japan, interviews with descendants of Hidden Christians in southwestern Japan, and “Blood, Tears, and Samurai Love,” a project centered on a richly annotated digital edition of a unique manuscript that narrates a tragic story of male-male love in early modern Japan.

Among the scholars praising the launch of Japan Past & Present is Haruo Shirane, the Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Columbia University in the City of New York, who called it a “pathbreaking, multidimensional resource for a wide range of scholars, students and the public at large.”

Shirane lauded the hub for making accessible scholarship on a rich variety of subjects across historical eras. “It will be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in Japan,” he said.

Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA Humanities Division, said, “Mr. Yanai’s extraordinary gift puts UCLA at the leading edge of Japanese humanities and will establish Japan Past & Present as an epicenter not only for scholars but also cultural producers from around the world. We are immensely grateful to Mr. Yanai for his enduring support of the Japanese humanities and of UCLA.”

Emmerich said the timing of Japan Past & Present’s launch — 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the Yanai Initiative’s founding — is a strong statement about the vibrancy of the field. He added that the programs’ being based at a top-ranked public university in Los Angeles is particularly consequential.

“A public institution is ideally situated to do work that diversifies and makes more equitable the field of Japanese humanities,” he said. “And there is so much to draw from in Los Angeles, including a large Japanese American community here with strong connections to Japan, and our proximity to Japan itself.”

The gift was facilitated through a designated donations program run by the Japan Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting cultural and intellectual exchange with Japan. Over the past three decades, the foundation has helped advance and fund numerous cultural programs at UCLA.

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