RAS Shanghai – Tales of Old Tokyo 1/12/15
Posted: November 28th, 2015 | No Comments »RASÂ LECTUREÂ Â
Tuesday 1 December 2015
7:00 PM for 7:15 PM start
Radisson Blu Plaza Xingguo Hotel, Tavern Bar
78 XingGuo Road, Shanghai
The Remarkable Story of One of the World’s Most Fascinating Cities
John Darwin van Fleet
 
John van Fleet presents a breathtaking romp through the city’s Tokyo’s history from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century, with, using lots of images, writings and clippings to bring back to life those far-off days.Â
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“A unique, kaleidoscopic and immensely reader-friendly approach to the history of one of the world’s great cities. This book belongs on every Japanophile’s shelf alongside Seidensticker’s High City, Low City.” Mark Schreiber, columnist, Japan Times
“Fire, earthquake, aerial bombardment, fevered construction, fevered reconstruction and re-re-reconstruction have erased and replaced Tokyo many times over. Van Fleet’s Tales retrieves the city from its traces, jolting the reader with Tokyo as it is in the mind’s eye: an explosion of newspaper clippings, police blotters, big character posters, scandal photos, mementos, flags, propaganda, advertisement and scribbled, personal observations – the invisible feast that feeds the spirits of those who have made the city their own.” Michael Thomas Cucek, Adjunct Professor, Sophia University; Temple University Japan Editor-in-Chief, Shisaku
John Van Fleet was raised in Southern California and completed an undergraduate in English and American Literature at the University of Southern California (USC). He moved to Japan in 1991, spending ten years there before relocating to greater China, where he has lived since, first in Taipei and now in Shanghai. While he’s primarily employed as Assistant Dean and Executive Director of the Global Executive MBA in Shanghai (GEMBA), a collaboration between USC and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, he spends his spare time considering the east Asian historical and sociopolitical environment.
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An op-ed contributor for the China Economic Review, a reviewer/contributor for the Journal of International Business Education, and a regular reviewer for the Asian Review of Books, Van Fleet is currently working on two new projects – one the story of a tragic couple in Japan in the last decade, the other a collection of essays looking at the interactions of Japan and China, past and present.
Talk Cost: RMB 70.00 (RAS members) and RMB 100.00 (non-members). Includes glass of wine or soft drink. Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption.
Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.
 To RSVP: Please “Reply” to this email or write to
 RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.
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