On Wednesday, October 30, 2024, the International and Area Studies Library and the Center for African Studies invited Émilie Songolo—Head of Distinctive Collections at the MIT Libraries—to give a talk about the African Textile Archive housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The talk featured a gallery of textiles which attendees could examine in person, in addition to specific fabrics Songolo highlighted during her presentation.
On Thursday, April 18, the Center for African Studies hosted a dinner and talks for the event “Coffee, Tea, and IP”. (The event was co-sponsored in part by the International & Area Studies Library.) The theme of the two presentations, by Dr. Boatema Boateng and Dr. Chidi Oguamanam, was “Indigenous Knowledge, Intellectual Property, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa”. Read the rest.
Since joining UIUC in 1964 as an artist in residence, Professor Emeritus Shozo Sato 佐藤 昌三 has connected traditional Japanese arts with the world through his works and educational roles. Skilled in painting, calligraphy, theater, flower arrangement, and the tea ceremony, he introduced these art forms to the Champaign-Urbana community through many pioneering initiatives. Read the rest.
Japanese architect Yamamoto Riken has been awarded 2024’s prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, recognized as one of the highest accolades in the field. Born in Beijing, China, in 1945, to an engineer father (part of the occupying force) Yamamoto’s early years were shaped by the aftermath of the Asia Pacific War. His family relocated to a war-torn Tokyo in 1947, where he witnessed firsthand the rebuilding process, sparking his interest in the symbiotic relationship between architecture and community. Read the rest.
The University of Illinois Library holds one of the largest and most referenced Japanese Studies collections in North America. Recently, our collection has grown even larger with the inclusion of many online academic resources from Japan or in the Japanese language. These valuable additions were made possible through several cross-institutional digital repositories. Read the rest.