John Howes
John F. Howes (born 1924)[1] is Emeritus Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC) for over three decades.[2]
Biography
Howes began his studies of the Japanese language in 1944 at the I.T.S. Naval School of Oriental Languages, and served in the general headquarters of the Allied Occupation of Japan. Returning to the United States, he obtained an undergraduate degree at Oberlin College, and then a MA doctorate from Columbia University with a thesis "Uchimura Kanzō; a biographical sketch", followed by a 1965 Ph.D for "Japan's enigma, the young Uchimura Kanzō".[3] Even before completing his doctoral work, he 1961 he joined the Department of Asian Studies at University of British Columbia, rising to the rank of Professor, and then Emeritus Professor. .[4][5] After retirement from UBC, he taught at Obirin University, near Tokyo.[6] He now resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Academic work
Howes is a specialist in the modern Japanese intellectual history, concentrating on its Christian and pacifist thinkers, particularly Uchimura Kanzō (1861-1930) and Nitobe Inazō (1862-1933).
He published the following books:
- (editor) Nitobe Inazô: Japan's Bridge Across the Pacific. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.[7]
- (with Nobuya Banb) Pacifism in Japan: The Christian and Socialist Tradition (Vancouver: UBC Press and Kyoto: Minerva Press,1978). According to WorldCat, the book is held in 498 libraries[8]
- Tradition in Transition, The Modernization of Japan (New York: Macmillan, 1975),[9]
- Japanese Religion in the Meiji Era (Tokyo: Ministry of Education, 1956).
He has also edited two volumes for the Japan Foundation: the 1983 Directory of Japan Specialists in Canada and Japan Studies in Canad, 1987.