RMC’s Asian Studies Department is pleased to announce that the annual J. Earl Moreland Lecture on Asia will be held on Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Dollar Tree Room in Brock Commons. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Michael Dylan Foster will be the evening’s keynote speaker. Foster is a professor of Japanese and chairs the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore (2015), Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai (2009), and numerous articles on Japanese folklore, literature, and media. He has also coedited several books, including The Folkloresque: Reframing Folklore in a Popular Culture World (2016) and Matsuri and Religion: Complexity, Continuity, and Creativity in Japanese Festivals (2021). 

“We are thrilled to host this event on our campus. Dr. Foster originally agreed to speak in 2020 and again in 2021, but both were canceled due to the pandemic. Fortunately, the third time will prove to be the charm,” noted Professor and Chair of Asian Studies Dr. Todd Munson.

Each spring, the J. Earl Moreland Lecture on Asia brings a distinguished expert to Randolph-Macon to promote greater understanding of and appreciation for Asian affairs. The lecture series is a three-day event that includes classes, presentations, and a public lecture. It was established through the generous donation of the late Dr. Lik Kiu Ding ’49 to commemorate J. Earl Moreland, president of Randolph-Macon College from 1939 to 1967.

Foster is the series’ first speaker following a hiatus in 2020 and 2021. His lecture, entitled “Visiting Deities: Cultural Heritage and Tourism in Rural Japan,” will focus on tourism in rural Japanese communities. Faced with economic challenges, aging populations, and a declining number of children, many rural communities in Japan draw on their own cultural heritage to attract visitors to their locales. During the lecture, Foster will introduce two “visiting-deity rituals” employed to that end—Namahage of Akita Prefecture and Toshidon of Kagoshima Prefecture—both of which were recently added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. He will compare the distinct ways in which residents use these traditions to attract tourists while at the same time preserving the local significance of the rituals themselves. 

Recent speakers in the J. Earl Moreland Lecture series include Pamela Tom, director of the documentary film Tyrus; Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers and finalist for the 2017 National Book Award in Fiction; and Atsuyuki Oike, minister plenipotentiary and deputy chief of mission at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC.