In conjunction with the inauguration of University of Pennsylvania’s new Center for the Integrated Study of Japan, Constantine Vaporis presented an invited talk that focused on his research about travel in Early Modern Japan and what it revealed about healing, discovery, and political obligation and coercion, among other elements of life during that time period.

Vaporis, professor of history and director of the Asian studies program, teaches Japanese and East Asian history and has received numerous fellowships for research in Japanese history including a Fulbright Scholar’s Award and an NEH Fellowship for College Teachers. He is author of Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan; Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo and the Culture of Early Modern Japan; Nihonjin to sankin kôtai [The Japanese and Alternate Attendance]; and Voices of Early Modern Japan. Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life during the Age of the Shoguns.

Vaporis’ lecture “The Edo Man and the Satsuma Sweet Potato: Early Modern Travel through a Japanese prism,” highlighted how travel established connections between citizens and the state during the early modern era of 1600-1868 unlike few other institutions of the time. His talk explored the contours of the elements that defined travel during that time period with an eye to their global context. Following the lecture, Vaporis engaged with the audience in an active Q & A session about his research. To learn more about his work, visit the UMBC history department website.

Image: Constantine Vaporis. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

A National Journal article published November 23 examines why even with the recent boom in podcasts, there’s still a lack of underrepresented minorities in tech. Jason Loviglio, an expert in media and radio studies and associate professor and chair of media and communication studies, attended the 2015 Podcast Movement in Texas earlier this year and noticed a lack of diversity among podcasters at the conference.

“It felt very main­stream white,” said Loviglio in the National Journal article. “What I saw at the con­fer­ence did seem like the obstacles, or re­quire­ments, or trends, or cul­ture of pod­cast­ing at that mo­ment had the po­ten­tial to mar­gin­al­ize minor­it­ies and people who lack cap­it­al for some of these things.”

Because podcasts are still a recent phenomenon, Loviglio commented in the article that he expects diversity among podcast hosts and producers will increase as time goes on and more podcasts are developed.

“If it does be­come something big then there will be very cre­at­ive ways that dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies in the coun­try and around the world change it to make it work.”

Read “Four essential podcasts that will help you break into tech” in National Journal. For more information about Loviglio’s experience at the Podcast Movement last summer, read this previous UMBC news story.

Image: Jason Loviglio (far right) speaks at College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences faculty event. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.