David W. Plath
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I’ve designed and scripted all MPG programs and have served on production teams variously as host, narrator, editor, director and videographer. I have been involved in the production of television programs on Japan since the mid-1970s when I was a member of the academic advisory committee for Japan the Living Tradition and Japan the Changing Tradition, a two-semester television course designed and supervised by Professor and former Ambassador to Japan, Dr. Edwin O. Reischauer. In the year 2000 the Society for East Asian Anthropology established its David Plath Media Award, given biennially for the best new educational media product on Asian societies and cultures.
Other documentaries of mine that you might like to examine:
PREACHING FROM PICTURES: A Japanese Mandala (2006, createspace)
Interactive DVD with 2 and a half hours of material casino portugal no deposit casino bonuses displaying and explaining the Mandala of the Ten Worlds, a preaching aid used by itinerant Buddhist nuns in Japan from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
UNDER ANOTHER SUN, Japanese in Singapore (2003, createspace)
A report on the lives of the 30,000 Japanese resident in Singapore today, coupled with a look at Japan’s 150 year involvement with that colony and nation. 56 minutes
MAKIKO’S NEW WORLD (1999, DER)
A dramatization of family life in Kyoto in 1910, based on the slots online daily diary of the young wife in a merchant household. 56 minutes
FIT SURROUNDINGS (1993, DER)
Tidal ecology and the craft of abalone diving as practiced by women on Japan’s Shima Peninsula. 28 minutes
CANDLES FOR NEW YEARS (with Jacquetta F. Hill) (1992, DER)
Portrait of the Lahu of northern Thailand centered on their chief congregational religious activity, the new years dances. 30 minutes
As a scholar I have published six books and more than 60 articles on topics in anthropology and Japan Studies. Perhaps my most widely known book is Long Engagements: Maturity in Modern Japan (Stanford University Press, 1980). In addition to 35 years on the Illinois faculty I have taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Iowa, and Konan University, Kobe. And I’ve been a visiting researcher in Kyoto University, Konan University, The National University of Singapore, and Japan’s National Institute of Media Education.
Photo Credit: 2009, Chet Kincaid
