Ota, Yuzo 1943–

(Yūzō Ōta)

PERSONAL: Born 1943. Education: University of Tokyo, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of History, McGill University, Leacock Bldg., 855 Sherbrooke St. W., Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7, Canada. E-mail—yuzo.ota@mcgill.ca

CAREER: McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, worked as associate professor, then professor of history.

WRITINGS:

Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist, Japan Library (Richmond, Surrey, England), 1998.

Woman with Demons: A Life of Kamiya Mieko (1914–1979), McGill-Queen's University Press (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Rediscovering Hearn: Japanese Legends, Life, and Culture, edited by Sukehiro Jirakawa, Global Books (Folkestone, Kent, England), 1997; and Literary Intercrossings: East Asia and the West, edited by Mabel Lee and A.D. Syrokomla-Stefanowska, Wild Peony (Sydney, Australia), 1998.

NONFICTION UNDER NAME YZ TA

Kuraaku no ichinen: Sapporo Nogakko shodai Kyoto no Nihon taiken (title means "The Japanese Experience of William S. Clark, the First President of Sapporo Agricultural College"), Showado (Kyoto, Japan), 1979.

Eigo to Nihonjon, Ti Bi Esu Buritanika (Tokyo, Japan), 1981.

"Taiheiyō no hashi" to shite no Nitobe Inazō, Misuzu Shobo (Tokyo, Japan), 1986.

E.S. Mōsu: "furuki Nihon" o tsutaeta shinnichi kagakusha, Riburo Pōto (Tokyo, Japan), 1988.

B.H. Chenbaren: Nichi-Ō kan no ōfuku undō ni ikita sekaijin, Riburo Pōto (Tokyo, Japan, 1990.

Rafukadio Hān: kyozō to jitsuzō, Iwanawi Shoten (Tokyo, Japan), 1994.

Niijima Jo, Minerva Shobo (Kyoto, Japan), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: In his book Kuraaku no ichinen: Sapporo Nogakko shodai Kyoto no Nihon taiken Yuzo Ota examines the content of twenty-seven letters William S. Clark (1826–1886), the first president of Sapporo Agricultural College and one of the first American technical advisors to Japan—letters sent to his friends and family in America. During his tenure in Japan, Clark established himself as a symbol of one who introduces new ideas into an existing culture and procures profound effects and respect. Clark's accomplishments concerning a "rational agriculture" as well as his missionary work are at the heart of Ota's effort to arrive at an understanding of a man who was so deeply respected by the Japanese that even after World War II, Japanese citizens traveled to his grave in Amherst, Massachusetts, to pay their respects. John F. Howes, a reviewer in the American Historical Review, pointed out Ota's "careful use of these sources" to create a study that "focuses on the true nature of Clark's missionary work and the lasting value of his contribution to Japan." Howes observed that through the "introduction of new materials into the active field of Japanese intellectual history," Ota sweeps aside lingering "cobwebs" that have obscured Clark's life from a balanced examination. Howes concluded that this work "deserves publication" in its original English.

Ota's book Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist is the first full-length study in English of the Japanese culture scholar Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935). Anthony Thwaite, a reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement, reported that Ota's "portrait … is of a meticulously decent man, who was unfailingly kind to his students and servants," a portrait which conflicts with existing views of Chamberlain.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June, 1980, John F. Howes, review of Kuraaku no ichinen: Sapporo Nogakko shodai Kyoto no Nihon taiken, pp. 695-697.

Times Literary Supplement, April 23, 1999, Anthony Thwaite, review of Basil Hall Chamberlain: Portrait of a Japanologist, p. 32.