William M. Tsutsui

Bill Tsutsui is an award-winning scholar and teacher, an experienced academic leader, and an outspoken supporter of the public humanities, international education, and more inclusive, accessible colleges and universities. He researches, writes, and speaks widely on Japanese economic and environmental history, Japanese popular culture (especially the Godzilla movies), Japanese-American identity, and issues in higher education. He is highly opinionated about BBQ, proud to have once driven the Zamboni at an NHL game, and slightly embarrassed to be Level 40 in Pokémon Go.

A graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton universities, Tsutsui began his professional career at the University of Kansas, where he held a range of positions, including Acting Director of KU’s Center for East Asian Studies, Chair of the Department of History, and Associate Dean for International Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. He went on to serve as Dean of Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University and, from 2014 to 2019, as President of Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. He is currently Edwin O. Reischauer Distinguished Visiting Professor at Harvard University.

An award-winning classroom teacher, Tsutsui is the author or editor of eight books, including Banking Policy in Japan: American Efforts at Reform During the Occupation (1988), Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (1998), Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (2004), and A Companion to Japanese History (2006). He has received Fulbright, ACLS, and Marshall fellowships, and was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 2000 and the William Rockhill Nelson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005.

Tsutsui currently serves on the boards of the Federation of State Humanities Councils, the US-Japan Council, and the Association for Asian Studies. In 2020 he was appointed to the Japan-United States Friendship Commission.