Noticing the Neglected: Public Architecture, Perfect Days, and Perspectives on Equity

Otávio Bueno

Otávio Bueno, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy and Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami. His research concentrates in philosophy of science, mathematics and logic, philosophy of art (especially of film), epistemology and metaphysics. He is the author or editor of several articles and books, including Thinking about Science, Reflecting on Art: Bringing Aesthetics and Philosophy of Science Together (co-edited with G. Darby, S. French, and D. Rickles; London: Routledge, 2018) and Applying Mathematics: Immersion, Inference, Interpretation (co-authored with S. French; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). He is editor in chief of Synthese and the Synthese Library book series.

Millie Creighton

Millie Creighton, Ph.D., is an anthropologist, Asianist, and Japan specialist. She has done extensive research in Japan on department stores, consumerism, tourism, popular culture, gender, work, leisure, and identity, as well as Japan connections globally outside of Japan. She was awarded the Canon Prize for her work on the cultural meanings surrounding retailing, consumerism, and department store marketing in Japan, and was inducted into the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Distinguished Speakers’ Bureau. She also works on Korea and on Asian descent groups. She is based in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) where she was one of the founders of the Centre for Japanese Research (CJR) and serves on the board of the Centre for Korean Research (CKR).

Linda C. Ehrlich

Linda C. Ehrlich, Ph.D., has published extensively about world cinema. Her most recent book is The Films of Kore-eda Hirokazu: An Elemental Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Her taped commentaries on The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) and on Kore-eda’s After Life appear on Criterion DVDs. She has also recorded a full-length DVD commentary of Maborosi by Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu, for Milestone Film and Video. Her Cinematic Reveries (Peter Lang) explores the intersection of prose poetry and cinema.  She has co-edited Cinematic Landscapes (essays on the interface between the visual arts and cinemas of China and Japan), The Cinema of Víctor Erice: An Open Window (Scarecrow Press Filmmakers series), and Yamamba: In Search of the Mountain Witch (Stone Bridge Press). Dr. Ehrlich has taught at Duke University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, Miami University of Ohio, and on two Semester-at-Sea voyages.  She was a Fulbright Specialist to Granada, Spain. In addition to being a scholar and editor, Ehrlich is also an award-winning poet.

Ken Tadashi Oshima

Ken Tadashi Oshima, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, where he teaches in the areas of cross-national architectural history, theory, representation, and design. He has also been a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and UCLA. He is a Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians for lifetime achievement and served as President of the Society of Architectural Historians from 2016-18. He earned an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, in East Asian Studies and Visual & Environmental Studies from Harvard College, M. Arch. degree from U. C. Berkeley and Ph.D. in architectural history and theory from Columbia University. From 2003-5, he was a Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in London.

Dr. Oshima’s publications include The Wright Imperial Hotel at 100: Frank Lloyd Wright and the World (Kajima, 2023), Kiyonori Kikutake: Between Land and Sea (Lars Müller/Harvard GSD, 2015), Architecturalized Asia (University of Hawaii Press/Hong Kong University Press, 2013), GLOBAL ENDS: towards the beginning (Toto, 2012), International Architecture in Interwar Japan: Constructing Kokusai Kenchiku (University of Washington Press, 2009) and Arata Isozaki (Phaidon, 2009). He curated “The Wright Imperial Hotel at 100: Frank Lloyd Wright and the World” (Toyota Museum of Art, 2023; Panasonic Shiodome Museum, 2024, Aomori Museum of Art, 2024), “Tectonic Visions Between Land and Sea: Works of Kiyonori Kikutake” (Harvard GSD, 2012), “SANAA: Beyond Borders”” (Henry Art Gallery 2007-8), and co-curator of “Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noemi Raymond” (University of Pennsylvania, UC Santa Barbara, Kamakura Museum of Modern Art, 2006-7). He served as President of the Society of Architectural Historians from 2016-18 and was an editor and contributor to Architecture + Urbanism for more than ten years, co-authoring the two-volume special issue, Visions of the Real: Modern Houses in the 20th Century (2000). His articles on the international context of architecture and urbanism in Japan have been published in The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Architectural Review, Architectural Theory Review.

Kristina Lee Podesva

Kristina Lee Podesva works at the intersection of visual art and experimental writing. Currently an adjunct instructor at WWU and UW Bothell, she has also served as editor for numerous publications, most recently BRUNA Press, which released Nancy Holt Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings with Western Gallery. Her PhD research at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts examines Daoist imaginaries of the index and indexicality in contemporary practices of artists from Asian diasporas.

Jeff Purdue

Jeff Purdue is Teaching, Learning, and Media Librarian and Library Faculty Chair at Western Washington University, where he also teaches classes on Asian cinema in the Department of Art & Art History. Since 2009, he has curated the Cinema East film series at Pickford Film Center in Bellingham, Washington. During that time, Cinema East has screened over 120 films by 60 directors from 10 countries. He is also a musician who has studied Japanese popular music for more than twenty years.

Julia Sapin

Julia Sapin, Ph.D., is Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at Western Washington University. Her research focuses on the visual culture of the Meiji period in Japan (1868-1912) with an emphasis on representation of national, regional, and gender identities in textiles, painting, and department-store advertising. Her current research focuses on the export of kimono and kimono-like garments to Europe and the United States in the early twentieth century and the sartorial and social implications of those exports.

Tyler Walker

Tyler Walker has been Assistant Professor of Japanese at WWU since 2022.  His scholarship on twentieth century Japanese literature has recently appeared in Journal of Japanese Studies and in Monumenta Nipponica, and a book of translations from the anarcho-feminist writings of Sumii Sue is forthcoming in 2026 from Positions Press. In 2015 he worked as a translator for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. At Western he teaches courses on Japanese language, literature, and film.