The Foundation for Pacific Quest
in cooperation with Encyclopaedia Britannica, the University of Chicago, and
the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College
presents a panel discussion
Translating Cultures: Enlightenment East and West

During the past century, individuals and institutions have striven to explain and bridge the cultures
of Western and Asian nations, with America also playing a role on both sides of the Pacific. The
challenges they encountered were often enormous. The panelists will discuss the work and aspirations
of some of the pioneers of the Pacific century, and will also share their own experiences in the quest
for cross-cultural understanding.

Featured Panelists

Frank B. Gibney, president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College and Professor of
Politics (since 1997), is one of America's foremost experts on East Asian and Asia-Pacific affairs. A
graduate of Yale University, he served in U.S. naval intelligence in wartime and postwar Japan and
was for many years a correspondent and editor at Time, Life, and Newsweek magazines, working
throughout Asia. He joined Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) in 1966, and for the next ten years he
supervised EB's editorial and business operations in East Asia from his headquarters in Tokyo. His
efforts resulted in the 1975 publication of the Japanese-language Britannica International
Encyclopaedia -- the first major non-English version of Britannica. Moreover, he founded EB Korea
in 1968 and was its first president. During this time, he also served as VP of Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Inc., and Founding President of TBS/Britannica in Tokyo. Between 1979 and 1992, he published
the Chinese-language Concise Encyclopaedia Britannica in Beijing and later Taipei; and the Korean-language
Britannica World Encyclopaedia. A member of EB's Board of Editors since 1973, he
became its Vice Chairman in 1980, and has continued to serve as an advisor to EB's core revision
project. In the sector of public life, Gibney was chief consultant to the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Space and Astronautics (1957-59), which produced the law that created NASA, a
White House speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson (1964), and vice-chairman of the Japan-
U.S. Friendship Committee (1984ñ90). Gibney was co-founder of the Pacific Basin Institute in
Santa Barbara in 1979, whose accomplishments include an award-winning ten-episode PBS series -- The Pacific
Century -- with accompanying text, a film on The Asian Enlightenment, and The Library
of Japan -- a major series of English translations from modern Japanese fiction and non-fiction
works. In 1997, PBI moved to Pomona College in Claremont, California, with its large film archive,
where Gibney continues to contribute to education through lectures, conferences, and publications.
He is the author and editor of fourteen books to date.

Akira Iriye is Charles Warren Research Professor of American History at Harvard University, a
world-renowned international historian who is former director of Harvard's Edwin O. Reischauer
Institute of Japanese Studies (1991-95) and past president of both the Society for Historians of
American Foreign Relations (1978) and of the American Historical Association (1988). After
graduating from Seikei High School in Tokyo (1953), he came to the United States to pursue a
career in the history profession, receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1961. Among the numerous
teaching appointments in America and on other continents over four decades, he was in the
Department of History at the University of Chicago for twenty years from 1969 to 1989, where he
laid the foundation for the study of the history of international relations. He is the author of over a
dozen books on international history and American-East Asian relations, and has trained scores of
doctoral students in those areas.

Xiaoqing Diana Lin is Associate Professor of History at Indiana University Northwest. She attended
the Beijing Foreign Studies University and received her Ph.D. in history from the University of
Chicago in 1985. Lin is the author of Peking University: Chinese Scholarship and Intellectuals,
1898-1937 (2005).

Ralph W. Nicholas is President of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) and William
Rainey Harper Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and the Social Sciences at the University of
Chicago, where he was a faculty member for thirty years. At the University he also served as Chairman
of the Anthropology Department, Dean of the College, Deputy Provost of the University, and President
of the International House. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1962). He first
went to India in 1960. In 1960 and 1961 he lived in villages in rural West Bengal while conducting
research, supervised by Professor N. K. Bose, for his doctoral dissertation. His research in rural
Bengal has dealt with many aspects of village life and culture: political and economic relations,
kinship, and religious practices and festivals. He is the author of the recently published book Fruits
of Worship: Practical Religion in Bengal (2003). At present he is studying some religious rituals
that are peculiar to Bengal. Nicholas has been involved in the work of the AIIS for many years,
having previously served as Vice President and Treasurer. The Institute is a consortium of 52 American
colleges and universities that have programs of teaching and research about India. It was established
in 1962 and has its U.S. office in Chicago. The AIIS has sent more than 3,000 scholars from America
to do research in India. In addition to its Junior and Senior Research Fellows, the AIIS also sends
graduate students to India for advanced training in languages in the localities where the languages
are spoken. With its international headquarters in Gurgaon, Haryana, and offices and guest houses
in New Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, and Chennai, the AIIS has a permanent staff of over 70 persons. It is
home to the renowned Center for Art and Archaeology, which has produced and published ten
volumes of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture, and the Archives and Research Center
for Ethnomusicology.