I'm teaching this spring on my second Fulbright fellowship at Sophia University in Tokyo. I've created a course website for my two undergraduate courses in American Foreign Policy & Politics and American Culture. It's called Tokyo Nancy Snow. You can check out my regular posts that I upload for class discussion. I've also included a category called "Brand Japan," for lack of something sexier, but it's a general reference to Japanese public diplomacy, most notably in the post-3/11 period. The week of May 7-12, I'll be speaking at two Japanese universities on the subject of "The Lady Gaga Effect: Celebrity Diplomacy and the Japan Recovery." These talks are at the invitation of the US Embassy in Tokyo. Two years ago I participated in a ten-day trip from the United States to Japan on the subject of the Obama Administration's new public diplomacy and foreign policy. That trip took me to all the American Culture centers throughout Japan.
I'm very grateful to the Japan Fulbright Commission for this opportunity to serve as an unofficial cultural ambassador of the United States of America. I'm a great believer in the power of educational and cultural exchange in service to binational and global citizen interests. I salute the US Government's TOMODACHI public-private partnership to strengthen and renew ties between Japan and the US in the aftermath and recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake of 3/11.
