Rikki Kersten Memorial Seminar

Rikki Kersten (BA Adelaide, PhD Oxford University). Honorary Fellow at the Australia-Japan Research Centre at the Australian National University, passed away on 21 December 2023.

Professor Kersten was a scholar of Japanese political history with a life-long passion for Japan. After a career in the Australian Foreign Service, she held academic and leadership roles at the University of Sydney, Leiden University, and Murdoch University, in addition to the Australian National University. She also mentored numerous aspiring Japan specialists through teaching and research supervision, and served on supervisory panels for doctoral students at the ANU up until her passing.

The Japan Institute and Australia-Japan Research Centre at the Australian National University are honoured to convene a memorial seminar in celebration of Professor Kersten’s contribution to Japan studies in Australia, and to Australia-Japan relations.


Speakers: 

Introduction: Professor Llewelyn Hughes

Director, Japan Institute and Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

Llewelyn Hughes is the Director of the Japan Institute, College of Asia and the Pacific, and a Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. He also serves on the Energy Transition Subcommittee of the Australia Japan Business Co-operation Committee (AJBCC).

Keynote: Professor Sandra Wilson 

College of Law, Arts and Social Sciences, Murdoch University

Professor Wilson is an expert in the history of modern Japan, especially the period from the 1930s to the 1960s, with a focus on nationalism and on the Second World War. Her current, collaborative research concerns war crimes committed by the Japanese military in the Pacific region between 1941 and 1945, the war crimes trials that followed the conflict, the post-war settlement between Japan and its former enemies, and the representation of Japanese war crimes since 1945.

Dr Andrew Levidis

Lecturer in Modern Japanese History, Australian National University

Dr Andrew Levidis is a Lecturer in Modern Japanese History at the Australian National University. He completed his doctorate in History at the Faculty of Law of Kyoto University and has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University at the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies (RIJS) and Program on US-Japan Relations at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He was also a Research Associate Fellow in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. 

Emeritus Professor William Tow

Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University

William T Tow is Emeritus Professor at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. He was previously a Professor of International Relations in the Coral Bell School’s Department of International Relations. His research interests include Indo-Pacific alliance politics, strategic studies and US foreign policy.

This special seminar is hosted by the Japan Institute, and Australia-Japan Research Centre, at ANU


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