The College of Art and Architecture working with the Moscow Affordable Housing Trust to address the housing in Idaho. Vandal

Habib Institute Marks Fifth Anniversary With Academic Events

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The University of Idaho’s Habib Institute for Asian Studies marks its fifth anniversary with a two-day lineup featuring academic panels, open houses, and a keynote address examining how post-war trauma echoes through modern cinema.

Running Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 9–10, the free public events on the Moscow campus highlight half a decade of bringing Asian pop culture, academic symposia, and university partnerships to Idaho.

We believe students who engage with the peoples and cultures of Asia will be better equipped to advance in their careers, benefiting not only themselves but also the state of Idaho, said Jeff Kyong-McClain, director of the Habib Institute for Asian Studies and associate professor of history.

Since its founding, the institute has bridged geographic divides through student-focused gatherings like AsiaPOP! alongside rigorous academic conferences, including the 2024 East Asian Ecocinema conference. Monday morning kicked off with a Why Asia Matters panel discussion featuring voices from regional engineering, national security, and academic sectors.

David Dolezilek, a fellow engineer at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, joined former Idaho Wheat commissioner Joseph Anderson on the panel. They were accompanied by Lt. William Burdge, assistant professor of naval science, and Chen Wang, Slayton Endowed Assistant Professor of East Asian Politics.

Tuesday’s schedule brings a distinct cultural focus, headlined by William M. Tsutsui, chancellor and professor of history at Ottawa University. Tsutsui will deliver a 4 p.m. keynote address in the Bruce M Pitman Center Vandal Ballroom titled Is Your War Over Now? Nationalism and Japan’s Long Postwar in ‘Godzilla Minus One.’

The lecture investigates how the Academy Award-winning 2023 film maps onto Japan’s fractured post-war period and the nation’s ongoing reckoning with defeat and occupation. Tsutsui, a graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton, brings scholarship on Japanese media to the podium, having previously authored works such as Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters.

Complementing the lectures, a photography exhibition featuring the shapes, colors, and people of China remains on display outside Room 204 of the Administration Building through Friday, Nov. 20. Student photographer Will Pressley captured the images during a year of study at Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu.

Visitors can meet Pressley during an institute open house scheduled Tuesday from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in Administration Building 204. Additional schedule details and updates are available through the Habib Institute for Asian Studies.

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