Popularity of baseball in Japan topic of WFU lecture
William W. Kelly
William W. Kelly, professor of anthropology and Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies at Yale University, will explain the history and reasons for the extreme popularity of baseball in Japan and its place within modern Japanese culture in a lecture at the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology July 21.
“Samurai with Bats? Baseball in Contemporary Japan” will begin at 7:30 p.m. The event is presented in conjunction with the exhibit “Asian Games: The Art of the Contest,” which highlights the importance of Asia as a source of many games, including chess, polo, backgammon, Parcheesi and playing cards.
Since 1996, Kelly has conducted field research on the history and present patterns of professional baseball in the cities of Osaka and Kobe. He is completing a book, “The Hanshin Tigers and the Practices of Professional Baseball in Modern Japan,” on the history of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team. He is also co-editing “This Sporting Life: Sports and Body Culture in Modern Japan.”
Admission to the lecture and to the exhibit is free. For information, contact the museum at 758-5282 or visit the museum Web site at http://www.wfu.edu/moa.
The Museum of Anthropology is located on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-S
Categories: Arts & Culture, Happening at Wake
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