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Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (October 15, 1910 – September 1, 1990) was an American educator and professor at Harvard University. He was a leading scholar of the history and culture of Japan and East Asia. An article Reischauer wrote in 1960 analyzing current tensions between the U.S. and Japan caught the attention of U.S. President John Kennedy, who appointed him as the United States Ambassador to Japan (1961-1966). ==Early life and education== Reischauer was born in Tokyo, Japan, the son of Presbyterian educational missionaries Helen Sidwell Oldfather and August Karl Reischauer. He attended the American School in Japan and graduated with a B.A. from Oberlin in 1931. On his 75th birthday, he recalled publicly that his life aim in 1931 was to draw attention to Asia. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1939. He was a student of the Russian-French Japanologist Serge Elisséeff, who had been the first Western graduate of the University of Tokyo.〔Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma. (1995). ( ''China Bibliography: A Research Guide to Reference Works About China Past and Present,'' p. 31 n85. )〕 His doctoral dissertation was "''Nittō guhō junrei gyōki'': Ennin's Diary of His Travels in T'ang China, 838–847", a study and translation of the Japanese monk Ennin's travelogues on his journeys in China during the Tang dynasty.〔Schulman, Frank Joseph. (1970). ''Japan and Korea: An Annotated Bibliography of Doctoral Dissertations in Western Languages, 1877–1969,'' p. 909. (Reischauer 1610)〕 Ennin's work, ''Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law'' (; Middle Chinese: ''Nyip-Dang gjuw-pjop zwin-léi hæng-kì''), is written in Classical Chinese, and Reischauer's work demonstrates the level of sinological scholarship a student of Japanese was expected to demonstrate at that time.〔 His forty-year teaching career was spent at Harvard, where he and John King Fairbank developed a popular undergraduate survey of East Asian history and culture. This course, which was known as "Rice Paddies," was the basis for their widely influential two volume textbook, ''East Asia: The Great Tradition'' (1958) and ''East Asia, The Modern Transformation'' (1965). Reischauer wrote both for fellow scholars and for the general public, including ''Japan: Story of a Nation'', which appeared in several editions. He served as director of the Harvard–Yenching Institute and chairman of the Department of Far Eastern Languages. In a farewell lecture at the Yenching Institute in 1981, students had to compete for seats with faculty colleagues, university officials and a television crew from Japan. In this crowded scene he said, "As I remember, there were only two graduate students interested in East Asian studies when I first came here: myself and my brother."〔Johnston, Laurie and Robert Thomas. ("Notes on People; Reischauer, at Harvard, Gives Farewell Lecture, ) ''New York Times.'' April 23, 1981.〕 In 1956, Professor Reischauer was a widower with three children when author James A. Michener introduced him to Haru Matsukata, who would become his second wife. As teenagers, it turned out, they had gone to the same Tokyo high school, where she had had a secret crush on him. She and her husband became a formidable team.〔Stewart, Barbara. ( "Haru M. Reischauer, 83; Eased Tensions With Japan," ) ''New York Times.'' October 5, 1998.〕 The Belmont, Massachusetts, house they designed together is maintained and used today as the Edwin O. Reischauer Memorial House. In 1973, he was the founding Director of the Japan Institute, which was renamed the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies in his honor when he turned 75 in 1985.〔Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies (RIJS), ( Director, 1974–1981 )〕 Reischauer was also honored in 1985 by the opening of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), which is part of Johns Hopkins University . Speaking at the dedication ceremonies in Baltimore, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, one of Reischauer's former students, described Reischauer as being "what a teacher is meant to be, one who can change the life of his students." At the same event, Japan's Ambassador Nabuo Matsunaga read a personal message from Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who observed, "I know of no other man who has so thoroughly understood Japan."〔 With George M. McCune, Reischauer in 1939 published the McCune–Reischauer system for romanization of the Korean language which became the most widely used system for many years.〔G. M. A. McCune, E. O. Reischauer, Royal Asiatic Society. Korea Branch, ''The Romanization of the Korean Language: Based Upon Its Phonetic Structure'' (Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1939).〕 Reischauer called the Korean alphabet (''Hangul'') "perhaps the most scientific system of writing in general use in any language."〔Hyun, Peter. ( "A Trove of Unfamiliar Art from Korea," ) ''New York Times.'' January 4, 1981.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edwin O. Reischauer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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