Faculty Profile
Shawn Bender
Professor of East Asian Studies (2006)
Contact Information
Stern Center for Global Education
717-245-1817
Bio
Professor Bender earned his doctorate in cultural anthropology at the University of California, San Diego in 2003. At Dickinson he teaches courses on contemporary Japanese society, popular culture, music, demographic change, health and aging, and technology. Since the late 1990s, Prof. Bender has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with taiko drumming groups in Japan. This scholarship is the basis of his book entitled Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion (2012, UC Press). He has also examined the introduction of traditional musical instruments in primary and secondary school curricula in Japan. More recently, his research has focused on the connections among discourses of demographic crisis, changes in elder care, and the development of robotics in Japan and Europe. This work has taken him both to Japan and to Denmark (where some Japanese robotics technologies have found a home). Prof. Bender is also affiliated with the department of Anthropology at Dickinson and the Health Studies Certificate Program. He has received numerous research grants from such institutions as the Japan Foundation and the Japanese Ministry of Education. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies and in Social Science Japan Journal.
Education
- B.A., University of Minnesota, 1992
- M.A., University of California at San Diego, 1996
- Ph.D., 2003
2026-2027 Academic Year
Fall 2026
EASN 480 Critical Dialogues E Asian St
To help prepare students for completing their senior research project, this course introduces current dialogues and research strategies in East Asian Studies. Students will study influential scholarly texts on and from the region and apply insights gleaned from them toward analysis of primary source data. Students will also learn to better identify and evaluate competing views presented by secondary sources. By the end of the course, students will have chosen a research topic, identified suitable sources, and developed a proposal for their senior project. The content and direction of the course will reflect the research interests of students and the instructor.Prerequisite: EASN, CHIN or JPNS major and 200-level EASN course.
Spring 2027
EASN 206 Digital Cultures of East Asia
AI systems, robots, and other digital devices are an increasing presence in our lives. They keep us informed, connect us to others, shape our views of the world, and track our behavior. The countries of Asia, especially East Asia, are no exception. There we find some of the most hyper-connected societies on the planet, where distinctions between offline and online are just as fuzzy as they are here. This course examines the social effects of digital technologies in the East Asian region. It treats the digital expansively, placing social media, software platforms, and gaming alongside VR, smart devices, digital capitalism, and ideologies of innovation. Students will consider the role of the digital in the lives of ordinary people and the place of Asia in figurations of digital culture. In so doing, they will review theories of technology, ideas of techno-orientalism, and fictional representations of digital technology, together with the work of social scientists and media studies scholars.
EASN 236 Japanese Society
This course is an introduction to contemporary Japanese society. The course examines what everyday life is like in Japan from anthropological and historical perspectives. It explores such major social institutions as families, gender, communities, workplaces, and belief systems. The course focuses as well on the ways in which modernization has affected these institutions and the identities of Japanese people.