Speakers

Mark Helbling is a Professor of American Studies at UH. His teaching and research interests include African American history and culture, the Harlem Renaissance, Cultural Theory, American Literature-Twentieth Century and America and Africa. In addition to teaching at the University of Hawaii, he has taught as a Fulbright Scholar in Tunisia, Ivory Coast, and Germany. His most recent book is The Harlem Renaissance: The One and the Many, which won the Baldridge Prize given by the Hawaii History Honor Society of the American Historical Association. He has numerous chapters in various books and has published articles in many journals, as well as poetry and short stories. Professor Helbling is currently working on a book on the African American Press and the Nineteen Twenties.

Craig Howes has been Editor of the journal Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly since 1994, and a faculty member in the Department of English since 1980. As Director of the Center for Biographical Research (CBR) at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa since 1997, he is also General Editor of the Biography Monograph Series, co-published with the University of Hawai‘i Press, and the series scholar and co-producer for the Biography Hawai‘i television documentary series. His book Voices of the Vietnam POWs (Oxford UP, 1993), was selected as a notable academic book by Choice magazine. He teaches courses in editing, lifewriting, composition, literary theory, and drama, receiving the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1998. A past President of the Hawai‘i Literary Arts Council, he currently serves on the boards of Kumu Kahua Theatre, and Monkey Waterfall Dance Theatre Company, and has numerous stage and television credits as an actor. In 2005, he received the Hung Wo and Elizabeth Lau Ching Foundation Award for Faculty Service to the Community, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.

Barry Menikoff, Professor of English and American literature at the University of Hawaii, received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He has taught as a visitor at the University of Southern California, the University of Victoria (Canada), the University of Colorado, and Georgetown University, and as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Santiago (Spain). He has also directed study abroad programs for the University of Hawaii in London and Florence (Italy), and delivered lectures in Scotland, France and Italy. Professor Menikoff has published widely on nineteenth and twentieth century English and American writing, and is known for his work on Robert Louis Stevenson.

Deane Neubauer is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, Senior Advisor to the East-west Center, and Director of the Globalization Research Network. He has been in the Department of Political Science at UH since 1970, serving as chair of the department from 1975 to 1978. From 1980-88, he was the Dean of the College of Social Sciences; he has also served as Chancellor of UH-Manoa, and as Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Neubauer received his BA from the University of California, Riverside in 1962 and his MA and Ph.D. from Yale University in 1965, all in political science.

Mari Yoshihara is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, and is also currently serving as Director of the East-West Center’s UH International Cultural Studies Graduate Certificate Program (2005-2008). A graduate of University of Tokyo, she received her MA and Ph.D. degrees in American Civilization from Brown University. Her areas of specialization include literary and cultural studies, women’s/gender studies, studies of Orientalism, colonialism, and imperialism, U.S.-Asian relations, and Asian American studies. Her most recent publications in English include two books, Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism (2003), and Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music (2007).