"British and American Models of Chemical Education in Meiji Japan: Similarities and Differences"

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Japan underwent a process of institutionalization of Western-style scientific and technological education in many fields during the Meiji period (1868–1912). American and British teachers reigned in Japanese higher education between the 1860s and 1880s, and during this period many Japanese students traveled overseas to American and British universities and colleges to finish their training. As one of the first academic subjects institutionalized in Japanese higher education, chemistry was at the center of this educational development. In this lecture Kikuchi shows that the American and British, not German, dominance of higher education in early Meiji Japan had major consequences for Japanese higher education in chemistry, and he compares British and American models conceived by contemporary Japanese.

Yoshiyuki Kikuchi is a Sidney M. Edelstein Fellow at CHF for 2008–2009. He was awarded B.A. and M.Sc. degrees in the history of science by the University of Tokyo. He received a Ph.D. from the Open University, United Kingdom, for his dissertation on “The English Model of Chemical Education in Meiji Japan: Transfer and Acculturation.” Kikuchi is broadening his research interests to include the U.S.-Japan nexus in chemistry and 20th-century science and technology in Japan.