About

Meet our Director, Annika A. Culver 

Annika A. Culver PhD is Professor of Japanese History and Director of the Prince Takamado Japan Center at University of Alberta. Professor Culver has also taught at Florida State University, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Skidmore College, and University of Chicago. She is an Editorial Board Member at the Texas National Security Review and belongs to the US-Japan Network for the Future. Professor Culver is author of Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo (2013), winner of the Southeast Conference for the Association for Asian Studies Book Prize; Japan's Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology (2022); Democratizing Luxury: Name Brands, Advertising, and Consumption in Modern Japan (2023), and co-editor of Manchukuo Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production (2019). Her forthcoming book is Princess of the Water World: The Transoceanic Lives of a Japanese American Noblewoman (Routledge 2027).

The Prince Takamado Japan Centre

Inaugurated in 1996 as the Centre for the Teaching of Japanese Language and Culture (Japan Centre), the Centre organized a variety of events, including conferences in 1997 and 2000.  When Prince and Princess Takamado visited the University of Alberta in the summer of 1999, their program included an introduction to the Japan Centre. After the untimely death of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamado, former University of Alberta President Roderick Fraser discussed with Princess Takamado the university’s desire to rename the Japan Centre in his honor, and Her Imperial Highness granted her permission. On June 10, 2004, The Prince Takamado Japan Centre for Teaching and Research was formally established at the University of Alberta, and an endowment—The Prince Takamado Japan Canada Memorial Fund—was created.

As the managing body of the Memorial Fund, the PTJC has fostered Japan-related student learning, research, and community engagement for over two decades. Activities in support of student learning have included hosting Japanese language speech contests, administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), recognizing excellence through the Princess Takamado Essay Contest, supporting student mobility through exchange programs and bursaries, and serving as the Canadian secretariat for the Japan Canada Academic Consortium. The Centre has catalyzed research by organizing scholarly symposia and conferences, funding academic research projects, hosting public lectures, and mounting cultural events. Notable recent undertakings include creating the PTJC Seed Grant Program, co-founding the Gordon Hirabayashi Annual Lecture, and co-hosting the 2024 Annual Conference of the National Association of Japanese Canadians.