Ties That Bind: U.S. and Asia

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Ties That Bind is an innovative digital mapping project which provides opportunities for users to learn about historical and contemporary people, places, events which connect the United States and China, Japan, and Korea. Teachers, students, and the general public can access resources chronicling the breadth and depth of these ties via this digital collection. Through the stories told in the project, users learn that the local can be global, and the global is often very local. Join Anne Prescott as she recounts some of the unique and at times surprising connections between New England and East Asia.

Anne Prescott has been studying about Japan since she began playing the koto as a sophomore at Cornell College in Iowa. She spent eight years living and studying koto and shamisen in Japan, including one year as a research student at Tokyo University of the Arts. After receiving her PhD in ethnomusicology from Kent State University, she taught at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, worked in East Asia outreach at Indiana University, and was associate director of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois. She is currently the Director of the Five College Center for East Asian Studies (FCCEAS) located at Smith College in Northampton, MA, where she oversees K-12 educator professional development programs in New England and upstate NY. Among her accomplishments at FCCEAS are a popular series of webinars on a variety of East Asia-related topics, Peace Education study tours to Japan, and the Japan Artists Information Directory (JAID).