Keiko McDonald

[Michael McCaskey]

This is very sad news. I very much enjoyed Keiko McDonald's informative books, and had hoped she would produce many more.


As she said in a 2003 autobiographical essay:
http://www.pitt.edu/~deall/facstaff/mcdonald_old.html

Since my Japanese film course was the first to be offered at an American academic institution, I am frequently asked to help others set up similar programs.
***
In my case, work in print and work viva voce both bring me back to the same basic question I have been asking myself for years now: "How does a teacher coming from a non-Western tradition teach Western students how to 'read' a Japanese film or literary work?" All my books address that question one way or another. Titles like Cinema East: A Critical Study of Major Japanese Films, Mizoguchi (1984), getsu (1993), and Japanese Classical Theater in Films (1994) will obviously interest scholars and students of cinema. But I also try to write in a style accessible to the general reader and student with wide-ranging interests.
***
I ask each student to write three or four critical essays in addition to a final essay exam, so it seems only fair (not to mention educational for me) to read those papers myself. It is also gratifying to discover that the course at hand has some bearing on a student's academic progress in general. I design assignments with that in mind and do my best to offer written commentary which encourages students to connect and expand their interests.


Her passing is a great loss for her students, her colleagues, and her family.

With Respect,
M. McCaskey
Georgetown Uni.

 

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Inouye, Charles Shiro" <Charles.Inouye at tufts.edu>
Date: Monday, September 15, 2008 10:08 pm
Subject: Keiko McDonald

> Keiko McDonald
> 
> 
> 
>       Beloved colleague and friend, Keiko McDonald passed away Sunday
> morning, September 14, 2008.  The day before, she was fishing with her
> husband Charles at Yellow Creek.  She slipped, hit her head, and fell
> into the water.  Keiko loved whatever she did.  She loved to 
> write, to
> teach, and to fish. 
> 
>                  Professor McDonald was a leading authority on 
> Japanesecinema.  The day before her accident, she finished guest 
> editing a
> volume for Postscript.  We will miss her.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Charles Shiro Inouye
> 
> 
> Tufts University
> 
>