Berkley Center

Kevin M. Doak holds the Nippon Foundation Endowed Chair and is also Professor of Japanese Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Georgetown University. Additionally, Dr. Doak co-edits The Journal of Japanese Studies. Prior to his current position, Dr. Doak taught at Wake Forest University and The University of Illinois, and he has been affiliated with Tokai University, Konan University, the Humanities Institute of Kyoto University, and Leiden University. He has published four books, including Xavier's Legacies: Catholicism in Modern Japanese Culture (2012) and over forty articles in English or Japanese on modern Japanese politics, religion, thought and culture. Doak has been interviewed extensively by the Japanese media, and has been cited by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his views on religious freedom in Japan.

Rev. Masafumi Nakanishi is a Shinto priest, and officer at the New York Center of the International Shinto Foundation (ISF). In his position with ISF, Rev. Nakanishi serves as the Shinto representative at United Nations functions, and in the greater New York region. He was born into a Shinto family and grew up in the Grand Shrine of Ise in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Rev. Nakanishi majored in religious studies at the Graduate School of Kokugakuin University, and studied Japanese history at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been assigned as the Shinto priest at different shrines throughout Japan, including the Meiji Grand Shrine in Tokyo, Masumida Shrine in Aichi Prefecture, and he is presently assigned to Chichibu Shrine in Saitama Prefecture.