Non-Western Conference

The Comparative Studies Center, co-sponsor of the campus-wide program concentrating on Japan last spring, brought together a sizable number of Dartmouth faculty and 30 educators from other campuses last month to take a sharp look at programs in non-Western studies now offered in American universities - and to determine where future efforts should be directed.

Billed as a conference on "Asian Studies and Comparative Approaches," the four-day program began with Sarah Lawrence professor Joseph Campbell's talk, "Comparative Mythology as an Introduction to Cross-Cultural Studies," on September 13. Similar two-hour sessions were conducted mornings, afternoons, and evenings through Friday, September 17 with scholars from Dartmouth and elsewhere leading discussions on subject matter embracing religion, politics, cultural and communal life in most Asian nations.

Representatives of the Organization of Education and World Affairs, the U.S. Office of Education, and the Ford Foundation, which provided the grant to organize and carry through this coordinated program, were in attendance. Among the participants from other campuses were President Ann G. Pannell of Sweet Briar College; Dean Wallace Anderson of the State College of Iowa; Prof. Jackson Bailey, representing the Great Lakes Colleges; and Prof. Yu-kuang Chu of Skidmore College, representing the Northern New York State Colleges.