One Endeavor Society: A History of Doshisha University’s Relationship with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

New England Regional Fellowship Consortium (NERFC) Research Fellow Jocelyn Rice presented her research into the build environment of Doshisha University and its relationship to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in a lunchtime event at 14 Beacon.

The Meiji Era buildings that define Doshisha University’s Imadegawa Campus in Kyoto are a testament to the interwoven histories of the American Board and the prominent Japanese University. From the moment Doshisha’s founder, Joseph Hardy Neesima, articulated his vision for a Christian institution in Japan, the two organizations have been inextricably linked. The campus’ early structures, which were funded and designed by the ABCFM, hold the distinction of being the first red brick structures in Japan’s ancient capital and are representative of late nineteenth-century missionary architecture in East Asia.

Over the subsequent decades, contributions from the ABCFM and Amherst College would fund the construction of buildings that evoked a distinctive New England collegiate aesthetic. A 1939 edition of the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly described one structure as “a New England institution set down in a Japanese environment.” By tracing the role style plays at the heart of this cultural exchange and drawing upon the Congregational Library & Archives’ rich collection of materials on the Japan Mission, Rice examined the evolution of the ABCFM’s relationship with Doshisha from 1875 to 1949.

SPEAKER BIO

Jocelyn Rice is an English PhD candidate and adjunct instructor at Boston College, where she studies twentieth-century American culture with a focus on social and political reform. Jocelyn’s dissertation considers institutional change and higher education’s relationship to reform movements through the methodological insights of material culture studies. Her research has been supported by the Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy Doctoral Fellowship and the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium. Jocelyn graduated from Bates College with a degree in American history, and she received her master’s degree in English literature from Boston College. Jocelyn has co-directed the Boston College English Pedagogy Seminar and serves as a proctor and first-year advisor at Harvard University.