Dr. Arinori Mori, professor of American Literature at Chukyo University and this year’s BioKyowa Visiting Japanese Scholar at Southeast Missouri State Universitys Center for Faulkner Studies, will deliver a lecture at Southeast on Wednesday, Feb. 28.

Moris lecture is entitled Reconsidering Faulkners Visit to Japan Through a Comparative Reading of ‘Impressions of Japan,’ ‘To the Youth of Japan’ and the 1954 production of ‘Godzilla.'”The public is invited to attend the lecture at 4 p.m. in Kent Librarys third floor lounge reading room 336. Admission is free.

Mori is a professor of American Literature at Chukyo University in Japan. He teaches comparative film studies, literature of the South and William Faulkner. He has co-published “William Faulkner and Representation of Aging and Crossing Borders in English and American Literature.” He is also the editor of “The Road and Another World in English Literature.”

BioKyowa, Inc., an international business with facilities in Japan and Cape Girardeau, sponsors a Visiting Japanese Scholar Program that brings one Japanese scholar each year to the Southeast campus to conduct research in the Brodsky Collection and to participate in various types of cultural exchanges. The BioKyowa Visiting Japanese Scholar Program is designed to honor the special relationship that Faulkner developed with citizens of Japan during an official visit to the country on behalf of the U.S. Department of State in 1955. Since then, almost all of Faulkners works have been published in Japanese translations, and today there is a thriving interest in Faulkners works among Japanese readers and scholars.

BioKyowa, Inc., a subsidiary of Kyowa Hakko Bio Co., LTD., opened its Cape Girardeau plant in 1984 as the first major investment by a Japanese manufacturing company in Missouri. In addition to the Visiting Japanese Scholar Program, BioKyowa funds a scholarship program at Southeast Missouri State University and supports numerous other civic and charitable organizations. BioKyowa has been twice honored with the Industry of the Year award by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.