T. James Kodera

T. James Kodera, Professor of Religion and Co-Director of East Asian Studies, joined the Wellesley faculty in 1976. His approach to teaching is historical and comparative. He developed a curriculum in Asian religions that now includes two full-time appointments and a Japanese Studies program. Since 1994, he has offered courses in Asian American Studies as part of Wellesley's American Studies: "Asian American Studies" and, more recently, a seminar on "Interning the 'Enemy Race': Japanese Americans in WW II." Kodera's Religion courses focus on Buddhism, from its beginning in India, and religions of East Asia. His comparative religion courses include “Contemplation and Action” and “Seminar: Issues in Comparative Religion.” His religion courses contribute to the offerings of Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, and Peace and Justice Programs.

Professor Kodera's published works focus more specifically on Japanese Buddhism, modern Japanese religion, and peace and justice issues. They include Dogen's Formative Years in China (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980); articles on Nichiren, the 13th century prophetic Buddhist of Japan, and Uchimura Kanzo, an earlier modern Japanese Christian thinker, published by Religious Studies (Cambridge University Press); “Asian Americans: Where Do They Belong?,” published online in The Witness in 2004; and entries for the Encyclopedia of Japan and Encyclopedia of Religion. Other articles and book reviews have appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of the Association for Asian Studies, Anglican Theological Review, Japanese Christian Review, and others. Currently, he is working on the contribution of the Koreans in early Japanese religious and cultural history; the role of religion in war and peace in modern East Asia.

At Wellesley, Professor Kodera has served on a number of committees, including the Committee on Curriculum & Instruction, the Board of Admissions, and the Minority Recruitment, Hiring and Retention Committee. He has twice served as Chair of the Religion Department. In 1994, he was co-founder of WAA (Wellesley Asian Alliance), a multi-constituency organization on campus, designed to bring students, faculty and administrators, committed to Asian American issues. In 2005, he organized a faculty development tour of Japan for ten Wellesley faculty. A year earlier, he served as faculty adviser to Wellesley alumnae tour of Japan.

Outside of Wellesley, he has served on a number of professional societies. Currently, he is on the Board of AsiaNetwork, consisting of liberal arts college that offer programs in Asian Studies, as well as of the Associated Kyoto Program.

Born in Japan and educated there through high school, Kodera came to the United States for further education at Carleton College, Yale University Divinity School, and Columbia University. Professor Kodera has traveled extensively in Asia and has spent sabbatical leaves in Kyoto, Japan. He became a U.S. citizen in 1978 as a conscientious objector. Representing Wellesley, he serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Associated Kyoto Program. He is currently the Clerk for the Board. He served as its Resident Director during the 1998–1999 academic year and as a Bardwell L. Smith Visiting Professor in the fall of 2002.

Professor Kodera is also an Episcopal priest and the first Asian American ordained in the history of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts that began in 1789. He serves, part-time, as Rector at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Hudson, Massachusetts.

Kodera is married with two children, born in 1995 and 1996. His wife, Nancy, has taught in the Apple Valley Montessori School in Sudbury, Massachusetts. She was the founder of Kapatiran, a social agency as par of the Anglican Church of Japan, designed to help foreign women, especially from Asia, in Japan’s “entertainment industry.”

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Profile last updated: 9/06

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Last Modified: September 6, 2006