E-mail: icleare@nd.edu
Language: Japanese
Location of Study: Middlebury, Vermont, United States
Program of Study: Middlebury Language School
Sponsors: The Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures, the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies
Visit Isheika’s Blog
I am very grateful and quite excited to be a part of the SLA program, because it will allow me to spend the summer of 2022 learning Japanese in an immersive environment. My primary goal is to build upon the Japanese-speaking skills acquired in the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 First-Year Japanese courses taught by Notre Dame’s excellent Japanese Language department.
Studying Japanese is the perfect fit for me as a 4th year PhD candidate in the Political Science department. My area of interest is US-East Asia relations and in the Spring of 2023 my dissertation field work will take me to Japan and South Korea to interview local elites about their countries’ bilateral relationship with the United States. Before starting my PhD program, I conducted graduate research in Asia for about four years. It is an amazing and dynamic region and I hope that my improved speaking skills will enable me to return and undertake a deeper understanding of the future role the region will play in global politics.