While on sabbatical this semester, Asian Studies Program Director and History Professor Constantine Vaporis recently presented a lecture at Leiden University in the Netherlands on the Samurai in Japanese and world history. A description of the event can be found below: “It would be difficult to find any aspect of Japanese culture that has had as long and strong a hold on the popular imagination, both in Japan and abroad, than the samurai and the code of ethics and conventions associated with them, known asbushidô. Using literary works, print images, museum exhibitions, film and other elements of popular culture as sources, this lecture …