Headmaster's Voice
Biography:
Takayuki Tatsumi (1955-) is Professor Emeritus of Keio University, Tokyo, Japan and headmaster of Keio Academy of New York (2022-). Since he received Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1987, Tatsumi has long taught American Literary History and Critical Theory at Keio University and other institutions. He served as president of the American Literature Society of Japan (2014-2017), president of the Poe Society of Japan (2009-2020) and vice president of the Melville Society of Japan (2012-).
His major books include: New Americanist Poetics (Seidosha, 1995, the winner of the 1995 Fukuzawa Yukichi Award), Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America (Duke UP, 2006, the winner of the 2010 IAFA [International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts] Distinguished Scholarship Award) and Young Americans in Literature: The Post-Romantic Turn in the Age of Poe, Hawthorne and Melville (Sairyusha, 2018). Co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Transnational American Studies (Routledge, 2019), he has also published a variety of essays in PMLA, Critique, Extrapolation, American Book Review, Mechademia, The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature and elsewhere on subjects ranging from the American Renaissance to post-cyberpunk fiction and film.
For more detail, visit the following URL:
http://www.tatsumizemi.com/p/
https://issuu.com/keioacademyny/docs/tatsumi_svita2023_latest?fr=sN2E1YjY1MzM5Njg
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#44 Here’s Looking at You, Kids! Headmaster’s speech at the Appreciation Party 2025
Congratulations to all of you, the “Class of 2025” students, for your graduation!
Every June I have to prepare a number of special speeches for ceremonies and receptions. This time I would like to teach you how to master the toasting etiquette you will need during your university life.
After you enter Keio university this year or next year, all of you will be required to attend a number of receptions or simple get-togethers not only of your class or seminar but also of your circles mostly at the beginning and the ending of every semester. On these occasions, we should usually begin by raising a toast. When someone says “toast,” you have to raise your glasses and drink together in honor of a person or thing. This is a conventional form of celebrating someone or something.
Strictly speaking, toast is not a speech. However, it is often accompanied by a speech. Although the timing of the toasts depends on the structure of the event, Japanese toasts (乾杯の音頭) are usually given before luncheon or banquet, that is, before drinking or eating. This is the most important. If I’m not only a headmaster but also a toastmaster at this appreciation party, you are strongly demanded to do nothing until my toasting is completed.
You can find the most famous toast in the 1942 movie “Casablanca,” featuring the hardboiled hero Rick Blaine performed by Humphrey Bogart. When he enjoys reunion with his ex-girlfriend Ilsa performed by Ingrid Bergman and ends up by leaving her once again, Rick’s killer phrase is: “Here’s looking at you, Kid” (君の瞳に乾杯!) .
Of course, Japanese toast is much easier. You have only to say “Kanpai!”
So, please join me in proposing a toast to all of the Class of 2025” students, their parents and all of our faculty and staff. ”Kanpai!”