University of Massachusetts Amherst

Herbert P. Bix is the author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, an acclaimed account of the Japanese Emperor and the events which shaped... modern Japanese imperialism. Bix earned his Ph.D. in history and Far Eastern languages from Harvard University and a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. For several decades, he has written about modern and contemporary Japanese history in the United States and Japan. He has taught at many universities and is a professor of history and sociology at Binghamton University. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001.
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Yusef Lateef is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community... after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950. Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he also plays oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also uses a number of world music instruments, notably the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, arghul, sarewa, and koto. He is known for his innovative blending of jazz with "Eastern" music. Lateef was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee; his family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1925. Throughout his early life Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who went on to gain prominence, including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones, and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Lateef was a proficient saxophonist by the time of his graduation from high school at the age of 18, when he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of swing bands. In 1949, he was invited by Dizzy Gillespie to tour with his orchestra.
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William J. Monahan is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay was The Departed, a film that earned him a WGA award and... an Academy award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Monahan attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he studied Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He moved to New York City and contributed to the alternative weekly newspaper New York Press and the magazines Talk, Maxim, and Spy. In 1997 Monahan won a Pushcart Prize for his short story "A Relation of Various Accidents Observable in Some Animals Included in Vacuo". Monahan was an editor at Spy during the magazine's final years, where he would come in at the close of the monthly issue to rewrite articles and improve jokes. Monahan wrote a novel titled Light House: A Trifle, and Warner Bros. optioned the film rights. In 1999 Talk magazine debuted, and Monahan contributed a travelogue on Gloucester, Massachusetts, to the first issue.
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Herbert P. Bix is the author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, an acclaimed account of the Japanese Emperor and the events which shaped... modern Japanese imperialism. Bix earned his Ph.D. in history and Far Eastern languages from Harvard University and a B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. For several decades, he has written about modern and contemporary Japanese history in the United States and Japan. He has taught at many universities and is a professor of history and sociology at Binghamton University. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001.
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