A second Fulbright empowers Davison’s storytelling mastery to explore Japan’s cultural crossroads

By Kyle York

UNC Hussman Professor Pat Davison has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award for the 2023-24 academic year to produce a series of documentary videos examining the evolution of Japanese culture. It’s Davison’s second Fulbright, having been selected in 2014-15 to produce films examining Japan’s aging population.

Davison sees Japanese culture at a crossroads. The country’s traditional collectivist philosophy and time-honored arts and crafts mastery are intersecting with an aging population and the growing influences of globalization, digital technology and trendy pop culture exports like anime, manga, J-pop music and video games. 

With the support of the Fulbright, he seeks to capture deeply personal stories with insight into large societal questions like how Japanese cultural traditions will look in the future; how the loss of traditional masters affects traditional cultural practices; and how Japan can reinvigorate traditional arts and crafts while capitalizing on the global interest in its popular culture.

The images in this story are of Davison and his family. Images courtsey of Davison.

“Ironically, virtual representations of traditional Japanese culture are thriving while some actual traditional cultural practices are struggling to survive,” Davison wrote in his Fulbright proposal. “Japan’s digital exports are perfectly suited to the instant gratification demanded by today’s online consumers. Yet Japan’s traditional cultural practices are anything but instant.”

Davison’s long-held interest in Japanese society and culture spans his own personal and professional experiences that both inspire and inform his work. Davison and his wife Emiko — a native of Japan — met in journalism school at the University of Missouri and married in Tokyo in 1988.  They have visited family in Japan with their three daughters several times since.

He cites the time living in Tokyo working on the 2014-15 Fulbright project as a time of growth and learning for him and his family. “By making the films Balloon Elderly and A Hello Story, I experienced how successful and talented people see their world grow smaller with age and how individuals and families battle the challenges of aging,” he said. “The fundamental issues of life, health, identity and family are at the heart of my films.”

"Balloon Elderly" — a 15-minute documentary that reveals how a senior softball team confronts aging with camaraderie and competition — ran on CNN’s "Great Big Story" platform and has more that 30,000 views and more than 800 million impressions.

Davison was first drawn to UNC Hussman in 2001 in part to help coach the international project classes that then-Hussman Professor Rich Beckman had built into a hallmark student experience. The documentary projects Beckman’s students produced became a perennial demonstration of the school’s excellence and leadership by employing emerging media technologies around powerful human-centered storytelling.

Davison created the Carolina Photojournalism Workshop at UNC Hussman in 2004 to give students the opportunities and experiences of telling stories in North Carolina’s microcultures. Since 2008, when he was named the school’s director of documentary projects, his students and faculty colleagues have carried that tradition forward producing projects that earn top industry awards like the Webby Awards, SXSW Interactive, Pictures of the Year International and Hearst Intercollegiate Awards, among others. He has now led 13 international and 22 domestic projects exploring cultural and social issues.

Davison has won Carolina’s Hettleman Award for Scholarly and Creative Excellence and has twice won UNC Hussman’s Ed Vick Award for Innovation in Teaching in addition to the more than 100 awards for his work over a 25-year professional career. He was part of the Rocky Mountain News photo staff that received the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for Breaking News Photography in 2000 for coverage of the Columbine High School tragedy.

“On each project, we learn about making personal connections that are essential to tell stories accurately, empathetically and ethically,” he said. “Through experiential projects, I teach students cultural preparation, sensitivity and adaptability. I seek to foster independent thinking and creativity as students pursue journalistic innovation amidst dramatic upheaval.”

About the Fulbright Scholar Awards
Fulbright Scholar Awards are prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide unique opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad. Fulbright scholars also play a critical role in U.S. public diplomacy, establishing long-term relationships between people and nations. Alumni include 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 78 MacArthur Fellows, and thousands of leaders and world-renowned experts in academia and many other fields across the private, public, and non-profit sectors.