Greetings to all blog-readers. I am Patrick Hughes, and I suppose I can be considered the “middle management” of the Study Tour. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert enough to be ranked as a leader like Brenda and Hiroshi, but I will be assisting them with the day-to-day details of the trip (my ‘day job’ at Pitt is as Brenda’s assistant). When I am not working for Brenda and NCTA I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at Pitt with a focus on late 18th and early 19th century Anglo-American unbelief, irreligion and freethought. I am currently working on my dissertation, the title of which is “Antidotes to Deism: A Reception History of Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’.”
This will be my first trip to Asia, and even though I have done a good bit of globe-trotting already, I am quite looking forward to this Japan trip. I have been to Brazil, Morocco, Colombia, Mexico, Canada (yes, it does count as a foreign country), and all over Europe (I even lived in Ireland and Spain). I am a Pittsburgh native and have a 5-year old daughter who has asked me to send her post-cards every day while I am away.
I hope to learn lots about Japan not just from my own experiences on the ground, but also from all of my fellow teacher-travelers.
Study Tour
