Rob Buscher, Board Chair of the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival is a film and media specialist, educator, arts administrator, and published author who has worked in non-profit arts organizations for over a decade. As a person of biracial Japanese American heritage who is deeply involved in his community, Rob also has an expertise in cultural sensitivity training, community organizing, and advocacy issues related to the Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Robʼs expertise is Japanese and Asian American & Pacific Islander Cinema although he has worked as a professional film programmer, critic, and lecturer across a variety of fields. Some of his career highlights include growing Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival into an internationally recognized leader in the film festival circuit (2013-2019), developing the Japanese Cinema and Asian American Studies curriculum at Arcadia University (2012-2018), and co-founding Zipangu Fest - the UKʼs first Japanese Film Festival (2009-2014). Rob currently lectures at University of Pennsylvania, and is a contributing writer at Pacific Citizen and Broad Street Review.
MA Japanese Studies with a Focus in Japanese Cinema School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
BA Communications with a Minor in Art, Design, and Media Richmond: The American International University in London
Certificate of Completion, Japanese Language Intermediate Level, Kyoto Institute of Culture and Language
Japanese Modernity, US-Japan Relations, Japanese American Incarceration, Asian American Activism, Japanese Cinema, Asian American Cinema, Propaganda Studies, Critical Mixed Race Studies, Immigration Rights Movement, Transnational Cultural Movements, Asian American Food Culture
ASAM 208 Fighting for Representation: The Asian American Cinema Movement
Fall Semesters
ASAM 110 Asian American Activism
Spring Semesters
"The Untold History of Asian Americans in Early Hollywood"
https://www.pacificcitizen.org/the-untold-story-of-asian-americans-in-early-hollywood/
"Japanese Americans: A Philadelphia Story"
https://www.pacificcitizen.org/a-philadelphia-story/
"How COVID-19 Disrupted the Black-White Binary"
"Charlottesville and the Legacy of White Supremacy"
"Turandot: Time to Call it Quits on Orientalist Opera?"
Board Chair - Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival
Chapter President - Japanese American Citizens League Philadelphia Chapter
Editorial Board Chair - Pacific Citizen, the JACL's national newspaper