Career
Howes began his studies of the Japanese language in 1944 at the I.T.S. Naval School of Oriental Languages, and served in the general headquarters of the Allied Occupation of Japan. Returning to the United States, he obtained an undergraduate degree at Oberlin College, and then a Master of Arts doctorate from Columbia University with a thesis "Uchimura Kanzō. A biographical sketch", followed by a 1965 Doctor of Philosophy for "Japan"s enigma, the young Uchimura Kanzō".
Even before completing his doctoral work, he 1961 he joined the Department of Asian Studies at University of British Columbia, rising to the rank of Professor, and then Emeritus Professor.
. After retirement from University of British Columbia, he taught at Obirin University, near Tokyo. He now resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Howes is a specialist in the modern Japanese intellectual history, concentrating on its Christian and pacifist thinkers, particularly Uchimura Kanzō (1861-1930) and Nitobe Inazō (1862-1933). He published the following books:
(editor) Nitobe Inazô: Japan"s Bridge Across the Pacific.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.
According to WorldCat, the book is held in 498 libraries
Tradition in Transition, The Modernization of Japan (New York: Macmillan, 1975),
Japanese Religion in the Meiji Era (Tokyo: Ministry of Education, 1956). He has also edited two volumes for the Japan Foundation: the 1983 Directory of Japan Specialists in Canada and Japan Studies in Canad, 1987.
