Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Professor Bender has been doing fieldwork with taiko drumming groups in Japan since the late 1990s. This scholarship is the basis of his latest book entitled Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion (2012, UC Press). He has also examined the introduction of traditional musical instruments into public school music classes in Japan. Most recently, he has begun exploring the connections among discourses of demographic crisis, changes in elder care, and the development of robotics in Japan and Europe. Prof. Bender teaches courses on contemporary Japanese society, aging and demography, music, and popular culture.