May 5, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—James Seltzer, a senior at Amherst College, has been awarded a J. William Fulbright Fellowship for postgraduate study in Japan. Seltzer, a graduate of Boston College High School, is the son of Norman Seltzer and Colleen Young of Hull, Mass.

Seltzer fashioned an interdisciplinary major at Amherst, combining studies in Japanese, fine arts and computer science. As his senior thesis, he and his twin brother Julian Seltzer, also a senior at Amherst, created Cross-War: Beginnings, an animated film. Their film is part of a projected series on which James Seltzer will work next year in Tokyo. In his Fulbright proposal, Seltzer described “a technical work of art in which philosophical undertones shine through gracefully, capturing and inviting audiences of all ages. This all-inclusive work will seek to answer the larger question of why animation is so often dismissed as childlike by American culture, in addition to why Japanese audiences take this art form so seriously.”

Seltzer played football and was a member of the track team for three years at Amherst. As a junior with the Temple University Program in Japan, he played basketball and tutored Japanese students in English. Back at Amherst, he now tutors undergraduates in 3-D computer animation techniques.

Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges. Senator J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, viewed scholarship as an alternative to armed conflict. Today the Fulbright Program, the federal government’s premier scholarship program, funded by an annual Congressional appropriation and contributions from other participating countries, allows Americans to study or conduct research in more than 100 nations.

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