2025-2026 "New Books on Japan" Series

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Monday, September 8, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

Exhibitionist Japan: The Spectacle of Modern Development (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

Presenter: Angus Lockyer, Lecturer, Rhode Island School of Design

Discussant: Jordan Sand, Professor of History, Georgetown University

Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia

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Thursday, October 2, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

The Geography of Injustice: East Asia's Battle between Memory and History (Cornell University Press, 2024)

Presenter: Barak Kushner, Professor of East Asian History, Cambridge University

Discussant: Daqing Yang, Associate Professor of History, George Washington University

Moderator: Emer O'Dwyer, Associate Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Oberlin College

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Tuesday, November 4, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

Presenter: Alicia Volk, Professor of Japanese Art, University of Maryland

Discussant: Franziska Seraphim, Associate Professor of History, Boston College

Moderator: Emer O'Dwyer, Associate Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Oberlin College

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Tuesday, December 2, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET

Mothers Against War: Gender, Motherhood, and Peace Activism in Cold War Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025)

Presenter: Akiko Takenaka, Professor of History, University of Kentucky

Discussant: Chelsea Szendi Schieder, Professor, Faculty of Economics, Aoyama Gakuin University

Moderator: Sara Kang, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows, Princeton University

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

Rethinking Japan's Modernity: Stories and Translations (Harvard University Asia Center Press, 2024)

Presenter: M. William Steele, Professor Emeritus, International Christian University

Discussant: Robert Hellyer, Professor of History, Wake Forest University

Moderator: Emer O'Dwyer, Associate Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Oberlin College

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Thursday, January 22, 2026 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

Renaming Plants and Nations in Japanese Colonial Korea (Routledge, 2025)

Presenter: Jung Lee, Associate Professor, Ewha Women's University

Discussant: Ian Miller, Reischauer Institute Professor of Environmental History, Harvard University

Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia

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Thursday, February 5, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET

The Future Is Foreign: Women and Immigrants in Corporate Japan (Cornell University Press, 2025)

Presenter: Hilary Holbrow, Assistant Professor of Japanese Politics and Society, Indiana University

Discussant: Ulrike Schaede, Professor of Japanese Business, University of California San Diego

Moderator: Sara Kang, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows, Princeton University

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Monday, March 2, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET

The Tale of Genji through Contemporary Manga (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Presenter: Lynne K. Miyake, Professor Emerita of Japanese, Pomona College

Discussant: Jan Bardsley, Professor Emerita of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Moderator: Jan Bardsley, Professor Emerita of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Monday, April 6, 2026 | 5:30-7:00 PM ET

Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War  (Columbia University Press, 2025）

Presenter: Kristin Roebuck, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

Discussant: Takashi Fujitani, Dr. David Chu Professor in Asia-Pacific Studies, University of Toronto

Moderator: Seiji Shirane, Associate Professor of Japanese History, City College of New York

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Monday, May 4, 2026 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET

The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (University of California Press, 2025) 

Presenter: Hannah Shepherd, Assistant Professor of History, Yale University

Discussant: Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Professor Emerita of Japanese History, Australian National University

Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia

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Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET

Colonial Surveillance: Technologies of Identification and Control in Japan’s Empire (Stanford University Press, 2025)

Presenter: Midori Ogasawara, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Victoria

Discussant: Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Professor of History, University of Colorado

Moderator: Nick Kapur, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers University-Camden

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Wednesday, June 3, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET

A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan (Stanford University Press, 2026)

Presenter: Sayaka Chatani, Associate Professor of History, National University of Singapore

Discussant: Yumi Kim, Associate Professor of History, University of California Berkeley

Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia

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Wednesday, June 17, 2026 | 9:00-10:30 AM AEST

Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away (University of Hawai'i Press, 2026)

Presenters: Sandra Wilson, Professor, College of Law, Arts and Social Sciences, Murdoch University and Robert Cribb, Emeritus Professor of Australian History, The Australian National University

Discussant: Sarah Kovner, Senior Research Scholar, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University

Moderator: Kirsten Ziomek, Associate Professor of History, Adelphi University

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026 | 9:30-11:00 AM JST | 10:30 AM-12:00 PM AEST

Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General (Harvard University Press, 2026) 

Presenter: Peter Mauch, Senior Lecturer of Asian History, University of Western Sydney

Discussant: Andrew Levidis, Lecturer in Modern Japanese History, Australian National University

Moderator: Simon Avenell, Professor of History, Australian National University