2023-2024 Series

September 13, 2023 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET | REGISTER FOR ZOOM

Oishii: The History of Sushi (Reaktion Books, 2021)

Author: Eric Rath, Professor of History, University of Kansas

Discussant: Takeshi Watanabe, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Eric Rath (Professor of History, University of Kansas). Professor Rath will be speaking about his new book, Oishii: The History of Sushi (Reaktion Books, 2021), which traces sushi’s development from China to Japan and then internationally, from street food to high-class cuisine. Takeshi Watanabe (Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University) will serve as discussant.

October 11, 2023 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET | REGISTER FOR ZOOM

In Close Association: Local Activist Networks in the Making of Japanese Modernity, 1868–1920 (Harvard University Asia Center Press, 2022)

Author: Marnie Anderson, Professor of History, Smith College

Discussant: Anne Walthall, Professor of History Emerita, University of California, Irvine

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Marnie Anderson (Professor of History, Smith College). Professor Anderson will be speaking about her new book, In Close Association: Local Activist Networks in the Making of Japanese Modernity, 1868–1920 (Harvard University Asia Center Press, 2022). In Close Association is the first English-language study of the local networks of women and men who built modern Japan in the Meiji period (1868–1912). Professor Anderson uncovers in vivid detail how a colorful group of Okayama-based activists founded institutions, engaged in the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, promoted social reform, and advocated “civilization and enlightenment” while forging pathbreaking conceptions of self and society. Placing gender analysis at its core, In Close Association offers fresh perspectives on what women did beyond domestic boundaries, while showing men’s lives, too, were embedded in home and kin. Writing “history on the diagonal,” Anderson documents the gradual differentiation of public activity by gender in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Meiji-era associations became increasingly sex-specific, though networks remained heterosocial until the twentieth century. Anne Walthall (Professor of History Emerita, University of California, Irvine) will serve as discussant.

November 16, 2023 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET | REGISTER FOR ZOOM

Provincializing Empire: Omi Merchants in the Japanese Transpacific Diaspora (University of California Press, 2023)

Author: Jun Uchida, Associate Professor of History, Stanford University

Discussant: Mark Metzler, Giovanni and Amne Costigan Professor in History, University of Washington

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Jun Uchida (Associate Professor of History, Stanford University). Professor Uchida will be speaking about her new book, Provincializing Empire: Omi Merchants in the Japanese Transpacific Diaspora (University of California Press, 2023). Provincializing Empire explores the global history of Japanese expansion through a regional lens. It rethinks the nation-centered geography and chronology of empire by uncovering the pivotal role of expeditionary merchants from Ōmi (present-day Shiga Prefecture) and their modern successors. Tracing their lives from the early modern era, and writing them into the global histories of empire, diaspora, and capitalism, Professor Uchida offers an innovative analysis of expansion through a story previously untold: how the nation's provincials built on their traditions to create a transpacific diaspora that stretched from Seoul to Vancouver, while helping shape the modern world of transoceanic exchange. Mark Metzler (Giovanni and Amne Costigan Professor in History, University of Washington) will serve as discussant.

December 13, 2023 | 6:00-7:30 PM ET | REGISTER FOR ZOOM

Japan's Ocean Borderlands: Nature and Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Author: Paul Kreitman, Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University

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

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Paul Kreitman (Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University). Professor Kreitman will be speaking about his new book, Japan's Ocean Borderlands: Nature and Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Japan's Ocean Borderlands reveals how the politics of conservation have entangled with the politics of sovereignty since the emergence of the modern Japanese state in the mid-nineteenth century. Using case studies ranging from Hawai'i to the Bonin Islands to the Senkaku (Ch: Diaoyu) Isles to the South China Sea, he explores how bird islands on the distant margins of the Japanese archipelago and beyond transformed from sites of resource extraction to outposts of empire and from wartime battlegrounds to nature reserves. This study examines how interactions between birds, bird products, bureaucrats, speculators, sailors, soldiers, scientists and conservationists shaped ongoing claims to sovereignty over oceanic spaces. It considers what the history of desert islands shows us about imperial and post-imperial power, the web of political, economic and ecological connections between islands and oceans, and about the relationship between sovereignty, territory and environment in the modern world. Miriam Kingsburg Kadia (Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder) will serve as discussant. 

January 17, 2024 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET | REGISTER FOR ZOOM

Nuclear Ghost: Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima's Gray Zone (University of California Press, 2023)

Author: Ryo Morimoto, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University

Discussant: Anne Allison, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Ryo Morimoto (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University). Professor Morimoto will be speaking about his new book, Nuclear Ghost: Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima's Gray Zone (University of California Press, 2023). Nuclear Ghost takes us deep into the liminal zone of evacuated, post-cataclysm Minamisōma, a town powerfully affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. "There is a nuclear ghost in Minamisōma" is how one resident described a mysterious experience following the disaster. Investigating this nuclear ghost among the graying population, Professor Morimoto examines radiation’s shapeshifting effects. What happens if state authorities, scientific experts, and the public disagree about the extent and nature of the harm caused by the accident? In one of the first in-depth ethnographic accounts of coastal Fukushima written in English, Nuclear Ghost tells the stories of a diverse group of residents who aspire to live and die well in their now irradiated homes. Their determination to recover their land, cultures, and histories for future generations provides a compelling case study for reimagining relationality and accountability in an ever-atomizing world. Anne Allison (Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University) will serve as discussant.