Modern Japan History Association upcoming events

New Books on Japan: "Kinkakuji and Kitayama: Space, Place, Monuments and Memory in Japan 1222-1994" (September 10, 2026)

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Thursday, September 10, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET
Friday, September 11, 2026 | 8:00-9:30 AM JST

Kinkakuji and Kitayama: Space, Place, Monuments and Memory in Japan 1222-1994 (Brill, 2025)

Presenter: Thomas Conlan, Professor of East Asian Studies and History, Princeton University

Discussant: Mimi Yiengpruksawan, Professor of Art History, Yale University

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

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Thomas Conlan (Princeton), who will be speaking about his recent book Kinkakuji and Kitayama: Space, Place, Monuments and Memory in Japan 1222-1994. This work adopts a typology of intentional monuments, historical monuments, ancient monuments, and timeless monuments to describe how Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, was created, preserved, destroyed, and rebuilt. It reveals how Ashikaga Yoshimitsu built Kinkakuji as a monument to glorify his rule. Later, Kinkakuji became a mortuary temple and historical monument, commemorating the Ashikaga, before becoming an ancient monument that was valued for being old. It then became a National Treasure of Japan. After it was destroyed in 1950, Kinkakuji was built as a timeless monument. In the process, Kinkakuji’s reconstruction influenced how UNESCO authorities defined “original” monuments. Mimi Yiengpruksawan (Yale) will serve as interlocutor.

New Books from Japan #15: "Research and Development in a 'Late Developer' Japan: Telecommunications, Engineers, and Nationalism" (September 28, 2026)

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Sunday, September 27, 2026 7:00-8:30 PM EDT
Monday, September 28, 2026 8:00-9:30 AM JST

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New Books from Japan #15:

「後進国」日本の研究開発電気通信工学・技師・ナショナリズム

Research and Development in a “Late Developer" Japan: Telecommunications, Engineers, and Nationalism

Presenter: 河西棟馬 (Kawanishi Toma, Institute of Science Tokyo)

Discussant: Hiromi Mizuno (University of Minnesota Twin Cities)

Moderator: Sayaka Chatani (National University of Singapore)

Will "late-comer countries" forever remain as consumers of technologies invented elsewhere? This ambitious work traces the lineage of pre-war Japanese engineers—such as Torikata Uichi, Yagi Hidetsugu, and Matsumae Shigeyoshi—who broke free from mere technological adoption and imitation. It sheds light on the driving forces that motivated these pioneers and the conditions that enabled their breakthroughs. By incorporating an examination of their failed visions and the constraints of their era, this study offers a penetrating analysis of their historic achievements in the history of technology. Recipient of the 38th Japan Society for the History of Industrial Technology Award (2025).

「後進国」は、発明された技術の利用者にとどまるのか。鳥潟右一や八木秀次、松前重義など、移植や模倣を脱した戦前の技術者たちの系譜を、彼らを突き動かした要因や跳躍を可能にした条件ともども明らかにする。挫折した構想や時代的制約も見据え、技術史的達成を冷静に分析した気鋭の力作。第38回日本産業技術史学会賞受賞 (2025)。

2026 Distinguished Annual Lecture: Jordan Sand (October 08, 2026)

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Thursday, October 8, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET
Wednesday, October 9, 2026 | 8:00-9:30 AM JST

REGISTER FOR ZOOM HERE

The fourth annual MJHA Distinguished Annual Lecture, on a topic TBA, will be given in October 2026 by Jordan Sand, Professor of Japanese History, Georgetown University

New Books on Japan: "Rutgers Meets Japan: A Trans-Pacific Network of the Late Nineteenth Century" (October 22, 2026)

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Thursday, October 22, 2026 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET

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Rutgers Meets Japan: A Trans-Pacific Network of the Late Nineteenth Century (Rutgers University Press, 2026)

Presenter: Haruko Wakabayashi, Associate Teaching Professor, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Discussant: Hiromu Nagahara, Associate Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Haruko Wakabayashi (Rutgers-New Brunswick), who will be speaking about her recent co-edited volume Rutgers Meets Japan: A Trans-Pacific Network of the Late Nineteenth Century. In 1867 Kusakabe Taro, a young samurai from Fukui, Japan, began studying at Rutgers as its first foreign student. Three years later, in 1870, his former tutor, friend, and Rutgers graduate, William Elliot Griffis, left for Japan to teach English and Science for three and a half years. The year 2020 marked the 150th anniversary of two landmark events in the history of the Rutgers-Japan relationship: the untimely death of Kusakabe only weeks before his graduation, and his friend Griffis’ departure to Japan. Griffis and Kusakabe were only a small piece of a vast transnational network of leading modernizers of Japan in the 1860s and 70s. The Japanese students in New Brunswick were young and innovative men of samurai and aristocratic lineage, who were sent by reform-minded leaders of Japan, which was undergoing a dramatic transformation. They came to New Brunswick seeking Western knowledge that was much needed for the modernization of a newly forming nation. New Brunswick became the hub of a network of Japanese nationals that extended to the major cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and from there to the smaller towns of New England. Once in New Brunswick, these Japanese students were embraced by Protestant ministers, educators, and missionaries—both men and women—whose network encompassed Rutgers College and the neighboring New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and which stretched to Dutch Reformed parishes throughout the Eastern seaboard, and westward as far as the Dutch enclave of Holland, Michigan. Meanwhile, the American teachers and missionaries who left for Japan became part of a network of reformist leaders and Japanese returnees that extended to schools, colleges, and missions in Japan, and formed the foundations of Japan’s modern educational system. Through contributions from scholars and archivists in the U.S., Canada, and Japan, Rutgers Meets Japan aims to reconstruct the early Rutgers-Japan connections and examine the role and impact of this transnational network on Japan and the U.S. in the late nineteenth century. Hiromu Nagahara (MIT) will serve as interlocutor.

New Books on Japan: "Fuji: A Mountain in the Making" (January 28, 2027)

Fri, 29 Jan 2027 01:00:00 GMT

Thursday, January 28, 2027 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET
Friday, January 29, 2027 | 10:00-11:30 AM JST

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Fuji: A Mountain in the Making (Princeton University Press, 2025)

Presenter: Andrew Bernstein, Professor of History, Lewis & Clark College

Discussant: William Tsutsui, Chancellor and Professor of History, Ottawa University

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

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Andrew Bernstein, who will be speaking about his new book Fuji: A Mountain in the Making (Princeton University Press, 2025). Mount Fuji is everywhere recognized as a wonder of nature and enduring symbol of Japan. Yet behind the picture-postcard image is a history filled with conflict and upheaval. Violent eruptions across the centuries wrought havoc and instilled fear. Long an object of worship, Fuji has been inhabited by deities that changed radically over time. It has been both a totem of national unity and a flashpoint for economic and political disputes. And while its soaring majesty has inspired countless works of literature and art, the foot of the mountain is home to military training grounds and polluting industries. Tracing the history of Fuji from its geological origins in the remote past to its recent inscription as a World Heritage Site, Andrew Bernstein explores these and other contradictions in the story of the mountain, inviting us to reflect on the relationships we share with the nonhuman world and one another. William Tsutsui (Ottawa) will serve as interlocutor.

New Books on Japan: "Age of Disaffection The Aesthetic Critique of Politics in 1960s Japan" (February 10, 2027)

Thu, 11 Feb 2027 00:00:00 GMT

Wednesday, February 10, 2027 | 7:00-8:30 PM ET
Thursday, February 11, 2027 | 9:00-10:30 AM JST

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Age of Disaffection The Aesthetic Critique of Politics in 1960s Japan (Columbia University Press, 2025)

Presenter: Patrick Noonan, Resident Director, Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies

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

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

The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Patrick Noonan (KCJS), who will be speaking about his recent book Age of Disaffection The Aesthetic Critique of Politics in 1960s Japan. The 1960s in Japan have long been understood as a period of radical political engagement. But as political movements from Old Left Communism to New Left revolts appeared to fail in their efforts to revolutionize Japanese society, artists and intellectuals came to reject the ideals of postwar politics. Instead, they advocated withdrawing from political participation and making self-transformation the grounds for social change. This provocative book uncovers a paradox at the heart of the 1960s: how political disillusionment became the basis for a new form of politics—a politics of the self. Examining aesthetic criticism, popular literature, avant-garde art, cinema, and political theory, Patrick Noonan argues that cultural producers in 1960s Japan cultivated what he calls an “ethos of disaffection” toward revolutionary politics and postwar society. Departing from approaches that define politics as contestation, Age of Disaffection foregrounds cultivation, or the production of ways of feeling and relating to the world in efforts to redefine the political. It presents an unorthodox account of the 1960s: withdrawal from political activity developed not as the decade ended but as it was unfolding. Noonan reveals how Japanese artists and intellectuals in this period confronted a crucial question that continues to vex efforts at radical change today: transform institutions or alter how people relate to themselves and others? Nick Kapur (Rutgers) will serve as interlocutor.