Research Overview

Interests: Japanese History; Japanese imperialism; race, indigeneity, and settler colonialism; and theories of capitalist development

I am a social and cultural historian of modern Japan, with a particular interest in the relationship between imperialism, capitalism, and mass/popular culture.  My research examines cultural production within the indigenous Ainu villages of Hokkaido during the first half of the twentieth century, which I argue constituted a dialogical space where Ainu people from all walks of life envisioned a program of community development based on agricultural cooperatives, land redistribution, school desegregation, and housing reform to confront the colonial institutions that displaced them.

My dissertation is based on archival research across Hokkaido and Tokyo in Japan and was supported by the Fulbright Program.

Courses Offered (subject to change)

• HIST  143:  Modern Chinese History, Syllabus
• HIST 145:  Modern Japanese History, Syllabus
• HIST  195:  Premodern Japan, Syllabus
• HIST 200:  Gateway to History: Japanese Empire and its Afterlife, Syllabus
• HIST  299H:  UR Research: History and Your Project, Syllabus
• HIST  301:  Global Critiques of Modernity, Syllabus
• HIST  346W/446:  East Asia and the Cold War, Syllabus