Barak Kushner

Last few presentations and talks delivered:

“An Unsatisfying Peace: Postwar Sino-Japan Relations and War Crimes Trials,” as part of the conference, The ‘Long Arc’ of Sino-Japanese Relations: Chinese Perspectives on War, Cooperation, and Conflict Across Three Eras, June 17, 2010, Oxford University.

Invited panelist to the Asahi Shimbun sponsored symposium on the role of media in Japanese history (朝日新聞シンポジウム昭和報道：検証), June 4, 2010, Tokyo, Japan. (Delivered in Japanese)

“Defining the Enemy: Early Cold War Sino-Japan Relations and the Paradox of International Law, Rowan University, New Jersey (USA), April 13, 2010.

“Japanese Love Statues and Chinese Prisons: Early Cold War Sino-Japanese Relations and WWII War Crimes,” Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University, Washington DC (USA), April 8, 2010.

“China's Past, China's Future”, keynote presentation at the Oundle School, Oundle, UK, March 12, 2010.

"DEALING WITH THE 'DEVIL' - Analyzing Postwar Chinese Trials of Japanese War Criminals," Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel), January 4, 2010.

“日本戰犯的審判：中日關係歷史之觀察,”(Riben Zhanfan de shenpan: ZhongRi guanxi lishi zhi guancha) (Japanese War Crimes: Observations on Sino-Japanese Historical Relations – the case of Taiwan) at the conference hosted at Taiwan National University, 交界與游移-近現代東亞的文化傳譯與知識生產 (The Shifting Sands of Common Boundaries – Interpretation and Production of Knowledge in Modern East Asia) September 10, 2009, Taipei, Taiwan. (Delivered in Chinese)

“Legalizing Guilt: Law and Early Cold War Sino-Japanese Relations,” in panel New Thoughts on Old Paradigms: Re-assessing the Early Cold War in East Asia, at International Convention of Asian Scholars, Daejeon, South Korea, August 7, 2009.

“The WWII Japanese and Chinese struggle for hearts and minds,” Waseda University, June 15, 2009.

“The historical baggage of Japanese war criminals in China: explaining the immediate postwar in East Asia,” lecture at Occidental College, Los Angeles (USA), April 1, 2009.

“Victim’s Justice: Early Cold War East Asia and the Pursuit of a New Order,” on the panel The Impact of China: Experience on the Construction of Modern Japanese Identity, Association for Asian Studies annual conference, Chicago, March 27, 2009.

"Devils to men and men to devils - unravelling postwar Chinese war crimes trials of Japanese POWs," Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Bristol, February 9, 2009.

“Nationalism and Popular Food Culture in Modern Japan,” SOAS Food Studies Centre, London, November 28, 2008.

“Riben zhanfan de shenpan: Zhongri guanxi lishi zhi guancha,” (Japan War Crimes Trials: Observations on postwar Sino-Japan Relations) talk delivered in Chinese, History Department, Nanjing University, China, September 25, 2008.

“Eating Your Way to Democracy: Japan's Postwar Politics of Food,” Soga Japan Center Speaker Series at Western Michigan University, April 15, 2008.

"Going for the Gold: Health and Sports in Japan's Quest for Modernity," delivered at Olympian Desires: Building Bodies and Nations in East Asia; A Symposium at the University of Kansas, April 10, 2008.

“Nationalism and food in East Asia; hygiene, dining and imperial pageantry,” in the World History Seminar at St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, March 6, 2008.

"Lamian yu minzuzhuyi: yinshi de zhimindihua," (Noodles and Nationalism: the Colonization of Cuisine), talk delivered in Chinese, December 7, 2007, History Department, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.

"The Colonization of Cuisine and the Translation of Empire," at the "Translation: East Asia and the West International Conference for Junior Scholars," December 4, 2007, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.

"The Meiji restoration was a menu revolution - diplomacy and dining in early modern Japan," at the Japan Research Centre, SOAS, London, November 21, 2007.

“Adjudicating Imperialism in Postwar East Asia: War Crimes Trials and the Cold War in Japan,” at the East Asia in International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Identity: Asian Seminar Series at Oxford University, October 24, 2007.

“Noodling around Asia: the politics of eating in Taisho era Japan,” Modern Japan History Workshop, Waseda University, Tokyo, September 7, 2007.

“The Cold War in East Asia-Memory and Loathing,” at Crossing Boundaries in Cold War Studies Conference, University of Cambridge, May 4, 2007.

“A short history of Japanese cuisine and the meaning of banquets in diplomacy,” invited dinner lecture for the Shibusawa/​Suntory Workshop in Cambridge on the Two Bilateral Relations with the Superpower, University of Cambridge, March 26, 2007.

“Japan's postwar circus and breadlines - national diet and demobilization,” at the Oxford Princeton Workshop, Making Order in the Post-war World: A Comparative Study of Europe and East Asia in the 1940s and 1950s, History Faculty, Oxford University, March 23, 2007.

“What do manga tell us about Japanese history and why should we care? Manga to rekishi, nani zoya?” Annual Cambridge lecture (in English and Japanese) at Chaucer College Canterbury, UK, February 2, 2007.

Torture and Intelligence – How the US forgot what it learned from the Chinese Communists

Thursday, March 2, 2006 lecture in the Department of History at Indiana State University.

Sino-Japan Relations: More Hot Than Sour

Return invitation to speak on Sino-Japanese relations and history at the Anchorage World Affairs Council, Alaska, March 31, 2006.

Presenting on Japanese wartime children's kamishibai as part of the panel on "The ‘Art’ of War: Media Representations, Propaganda, and Public Opinion in the Sino-Japanese Conflict, 1931–1945," Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, April 8, 2006 in San Francisco.