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Works"Pawns of Empire: Postwar Taiwan, Japan and the Dilemma of War Crimes”
Examining the plight of the Taiwanese, who were pawns in the larger conflict of World War Two, helps us to understand the complicated process of the breakdown of the Japanese empire. The postwar legal adjudication of BC class Japanese war crimes in East Asia is a key element in unwinding the historical complexity of postwar power shifts, the formation of a Taiwanese identity, and its connection to Japan’s postwar foreign relations goals. This paper considers three inter-related issues – analyzing how Japanese rule was restructured in the postwar former colonies, dissecting the prosecution of lower-level Japanese war crimes, and resolving the conundrum of collaboration within the former empire. These problems are tied intimately together due to the transformation of postwar identity and colonial politics. Some new thoughts about humor and the state of affairs in Sino-Japan relations
Is that really funny? – humor and identity in Japan and China Online article about the history of ramen and the politics of food in Japan and China.
Get the quick and dirty lowdown on the history of ramen and impress your friends and colleagues with your savvy and deep appreciation of food history in East Asia. "'Noodle-ology': the politics of cuisine"
A very brief article detailing that what we often think is national cuisine originates from unlikely sources. Learn how Chinese interaction with pre-war Japan helped change national taste and influence the postwar. (Produced in the University of Cambridge Research Horizons journal, Summer 2008, p. 15). "Nationality and Nostalgia: The Manipulation of Memory in Japan, Taiwan, and China since 1990"
How history influences politics and culture in Taiwan, Japan and China The Thought War-- Japanese Imperial Propaganda
The postwar perception of Japanese wartime propaganda was that it was a failure, falling short of reaching its major goal of unifying the battlefront with the home front. The Thought War, reveals actually how a shooting war of enormous magnitude, ferocity, and breadth gained the participation of a civilian population that eagerly embraced its aims and supported its proponents. "Planes, Trains and Games: Selling Japan’s War in Asia"
During Japan’s war to establish dominance in Asia, Japanese soldiers did not expect to return home alive, and few considered it even possible that Japan’s war would end quickly. In light of the demographic determinants that many believed would aid Japan’s military power on the Chinese mainland, and later against the Allies, Japan’s youth culture played a dominant role. The purpose of this research is to center on the quasi unofficial, not the schools and educational content directly managed by the government, but that which existed outside the school, outside the daily purview and grasp of the government. In this regard, kamishibai, paper plays, fit the bill perfectly. Certainly kamishibai were censored, but the multiplicity of companies that produced the plays and the incorporation of traditional stories like Ōgon batto remained a potent force. Co-authored with Sato Masaharu, “Digesting Postwar Japanese Media: American Propaganda in Occupied Japan,” Diplomatic History, January 2005, p. 27-48.
This article looks at the role American journalism played in "democratizing" Japan and the unique position of Reader's Digest. "Gojira as Japan's First Postwar Media Event," in the book, In Godzilla's Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage
See my chapter in Bill Tsutsui's edited volume on Godzilla. Everything you thought you wanted to know about Godzilla and then some. “Laughter as Materiel: The Mobilization of Comedy in Japan’s Fifteen-Year War,” volume xxvi, 2 (June 2004), The International History Review, p. 300-330.
Find out if the Japanese valued humor during World War Two "'Negro Propaganda Operations': Japan's short-wave radio information broadcasts for World War II Black Americans"
Co-authored with Japanese scholar Sato Masaharu, this research is the only treatment using Japanese and American archives that examines the programs Japan initiated to attract Black-Americans toward Japan's side. Ultimately, the propaganda failed, but the lengths to which Japan stretched demonstrates a deep understanding of the racial divides that affected the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. |
