Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 Takashi Fujitani Job Talk: Koreans as Japanese Soldiers: Reflections on Inclusionary or Polite Racism in WWII

DateTimeLocation
Wednesday, April 7, 20102:00PM - 4:00PMSeminar Room 208N, Munk Centre For International Studies
1 Devonshire Place

Description

Professor Fujitani’s presentation will be drawn from his forthcoming book, Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans in WWII. The book is a comparative and transnational study of ethnic and colonial soldiers during the Asia-Pacific War (or the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific) that focuses on Japanese Americans mobilized to serve in the United States Army and Koreans who were recruited or drafted into the Japanese military. His research utilizes the two sites of soldiering as optics through which to examine the larger operations and structures of the changing U.S. And Japanese national empires as they struggled to manage racialized populations within the larger demands of conducting total war. He seeks to show how discussions about, policies, and representations of these two sets of soldiers tell us a great deal about the changing characteristics of wartime racism, nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, gender politics, the family, and some other related issues on both sides of the Pacific that go well beyond the soldiers themselves, and whose repercussions remain with us today. The seminar will focus on the Korean Japanese side of his research.

Takashi Fujitani is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. His primary areas of research are modern and contemporary Japanese history, East Asian history, and transnational history (primarily U.S./Japan and Asia-Pacific). His publications include: Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (UC Press, 1996; Japanese version, 1994; Korean translation, 2003); Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) (co-editor, Duke, 2001); and Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans in WWII (forthcoming, UC Press; Japanese version, Iwanami Shoten); as well as numerous book chapters and articles published in Korean, Japanese and English. His recent research has been funded by the John. S. Guggenheim Foundation, ACLS, NEH, and SSRC.


Speakers

Takashi Fujitani
Professor of History, University of California, San Diego


Main Sponsor

Asian Institute

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