|
|
Laura Hein Japan in the 20th century Office:
207A Harris |
|
Laura E. Hein (PhD Wisconsin, 1986) specializes in the history of Japan in the 20th century and its international relations. Much of Laura Hein's work focuses on debates over economic policy and the implications of various economic theories. She has recently completed Reasonable Men, Powerful Words: Political Culture and Expertise in Twentieth Century Japan, (University of California, Fall 2004), which explores various ways in which economic expertise intersected with politics through a study of the lives of a tight-knit group of Japanese intellectuals. She also publishes on economic policy and the ideology of economic growth in postwar Japan, particularly Fueling Growth: The Energy Revolution and Economic Policy in Postwar Japan. (1990) which began life as a dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also has a strong interest in problems of remembrance and public memory, resulting in three co-edited books with Mark Selden: Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age (1997), Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States (2000), and Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to American and Japanese Power (2003). She regularly offers a graduate seminar on Commemoration as a Historical Problem and has recently developed another, Asia as Point of Departure: Offsetting the West. Additional Information:
Northwestern University Professional Activities Currently she is preparing to curate the work of Japanese artist Tomiyama Taeko. It will be on display from January 2 to February 14, 2006 at Northwestern's Dittmar Gallery. She is also the Director of the Asian & Middle East Studies Program at Northwestern In 2005-2007 the program is coordinating with the Asian American Studies Program a Speaker Series on TransPacific Interconnections. A number of scholars are now exploring ways to combine Asian and Asian American studies in a variety of creative and fruitful ways. This is changing not only our understanding of the Asian and Asian American experience but also of nation-building, population movement and migration, and international relations. Indeed, their work collectively demonstrates that the categories "Asian" and "Asian American" are inadequate to capture the experiences of real people in the world. This research challenges the very definitions of Asian American and Asian, as well as the ways in which these definitions have been constructed and the assumptions on which they are premised. Older work on Asian Americans tended to assume that Asians arrived in America, stayed permanently, and gradually assimilated, shedding much of their social and cultural distinctiveness. However, actually lived lives are far more complex: some people sojourn in the United States and then return to Asia, not necessarily to the place where they or their ancestors originated. Others made new homes elsewhere in the world. Some who have settled in the United States have worked hard to not only keep (inevitably reinterpreted) cultural and linguistic traditions alive but also to transform American society to accept those traditions as fully American. Similarly, while much work in the last decades has focused on the active participation of Asians in shaping their own societies, rather than simply responding to Western pressure, far less has emphasized the fundamentally interactive aspects of their interactions. When Asians keep in touch with their relatives and friends elsewhere in the world, for example, they are shaping national foreign policy in ways invisible to those who study only government documents. Collectively this work has enormous implications for scholarship beyond Asian and Asian American Studies and we are pleased to be able to welcome some of the people producing it to Northwestern.
History of Japanese Economic Thought and Policy For
more on Reasonable Men, Powerful Words, see For
an on-line review of this book: Remembrance For
more information on Living with the Bomb, see For
more information on Censoring History, see For
more information on Islands of Discontent, see book For
a nice K-12 curriculum featuring this book, see For
a related essay on reparations see: Other Professional Activities Laura
Hein is a coordinator of Japan Focus. Japan Focus is an
electronic journal and archive affiliated with Z-Net and
Z magazine that chronicles Japan and the Asia-Pacific in
global perspective, encompassing politics, economics, society,
history, culture, international relations, war and peace,
and historical memory. In addition to Japan Focus exclusives,
it presents translations from Japanese and other languages
as well as reprints of important texts. Japan Focus draws
on the writings of researchers, journalists, policy analysts
and writers throughout Asia and the Pacific, North America,
Europe and Australia. Its fully indexed website provides
a permanent resource for researchers on the Asia-Pacific.
Subscribers receive a weekly mailing announcing and introducing
four to eight new articles. Two of her own essays appear there:
She
also serves as the Northeast Asian editor of Critical
Asian Studies, an inter-area, interdisciplinary journal.
Critical Asian Studies |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Home | News | Undergraduate | Graduate | Faculty | Research | Contact | Links Department of History 1881 Sheridan Rd., #202 Evanston, IL 60208 Phone: 847-491-3406 Fax: 847-467-1393 E-mail: history  northwestern.eduCalendar: Plan-It Purple | Sites A-Z | Search Northwestern Website | Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences World Wide Web Disclaimer | University Policy Statements Last updated 03/13/2008 © 2002-2006 Northwestern University Web design: Krzysztof Kozubski (kozubski northwestern.edu) |
 |
|
|