May 28
Chunmei Du, "Everyday Occupation: American Soldiers and Chinese Civilians in the Aftermath of World War II" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Chunmei Du is an Associate Professor of History at Lingnan University. Her work focuses on the social and cultural history of modern China, specifically looking at cross-cultural encounters and the lived experiences of ordinary individuals during periods of profound political tra ... Show More
55m 4s
May 27
Hannah Shepherd, "The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region" (U California Press, 2025)
In The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (U California Press, 2025), Hannah Shepherd examines the shared histories of Pusan and Fukuoka over the eight decades from Japan's forced opening of Korea's ports in 1876 to the end of the Korean Wa ... Show More
1h 18m
May 25
Matthieu Felt, "Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan" (Harvard UP, 2023)
Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan (Harvard UP, 2023) is the first dedicated study of how the oldest Japanese myths, recorded in the eighth-century texts Kojiki and Nihon shoki, changed in meaning and significance between 800 and 1800 CE. Generations of ... Show More
44m 24s
Jun 2021
Suzanne L. Marchand, "Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe" (Princeton UP, 2020)
Suzanne L. Marchand's new book Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe (Princeton University Press, 2020) balances several histories at once through the story of a single commodity. Rather than a history of art or aesthetics per se—though it certainly touches style and arti ... Show More
1 h
May 2022
Susan Westhafer Furukawa, "The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan" (Harvard UP, 2022)
Popular representations of the past are everywhere in Japan, from cell phone charms to manga, from television dramas to video games to young people dressed as their favorite historical figures hanging out in the hip Harajuku district. But how does this mass consumption of the pas ... Show More
40 m
Dec 2021
Alisa Freedman, "Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost" (Association for Asian Studies, 2021)
Alisa Freedman's book Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (Association for Asian Studies, 2021) explores political, economic, and cultural issues underlying depictions of Japan on U.S. television comedies and the programs they inspired ... Show More
56m 54s
Oct 2023
Chrissy Yee Lau, "New Women of Empire: Gendered Politics and Racial Uplift in Interwar Japanese America" (U Washington Press, 2022)
This episode, which is co-hosted with Mika Thornburg, features a conversation with Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau, the author of the newly published New Women of Empire: Gendered Politics and Racial Uplift in Interwar Japanese America (U Washington Press, 2022). The book centers the compell ... Show More
56m 21s
Aug 2023
Michael R. Jin, "Citizens, Immigrants, and the Stateless: A Japanese American Diaspora in the Pacific" (Stanford UP, 2021)
This episode features a conversation with Dr. Michael R. Jin regarding his recently published book Citizens, Immigrants, and the Stateless: The Japanese American Diaspora in the Pacific. Published in November 2021 by Stanford University Press, the book weaves together Jin’s speci ... Show More
1h 7m
Feb 2024
Much ado about matcha, with Viktoryia Toma
Our hosts Tiffany Eslick and Devina Divecha get a Japanese tea masterclass from Viktoryia Toma. Viktoryia is the founder of Ikigai-cha, where they focus on single estates and single cultivators, so they work and source from small farmers directly to bring their teas to the region ... Show More
1 h
Sep 2023
Globalisation and Glocalisation of Bubble Tea
Bubble tea, also known as pearl milk tea, boba or tapioca milk tea is a popular drink in Asia. Wherever there is Asian diaspora, such as in the USA, one can find bubble tea as well. Bubble tea is becoming increasingly visible even in European countries where there are relatively ... Show More
22m 39s
Robert Hellyer’s Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups (Columbia UP, 2021) is a tale of American and Japanese teaways, skillfully weaving together stories of Midwesterners drinking green tea (with milk and sugar, to be sure), the recent and complex origins of Japan's love of now-ubiquitous sencha, Ceylon tea merchants exploiting Ame ... Show More
