This is not interesting or new information for those who’ve been doing dissertation research in Japan. But there is an incredible amount of previous studies on almost any issue on East Asian history here. While I was in the US, I wished I had had more access to Japanese journals for that reason, but the [...]
I defended my prospectus last December and passed my oral exams in March. I forgot what I have been doing since then but time flies really fast, and here I am. Back in Japan. I am starting my real, not “preliminary,” research for my dissertation.
I am starting from the 青年団報アーカイブス in Tsuruga, Fukui. I [...]
I spent hours and hours to write an application to get Institutional Review Board approval for my coming dissertation research since the interviews I might (not even “will”) have could fall under “human subjects research.” Last week my application was returned since a lot of information was missing. That means I had to spend another [...]
Here’s some thoughts on youth in history from my oral reading notes:
Stories of twentieth-century urban youth.
When compared to the scholarship on the history of childhood, it is striking that most of the writings on the history of youth deal exclusively with the twentieth century (with an important exception of John Gillis). As Hobsbawm calls it [...]
I just went to a talk by a guest historian about historians’ obligation to engage in politics. The talk was straightforward. The speaker’s point was the following and she just gave a bunch of examples.
Historians should engage in political debates because, if we don’t, others do and misuse histories. Politicians make all sorts of historical [...]
I knew I had this issue for a long time but I am feeling it real this time. My parents are Japanese; I was born and grew up in Japan; My only mother tongue is Japanese; my nationality is Japanese too. I cannot avoid people defining me as Japanese. I cannot even have a fancy [...]
I have been watching episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU deals with sex crimes and child abuses) since this summer. I started to watch them because they are available online at Netflix, and these episodes are usually really well made. Since I am reading books on childhood and youth, I am regarding [...]
Washington DC is one of the most competitive cities for summer sublet. At any time of the year there are a large number of people watching craigslist’s new entries for housing, emailing quickly to set up appointments, and going through an interview after another with roommates. Trust me, it is not fun especially for a [...]
Wow. I managed to stay lazy, not writing a single posting in a few months.
I was not necessarily any busier than before. But I was mentally more restless. I started building my oral exam reading lists — mainly on “History of Childhood and Youth.” My other fields are Modern Japan, Modern Korea, and Imperialism/Colonialism. [...]
I had a very busy month (or two) since I was one of the organizers of Columbia’s graduate student conference on East Asia, which happened on February 6th and 7th. We had more than 100 presenters and a number of faculty members serving as discussants. We usually have a unique party in the library, too. [...]