BTW, are you familiar with Dr. Sonia Ryang’s work (Social Anthropology)? She is currently teaching in Univ. of Iowa, and I have been very much interested in the angles of her studies on Korea and its diaspora. Although they might not really hit your field immediately, you would benefit from her academic endeavor in the very niche-y, and, therefore overlooked location in the history.

Good luck with your summer in JA.

Tsuruga also has, thanks to the nearby peninsula, probably the highest density of nuclear power plants of anywhere in Japan (three on the peninsula, if I remember correctly).

I am a Westerner teaching a stage 2 course on East Asia IR to Westerners – at first one assumes no positionality problems. It is interesting to see the students feeling they are being positively educated on some of the key historical controversies, by taking a critical approach (usually the default position is “Japanese people don’t learn about WWII” at worst, or at best “Japanese have not admitted war responsibility”.) All well and good – until they find out I have a Japanese spouse – at which point I become in their eyes a Japan “maniac”.

On the one hand it seems to give me more ‘authority’ on “Japan” in isolation- “you lived there, speak the language and have lived like the Japanese do(sic)” but on the other it seems to pull into question my objectivity on some of the cross-cultural and historical issues. Which is funny because I was more a “China” maniac until I actually went to Japan

“Both parts think the other is too naive — historians think political scientists reduce the complexity to patterns nonsensically, and political scientists think that historians are bogged down with details that no one else would care.”

This is an excellent point – I call myself a political “scientist” but somehow for my politically active (although not necessarily aware)friends my lack of interest in “doing” politics is somehow morally problematic!

Similar issues with political scientists and anthropologists who influenced my original thinking (now desperately estranged) . There always seemed to be a suspicion that political scientists like myself were “misusing” cultural and identity frameworks of reference for political purposes – no – I am just interested in how through political processes people create culture and identity in a more fluid and dynamic way than perhaps anthropologists might.

Good post.