Against the Odds in Asia, 1901-2021: On Activists, Autocrats, Exiles and Empires in Several Eras This presentation, which will move between the early 20th century and the early 21st century, will explore some of the ways that people working for change in different parts of East and Southeast Asia have periodically paid close attention to […]

Join us in a celebration of H. Yumi Kim’s new book, Madness in the Family: Women, Care, and Illness in Japan (Oxford University Press, 2022). During the book talk, the author will share some of the book’s main ideas while reflecting on the process of writing a history of kinship and disease. The talk will […]

Doing Transnational Intelligence History, Reflections on Writing "Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China" From Mao Zedong’s founding of the People’s Republic of China in October 1949 until Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972, US-China political relations were by definition sub rosa. The two […]

The Cost of Belonging: An Ethnography of Solidarity and Mobility in Beijing's Koreatown In the past ten years, China has rapidly emerged as South Korea’s most important economic partner. With the surge of goods and resources between the two countries, large waves of Korean migrants have opened small ethnic firms in Beijing’s Koreatown, turning a […]

Why Does Japanese Fertility Remain So Low? Lessons from a Misguided Policy Approach. Japanese government policies to increase mothers’ labor force participation and simultaneously raise the country’s very low birth rate have met with mixed success. Meanwhile, gender inequality in Japan has remained higher than in nearly every other postindustrial country. Why? In this talk […]