Non-publishable Essays
The University of Minnesota is very strong in the social sciences, especially Asian Studies! I was very fortunate to take many classes and (was forced to) write a few short essays. I have a deep fear of writing, and without a deadline I will not write anything of my own free will, but it’s a paradox because no one pushes me to update this page.
Topics in Asian History (Fall 2025)
This class is hard! I became more brain-rotted after GPT came out, and also spent too much time scrolling on Instagram and Bilibili.
Revisiting Anpo through Historiography. It is a close comparative review of two books: Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (1966) by George R. Packard III and Japan at the Crossroads (2018) by Nick Kapur.
Abstract
We have been examining the historiography of the Anpo uprising—specifically, the fundamental approaches scholars have taken in writing about it. We found two books on this topic: Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (1966) by George R. Packard III, an assistant to Reischauer (one of the founders of Japan's modernization theory), and Japan at the Crossroads (2018) by Nick Kapur, a professor in the History Department at Rutgers University. We are analyzing these works through a theoretical lens. The narrative differences largely reflect distinct conceptions of the modern nation. Protest in Tokyo is written primarily in what Homi Bhabha calls "pedagogical time"—stable, sequential, and grand in scope. As Bhabha argues, "The people are not simply historical events or parts of a patriotic body politic. They are also a complex signification of cultural difference, constructed through the pedagogical, discursive, and disciplinary processes of the nation." We will demonstrate how Protest in Tokyo is more didactic, attempting to construct a narrative of the new Japanese nation for both American and Japanese audiences, as Packard was deeply influenced by Reischauer and the McCarthyism that contributed to the death of modernization theory's opponent, Herbert Norman.Documentary Cinema: History and Politics (Spring 2024)
Balancing Survival and Dignity: American Factory and the Dilemma of Unionization, 2024. We all wonder why iPhones can’t be made in the U.S., right?
Modern Japan, Meiji to the Present (1868–2000) (Fall 2023)
Cocktail Party and Two Japan. Again! This essay doesn’t have a name, but I just made it up myself. The novel Cocktail Party by Tatsuhiro Ōshiro (大城 立裕) is a sad story set during the postwar U.S. occupation of Okinawa (you can just read the first paragraph of the essay).
History Issues among Post-industrialization Japan, Korea, and China, 1980–2010. It analyzes Takenaka’s “Japanese Memories of the Asia-Pacific War” and John W. Dower’s “The San Francisco System: Past, Present, Future in U.S.-Japan-China Relations”, published in The Asia-Pacific Journal in 2014. His book Embracing Defeat is also one of my favorites about the rebuilding of Japan right after World War II.
Postwar Japanese Literature in Translation (Spring 2022)
Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask Analysis, 2022. 三島由紀夫 假面の告白
Note: Somehow I didn’t give it a name! It is more like an overview of Japan’s samurai tradition of homosexuality and how it affected Mishima’s closeted life. It was the first literature class I took in Minnesota. Well, that might be the reason why I love Minnesota so much.