New Books on Japan
The "New Books on Japan" series of Zoom-based conversations between book authors and noted scholars in the field was established in 2020 by Benjamin Uchiyama, Kirsten Ziomek, and Nick Kapur for the purpose of drawing more attention to some of the most exciting books on Japan published in recent years.
The series was initially made possible for the first two years thanks to the generous sponsorship of the University of Southern California's East Asian Studies Center, and now continues under the auspices of the Modern Japan History Association.
The current Organizing Committee for the New Books on Japan Series consists of:
SARA KANG, Princeton University
EMER O'DWYER, Oberlin College
SEIJI SHIRANE, City College of New York (Chair)
2025-2026 Series
Monday, September 8, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET
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Exhibitionist Japan: The Spectacle of Modern Development (Cambridge University Press, 2025)
Presenter: Angus Lockyer, Lecturer, Rhode Island School of Design
Discussant: Jordan Sand, Professor of History, Georgetown University
Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Assistant Professor of History, University of Virginia
The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Angus Lockyer, who will be speaking about his new book Exhibitionist Japan: The Spectacle of Modern Development (Cambridge, 2024). From the second half of the nineteenth century, Japan has been a particularly enthusiastic user of exhibitions. Large-scale international exhibitions, including Osaka 2025, form only the tip of an iceberg comprising over 1,300 industrial, regional, and local exhibitions held in Japan over the past 150 years. Exhibitionist Japan explores how and why these events have been used as catalysts of development and arenas for fostering modern industry, empire, and nation; traces their complicated genesis, realization, and reception; and demonstrates that although they rarely achieve their stated aims, this has not undermined their utility – Japanese expos have provided a model subsequently adopted around the world. The history of this enthusiasm provides a more nuanced understanding of development in modern Japan, and emphasizes the shared experiences of global modernity. Jordan Sand (Georgetown) will serve as interlocutor.
Thursday, January 22, 2026 | 8:00-9:30 PM ET
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Renaming Plants and Nations in Japanese Colonial Korea (Routledge, 2025)
Presenter: Jung Lee, Assistant Professor, Ewha Women's University
Discussant: Ian Miller, Reischauer Institute Professor of Environmental History, Harvard University
Moderator: Joseph Seeley, Assistant Professor of History, University of Virginia
The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Jung Lee, who will be speaking about her new book Renaming Plants and Nations in Japanese Colonial Korea (Routledge, 2025). This book studies a striking example of intensely negotiated colonial scientific practice: the case of botanical practice in Korea during the Japanese colonization from 1910 to 1945. The shared aim of botanists who encountered one another in colonial Korea to practice “modern Western botany” is successfully revealed through analysis of their fieldwork and subsequent publications. By exploring the variations in what that term should mean and the politically charged nature of the interactions between both imperial and colonial players, Renaming Plants and Nations reveals how botanists of the region created a form of scientific practice that was neither clearly Western nor particularly modern. It shows how the botany that evolved in this context was a product of colonially resourced, globally connected practice, immersed in intertwined traditions, rather than simply a copy of “modern Western botany.” Ian Miller (Harvard) will serve as interlocutor.