Barak Kushner (バラク・クシュナー) (顧若鵬)

Dreams of Empire

The front cover of the collection catalogue. This offers a tantalizing view of a fraction of the full collection.

Press here to link to the website where the catalogue is available.

Marcuson and Hall Website

The catalogue was created for the Caskey Lees, Arts of Pacific Asia Show in San Francisco in February 2011. There were 150 pieces on display, all drawn from the MHJ collection. For the 40 page, color catalogue I wrote the main essay, "The Drive to Mobilize Wartime Society," which illuminates the historical, political and social context in which these extraordinary textiles were produced.

Book

The Geography of Injustice: East Asia's Battle Between Memory and History

This book argues that the war crimes tribunals in East Asia formed and cemented national divides that persist into the present day.

Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice

This book examines how factions of Nationalists and Communists within China structured the war crimes trials in ways meant to strengthen their competing claims to political rule. On the international stage, both China and Japan propagandized the tribunals, promoting or blocking them for their own advantage.

Slurp! A Social and Culinary History of Ramen - Japan’s Favorite Noodle Soup

The Thought War-- Japanese Imperial Propaganda

The only English language book to delve solely into Japanese wartime propaganda history.

Academic Journal Article

“Justice in the Time of Cholera,” Asia-Pacific Journal/Japan Focus, Volume 22 | Issue 3 | Number 3, March 2024, p. 1-11.

Numerous complex issues concerning the history of Japanese war crimes cloud the trials that adjudicated justice in postwar East Asia. Discrepancies between fact and fiction, or facts that can be proven in a court of law, result in a situation that even today renders what actually happened during the creation of empire and the ensuing war in Asia open to interpretation. More than seven decades after the war, disagreements about the justice or injustice of these processes continue to feed political friction in the region.

The Real Manchurian Candidates: Chinese war criminals in the postwar, prisoners of history

〈處理戰後的勝利：國民黨、日本與共產黨對於正義的立場〉

「戦後中国における日本人戦犯裁判の戦い〜正義とその正当性」国際研究教育機構研究年報（学習院大学）第３号2017年, p. 5-17.

「合法性と帝国──台湾を事例とした日中関係における「正義」をめぐる戦い」中国２１, vol. 45, February 2017, p. 81-105.

“Ghosts of the Japanese Imperial Army: The ‘White Group’ (Baituan) and Early Post-war Sino-Japanese Relations”

"Ghosts of the Japanese Imperial Army: The ‘White Group’ (Baituan) and Early Post-war Sino-Japanese Relations,” Past and Present, volume 218, suppl 8 (Transnationalism and Contemporary Global History), (2013), p. 117-150.

“Treacherous Allies: The Cold War in East Asia and American Postwar Anxiety”

Article on John Provoo, Japan and the Cold War in the US

“Pawns of Empire: Postwar Taiwan, Japan and the Dilemma of War Crimes”

Article on postwar BC class Japanese war crimes

“Nationality and Nostalgia: The Manipulation of Memory in Japan, Taiwan, and China since 1990”

How history influences politics and culture in Taiwan, Japan and China

Co-authored with Sato Masaharu, “Digesting Postwar Japanese Media: American Propaganda in Occupied Japan,” Diplomatic History, January 2005, p. 27-48.

Read how America used the Reader's Digest for postwar propaganda in Japan.

“Laughter as Materiel: The Mobilization of Comedy in Japan’s Fifteen-Year War,” volume xxvi, 2 (June 2004), The International History Review, p. 300-330.

Who had fun during World War Two?

“'Negro Propaganda Operations': Japan's short-wave radio information broadcasts for World War II Black Americans”

See my co-authored, award-winning article on Japanese wartime radio propaganda.

“Cannibalizing Japanese Media - The Case of Issei Sagawa”

Article about Japanese media "hero" and crime

Book Chapter

バラク・クシュナー and浅野豊美,「戦争・ホロコストと帝国・植民地支配表像をめぐるメディアの正義と和解〜ヨーロッパとアジアをまたぐ複眼的視座を求めて」in 浅野豊美編集『和解学, volume 6 - 想起する文化をめぐる記憶の軋轢: 本欧州・アジアのメディア比較と歴史的考察』明石書店, 2023, p. 317-349.

「ヨーロッパから見た東アジア歴史問題の起源」、浅野豊美編集『和解学の試み』、明石書店, 2021, p. 259-285.

This is a larger work in Japanese analyzing issues concerning historical reconciliation in East Asia and edited by Professor Asano Toyomi of Waseda University. It is the first volume of a larger series focused on reconciliation studies.

“Anchors of History: The Long Shadow of Imperial Japanese Propaganda”

This chapter tells the unknown story of how anchors from the Qing imperial navy played an ongoing role in the propaganda war between China and Japan.

Kushner delivered a talk for the Hoover Institute on this topic which can be seen here.

〈法律與帝國—對日關係中「正義」的掙扎（1944-1947）〉

“Japan’s war of words with the world: WWII propaganda in the international arena”

“The question of complicity: Japan’s early postures toward war crimes and war responsibility in the aftermath of the Second World War”

“Heroes, victims, and the quest for peace: war monuments and the contradictions of Japan’s post-imperial commemoration”

“Chinese War Crimes Trials of Japanese, 1945-1956: a Historical Summary”

“Empire’s Little Helpers: Juvenile Delinquents and the State in East Asia, 1880-1945”

A different look at empire and juvenile delinquency in the Far East.

“Unwarranted attention: the image of Japan in twentieth century Chinese humour”

Chapter on image of Japan in modern Chinese humor.

“Sweetness and Empire: Sugar Consumption in Imperial Japan”

This research considers some of the ways in which sweets increasingly came to be incorporated into the everyday lives of Japanese people, as an indicator of rising levels of "modernity."

“Going for the Gold - Health and Sports in Japan’s Quest for Modernity”

Overview of Japan's efforts to market and promote the 1940 Olympic games in Tokyo that never took place

“Imperial Cuisines in Taisho Foodways,” in Eric Rath and Stephanie Assmann, eds., Japanese Foodways, Past and Present.

Chapter in edited volume on Taisho era Japanese cuisine

“Planes, Trains and Games: Selling Japan’s War in Asia”

An analysis of Japanese wartime kamishibai and the market for children's propaganda

“Gojira as Japan’s First Postwar Media Event,” in the book, In Godzilla’s Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage

My chapter on Godzilla as Japan’s first international popular culture icon.

Documentary TV Shows

Asia Pacific War Crimes Trials Television Documentary Series （亚太战争审判）

A Chinese television documentary in English and Chinese investigating the war crimes trials of the Japanese.

Asia-Pacific War Crimes Trials Television Documentary Series

Television Documentary Series

Co-edited Book

In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire: Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia

In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire concludes that early East Asian Cold War history needs to be studied within the framework of post-imperial history.

Overcoming Empire in Post-Imperial East Asia: Repatriation, Redress and Rebuilding

In Overcoming Empire in Post-Imperial East Asia: Repatriation, Redress and Rebuilding Barak Kushner and Sherzod Muminov bring together an international team of leading scholars to explore the post-imperial history of the region.

The Dismantling of Japan's Empire in East Asia: Deimperialization, Postwar Legitimation and Imperial Afterlife

This volume brings together the latest in Japanese and Western scholarship on the turbulent years following the end of Japan’s empire in East Asia.

Examining Japan's Lost Decades

To discuss the rebuilding of Japan, the authors argue that it is first essential to critically examine Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’ and this book offers a comprehensive overview of Japan’s recent 20 years of crisis.

Translation

Media, Propaganda and Politics in 20th-Century Japan (with a foreword by Funabashi Yoichi)

This is a book from a major Japanese newspaper looking out over the last eighty years of Japanese history and analyzing the role media plays in the formation of history. The work includes extensive company archival material and key interviews with journalists involved in critical moments of 20th century Japanese history from 1926-1989.

Catalogue

Dreams of Empire

See my essay on Alan Marcuson's fantastic collection of imperial Japanese textiles.

Online Article

“The Hitler costume fiasco shows Japan has lost touch with its past”

Some new thoughts about humor and the state of affairs in Sino-Japan relations

Online article about the history of ramen and the politics of food in Japan and China.

Brief Article

“'Noodle-ology': the politics of cuisine”

Download the article from the Cambridge University Research Magazine