Barak Kushner
Biography
Barak Kushner teaches modern Japanese history in the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (formerly the Faculty of Oriental Studies) at the University of Cambridge and has a PhD in History from Princeton University. Dr. Kushner is a 2008 Abe Fellow who will be conducting research concerning “Cold War Propaganda in East Asia and Historical Memory.”
He worked in the US Department of State as a political officer in East Asian affairs and taught Chinese and Japanese history in North Carolina, USA. As a scholar he has written on wartime Japanese and Chinese propaganda, Japanese media, Sino-Japanese relations, Asian comedy and is presently penning a history of ramen noodles.
The Thought War, Kushner’s first book, delves into the history of wartime Japanese propaganda. His second book (forthcoming), entitled Eating your way through East Asian history – ramen and the story of Sino-Japanese cultural exchange, focuses on food and history. He is also working on a third book that analyzes the postwar adjudication of Japanese war crimes in China. Kushner’s academic articles have appeared in Diplomatic History, The International History Review, Journal of Popular Culture, and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. He also has three book chapters in press: one concerns a postwar media history of Godzilla. The two forthcoming chapters deal with Kamishibai and children’s wartime propaganda in Japan, and the Chinese influence on Taisho notions of modern cuisine in Japan.
Dr. Kushner received his BA from Brandeis University and then began his career as a high school teacher of social studies in Chicago. Later, he traveled to Iwate, Japan where he taught English, lived in a Buddhist temple, and attended Japanese elementary school, studying Japanese along with other students ages 6-12. He lived in Japan for over 5 years in Tokyo, Yokohama and Iwate and studied at Rikkyo University and Tokyo University. After completing courses in advanced Japanese, Kushner was an editor/translator at the National Institute for Research Advancement, a think tank in Tokyo. He taught western history at Shenyang Teacher’s University in the north of China where he also studied Chinese and began research in Chinese history. After returning to the United States he attended graduate school at Princeton University and received a PhD in Asian history.
Upon receiving his doctorate Barak taught Japanese and Chinese history in the Department of History at Davidson College in North Carolina. At Davidson College Dr. Kushner taught classes that included a two semester survey of East Asian History; a Modern Japanese History class; a senior seminar on Twentieth Century Chinese History; an upper-level class on Wartime Japanese Culture and Propaganda; and an upper division course on Asian Nationalism and Martial Arts Films.
Dr. Kushner has been invited to speak about East Asian History at National Taiwan University, Nanjing University, SOAS, University of Bristol, University of Oxford, Tokyo University, Waseda University, the University of Alaska at Anchorage, Kansas University, Western Michigan University, Indiana State University, and the University of Oregon. He also serves as an historical consultant for the Japan Society in New York City. Barak has completed several academic translations on economics and military history from Japanese to English. He speaks and reads Chinese, Japanese and French.
Dr. Kushner has received numerous fellowships; as an undergraduate at Brandeis University he graduated with Highest Honors in History, and received the Undergraduate Thesis awarded by the Class of 1954 for the Best History Thesis award. While teaching high school the Bernard Zell Day School provided him with several Faculty Summer Language Study Awards. At Indiana University Barak received several academic-year FLAS Fellowships and summer FLAS Fellowships. Princeton University supported his graduate work with a History Department Fellowship and later he conducted dissertation research in Japan on a Fulbright IIE Graduate Research Grant. During his last year in graduate school Kushner studied advanced Chinese in Taipei, Taiwan while conducting research supported by a David L. Boren National Security Education Program (NSEP) Graduate International Fellowship. While teaching at Davidson College he received support from three Freeman Foundation grants to conduct research in Japan, China, and Korea. In 2004 Dr. Kushner also received Freeman foundation support to travel to Mongolia on an SIT-sponsored tour. Recently he was awarded an Abe Fellowship to conduct research into the legal history of the early Cold War in East Asia.
