Our Winter 2016 open issue featured a forum on “Pacific Empires” convened by Professor Jordan Sand of Georgetown University. Based on research collaborations from a working group brought together by Professor Sand and Professor Katherine Benton-Cohen (Georgetown University), the forum explored connections between U.S. and Japanese empires in the Pacific. As Professor Sand describes the some of the research outcomes of the working group, “We considered the implications of a history from the Pacific versus a transpacific history; the political dynamics between Asian Studies and Asian American Studies; how thinking imperially reconfigures the American West and how empire has been written out of U.S. history; the imperial circuits of knowledge that linked Asian elites to one another and to North America in the early twentieth century; the points of commonality between the U.S. and Japanese empires; and ways to get past the monolithic national narratives of World War II.”
A number of the contributors to the “Pacific Empires” forum have provided syllabi for those interested in teaching the topic from a variety of perspectives, including immigration, indigeneity, and war. The syllabi are linked below for your reference.
Professor Eiichiro Azuma, University of Pennsylvania: “American Expansion in the Pacific”
Professor Katherine Benton-Cohen, Georgetown University: “Immigration in American History”
Professor David Chang, University of Minnesota: “American Colonialism and Indigenous Histories”
Professor Takashi Fujitani, University of Toronto: “The Asia Pacific War”
Professor Jordan Sand, Georgetown University: “Pacific Empires”
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