An internationally recognized center for the study of modern Japan, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute hosts year-round public events and scholarly workshops about Japanese history, politics, economics, and culture. Additionally, the Institute supports undergraduate and graduate research as well as publications about the region. Through its MARSEA program, the Institute provides graduate students the opportunity to take courses on a wide variety of topics concerning modern Japan.
Faculty Regional Specialists
Paul Anderer Fred and Fannie Mack Professor of Humanities and Professor of Japanese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Research Interests: Modern Japanese literature, film, and cultural criticism; narrative topography; city cultures; modern tragedy
Kim Brandt Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
Research Interests: Modern Japanese history
Richard F. Calichman Senior Research Scholar
Research Interests: Modern Japanese Literature and Thought
Gerald L. Curtis Burgess Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Department of Political Science; Director, Toyota Research Program
Research Interests: Modern Japanese politics, foreign policy, social change, political economy; East Asia international relations
Carol Gluck George Sansom Professor of History, Department of History and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Chair, The Committee on Global ThoughtResearch Interests: Modern Japan (nineteenth century to the present); twentieth-century international history; World War II; history-writing and public memory in Asia and the world
Harry Harootunian Senior Research Scholar.
Research Interests: Early Modern and Modern Japanese history and historical theory
Takako Hikotani Gerald L. Curtis Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy, Department of Political Science
Research Interests: Civil-military relations and Japanese domestic politics; Japanese foreign policy; and comparative civil-military relations
Shigeo Hirano Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science
Research Interests: Comparative politics; American politics; political economy; Japanese politics
Nobuhisa Ishizuka Executive Director, Center for Japanese Legal Studies, Columbia Law School.
Research Interests: Japanese law; corporate law
Takatoshi Ito Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA; Associate Director of Research, Center on Japanese Economy and Business
Research Interests: Asian Financial Markets; Japanese Economy; International Finance; Monetary Policy; Fiscal Policy; and Public Pension Funds
Merit E. Janow Dean, Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA); Professor of Professional Practice, International Economic Law and International Affairs, Columbia SIPA
Research Interests: International trade and competition law and policy; economic and trade policy in Asia Pacific economies; WTO law and dispute settlement; U.S.-Japan trade and economic issues, China trade and investment
Colin Jones Associate Research Scholar
Research Interests: East Asian history; Japanese history; legal and intellectual history; international history; social policy; and the history of the family
Mark A. Jones Senior Research Scholar
Research Interests: The emergence of modern childhood in early 20th century Japan
Yukiko Koga Associate Research Scholar
Research Interests: Political economy; historical anthropology; legal anthropology; law and human rights; urban space; post-colonial & post-imperial relations; history and memory; transnational East Asia (China and Japan)
Sarah Kovner Senior Research Scholar in the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies; Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs Email: sck25@columbia.edu BIO PUBLICATIONS NEWS Sarah Kovner is a […]
Paul Kreitman Assistant Professor of 20th Century Japanese History, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Research Interests: 20th Century Japanese history; environmental history; global history; commodity history; and histories of science and technology
Kumiko Makihara Associate Research Scholar
Research Interests: Comparative education, mass media, contemporary world history
Hugh T. Patrick Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business Emeritus; Director of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School; Co-Director, APEC Study Center.
Research Interests: Pacific Basin economic relations
Gregory Pflugfelder Associate Professor of Japanese History, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Department of History
Research Interests: Early modern and modern Japanese history; gender and sexuality studies
Jonathan M. Reynolds Professor of Art History, Barnard College
Research Interests: Japanese architecture and visual culture
Mark Selden Senior Research Scholar
Research Interests: Political economy and history of China, Japan, and the Asia Pacific; war and peace; revolution; inequality; development; regional and world social change; historical memory
Michael Sharpe Research Scholar
Research Interests: Comparative politics and international relations; Japanese politics; politics of migration; immigrant political incorporation; and political transnationalism
Haruo Shirane Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Research Interests: Japanese literature, visual culture, and cultural history, with particular focus on the interaction between popular and elite cultures
Henry D. Smith II Professor Emeritus of Japanese History, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Research Interests: Late Edo landscape prints; the history of color and pigments in Japanese woodblock prints of the eighteenth and nineteenth century; woodblock views of Edo and Tokyo; "Chūshingura" and the relationship between history and legend in early modern and modern Japan; history of modern Tokyo; history of modern Japanese architecture
Tomi Suzuki Professor of Japanese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Research Interests: Modern Japanese literature and criticism in comparative context; literary and cultural theory, particularly theory of narrative, genre and gender, modernism and modernity; intellectual history of modern Japan; history of reading, canon formation, and literary histories
Takuya Tsunoda Assistant Professor of Japanese Film and Media, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Research Interests: Japanese cinema and media; educational and science film; history and theory of audio-visual pedagogy; media archaeology; cinematic modernism; new cinemas of the 1960s
David Weinstein Carl Sumner Shoup Professor of Japanese Economics, Department of Economics; Chair, Department of Economics; Associate Director for Research, Center on Japanese Economy and Business
Research Interests: International economics, macroeconomics, corporate finance, the Japanese economy, and industrial policy