Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan’s Empire

We are pleased to host a book launch and graduate student workshop on March 28, 2024, featuring invited speaker Professor Wendy Matsumura (Associate Professor in History at University of California, San Diego). Professor Matsumura will speak with us about her second monograph, Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan’s Empire (Duke University Press, 2024). Building on the methodological insights from critical race theory and Indigenous studies, Waiting for the Cool Moon traces the transformation of the Japanese small farm household (shono noka) into the material and discursive foundation of the national community and its members into conquistador humanists following the post-World War One agrarian crisis. The book launch will be moderated by Grayson Lee (Ph.D candidate in Faculty of Information at UofT), with Mayumo Inoue (Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at Hitotsubashi University) and Sabrina Teng-io Chung (Ph.D. candidate in East Asian Studies at UofT) serving as discussants.