Department of East Asian Studies
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, PA 17837
office: (570) 577-3388
fax: (570) 577-3760
e-mail: jamesorr@bucknell.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D. 1996 History, Stanford University
Major field--Modern East Asia: Japan
Supporting field--Anthropology
Research fellow: Waseda University Literature Faculty (1990-91)
Kyoto University Law Faculty (1991-93)
M.A. 1987 International Studies, University of Washington
Field--East Asia: Japan Regional Studies
B.A. 1979 Economics, Yale University
EMPLOYMENT
Fall 1994-present Associate Professor of East Asian Studies (2001 - ), Assistant Professor (1994-2000), Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA. Chair, East Asian Studies Dept., 2002 -2005.
1993-1994 Visiting Lecturer, Osaka University of Economics and Law
Spring 1993 Lecturer, Associated Kyoto Program, Kyoto.
Course: Creating Modern Japan: A History.
Fall 1992 Lecturer, Konan-Illinois Program, Konan
University, Kobe.
Course: A History of Modern Japan.
Spring 1992 Lecturer, Japan Center for Michigan
Universities, Hikone.
Course: A History of Modern Japan.
Fall 1991 Lecturer, Associated Kyoto Program, Kyoto.
Course: Kyoto in Japanese History.
1990-1991 Guest lecturer, Experiment in International
Living, Tokyo.
Lectures: Survey of Japanese History; Shôwa History.
1980-84 Teacher of English, Hiroshima Gakuin Jr./Sr. High
School
Instructor, YMCA English School, Hiroshima, Japan.
1979-80 Researcher, Connecticut Cancer Epidemiology Unit,
New Haven, CT;
Volunteer Teacher, Adult Basic Education, New Haven, CT.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Victims and Perpetrators in National Memory: Lessons from Post-World War Two Japan." Revue Suisse d'Histoire (RSH: Swiss Historical Review) 57.1 (2007): 1-16.
The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan (2001). University of Hawaii Press.
"Yasui Kaoru: Citizen-Scholar in War and Peace." Japan Forum 12(1) (2000): 1-14.
"War victim compensation campaigns of the 1960s: Suffering in
service to the nation state." Social Science Japan Newsletter
17 (December 1999): 22-25.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Web of Victimhood in East Asia
A comparative analysis of the role of victim rhetoric in remembrance of the Japanese colonial empire in China, Taiwan, and Korea.
Politics of popular music in wartime and postwar Japan
An analysis of threads in the use of music for mass mobilization during war and peace. Preliminary research indicates that the wartime state efforts to promote popular music in support of the war effort and to organize choral singing among youth and workers, shared personnel and organizational techniques with the postwar communist-inspired efforts along the same lines in the utagoe undo.
Yasui Kaoru and the Shôwa Experience
A book-length biographical project on this scholar activist whose
career included participation in Konoe Fumimaro's prewar brain trust and
leadership in the postwar grass-roots anti-nuclear peace movement.
Peace Maidens, Peace Matrons
A continuing study of ideologies of gender in the Japanese peace
movement as it relates to civic subjectivity and collective war
remembrance.
State and Nation in Postwar Japan: Lost Volk, Lost Generation
Generational analysis of war responsibility and the political and
cultural consequences of postwar alienation of the nation from the
state.
Hiroshima as Heritage
A series of essays exploring the evolution of Hiroshima as a political
and cultural icon for Japanese pacifist nationalism.
PRESENTATIONS AT PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS
April 2006 “The Revenge of the Victims” International Committee of the Red Cross/International Museum of the Red Cross, Geneva. Paper: Historical Construction of the War Victim in Postwar Japan.
September 2005 “The Japanese Occupation: Sixty Years after the End of the Asia-Pacific War,” Singapore. Paper: Peace and Honor in Postwar, Post-imperial Japan: Pensions and Enshrinement for Non-Japanese Veterans."
April 2005 Symposium: “Hiroshima/Nagasaki 2005: Memories and Visions,” Tufts University Roundtable discussion, “Teaching Hiroshima/Nagasaki."
January 2004 American Historical Association (AHA) meetings, Washington D.C. “Death and Honor: Commemoration, Restitution, and Reward in Postwar, Post-imperial Japan."
June 2001 Asian Studies Conference Japan. "Yasui Kaoru, Juche , and the Integration of Science, Faith, and Politics."
April 2001 Washington Japan Seminar, SAIS. "Compensating Victims: The Politics of War Victimhood."
November 2000Workshop: "Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Occupied Japan." University of Maryland. Paper: "Peace Maidens, Peace Matrons."
October 2000 Mid-Atlantic Association for Asian Studies (MAR/AAS). "Peace Maidens, Peace Matrons: Women and Constructions of Womanhood in Japan's Anti-Nuclear Peace Movement."
May 2000 Japan Seminar, Columbia University. "Yasui Kaoru: Juche , Nationalist Activism, and the Japanese Peace Movement."
March 2000 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) meetings, San Diego. Organized panel, "Know Thy Neighbor, Know Thyself: Imperialism, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Politics of Resistance in Japanese Studies of Korea." Paper presented, "Power to the People: Juche and the Pacifist Scholar Yasui Kaoru."
October 1999 Mid-Atlantic Association for Asian Studies (MAR/AAS). "War on Peace(able) People: Textbook Representations of the Japanese Ethnic Nation as Asian Victim in the Asia-Pacific War."
March 1999 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) meetings, Boston. "Yasui Kaoru: The Liberal Academic and His Past as War Collaborator." In the panel, "Wartime Texts, Postwar Contexts."
October 1998 New York Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS). "Contours of the Discourse on War Responsibility in Postwar Japan."
January 1998 American Historical Association (AHA) meetings, Seattle. Organized panel, "Building Cultures for Peace and Democracy: Competing Visions for Postwar Japan." Paper presented, "Hiroshima as Heritage: Creating a Pacifist Nationalism for Postwar Japan." Paper available in Proceedings of the American Historical Association, 1998 (University Microfilms, reference # 10485).
FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND OTHER AWARDS
Autumn 2001Robert Wood Memorial Visiting Faculty Fellow, Associated Kyoto Program, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan.
Summer 2001 Rikkyo University Research Fellowship, Tokyo, Japan
2000 International Research Travel Grant, Bucknell University
International Research Travel Grant, Bucknell University.
1995 Curricular Development Grant, Bucknell University.
1990-91 Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (research in Japan).
1987-90 Graduate Fellowship, Stanford University Department of History.
1986-87 Japanese Studies Fellowship, University of Washington.
MEMBERSHIPS
Association for Asian Studies, 1989-
American Historical Association, 1989-