E. Taylor Atkins
Current Research
Continuing my interest in cultural interactions between imperial Japan and colonial Korea, I currently working on two projects: sports nationalism at the 1935 Japan Football Association Emperor's Cup; and religious cosmopolitanism in Northeast Asia.
Major Publications
Books
- A History of Popular Culture in Japan, from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2017; second edition, 2022.
- A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2018.
- Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-45. Colonialisms 5. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- (Editor) Jazz Planet. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003.
- Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan. Durham: Duke UP, 2001.
- Winner of the Association for Asian Studies' 2003 John Whitney Hall Book Prize for best book on Japan or Korea.
Articles/Book Chapters
(some available through Huskie Commons)
- “‘Enemy Soldiers’ and ‘Ball Mates’: Intra-Imperial Football and Identity Politics in Interwar Northeast Asia.” Studies on Asia 6.1 (June 2021): 2-23.
- "Frenemy Music? Jazz and the Aural Imaginary in Wartime Japan." Memoria e Ricerca: Rivista di storia contemporanea 26.2 (May-August 2018; special issue: "Music Notes and Weapons: Jazz and War, 1936-45," ed. Camilla Poesio): 241-260.
- "Colonial Modernity." In Michael Seth, ed. Routledge Handbook of Modern Korean History. London: Routledge, 2016. 124-140.
- "The Funky Divas Talk Back: Dialogues about Black Feminism, Masculinity, and Soul Power in the Music of James Brown." Popular Music and Society 38.5 (Dec. 2014): 337-354.
- Winner of the R. Serge Denisoff Award for Best Article Published in Popular Music and Society, vol 38.
- "Jazz by the Sea: KRML and the Radio Presence of ‘America's Classical Music'" (with Ashley Parra), Jazz Perspectives 7.2 (2013): 133-180.
- "The Dual Career of ‘Arirang': The Korean Resistance Anthem That Became a Japanese Pop Hit." Journal of Asian Studies 66.3 (August 2007): 645-687.
- " Popular Culture." In William Tsutsui, ed., A Companion to Japanese History. Blackwell Companions to World History. Malden, MA, & Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 460-476.
- "Sacred Swing: The Sacralization of Jazz in the American Bahá'í Community." American Music 24.4 (Winter 2006): 383-420.
Teaching Interests
One of the joys of being a teacher is the continual opportunity to learn new material. My principal teaching responsibilities at the lower division are modern World and Asian history classes. At the upper division I regularly teach a three-semester, 300-level sequence in Japanese history and a 400-level course on the Japanese empire. I have also taught thematic courses on Rebel Music, the Korean War, Asian women's history, Knights and Samurai (with Professor Valerie Garver) and graduate seminars on modern colonialism, popular culture, and the First World War. Some of my favorite courses are specifically methodological: Historical Methods, Oral History and Senior Thesis. " Engaged learning" is a regular aspect of my courses: my students have done oral history research for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and collected interviews about the February 14, 2008, campus shooting, which are deposited in the University Archives; they have presented their work on political protest music at a public conference; the Knights and Samurai classes have researched, written and performed an original play, and developed a public history web-based resource site on knights and samurai; and students in my Historical Methods course worked on a group research project to respond to right-wing denials of Japanese military involvement in the forcible recruitment of " comfort women." I have developed and taught a study abroad course on premodern Japanese history at the Japan Center for Michigan Universities in Hikone, Shiga prefecture, using the local resources of the Lake Biwa region to investigate environmental, political, religious, economic and military history.
Courses Taught
- HIST 141 Asia Since 1500
- HIST 171 World History II: Problems in the Human Past
- HIST 346 Women in Asian History
- HIST 350 Japan to 1600
- HIST 351 Japan since 1600
- HIST 352 Popular Culture in Japan
- HIST 395 Historical Methods
- HIST 398 Themes in World History: The Korean War
- HIST 399 Honors Seminar—Rebel Music
- HIST 401 Third Clinical Secondary School Experience in History/Social Sciences
- HIST 444/544 The Japanese Empire
- HIST 491/591 Special Topics: Knights And Samurai (with Professor Valerie Garver)
- HIST 494 Oral History
- HIST 495 Senior Thesis
- HIST 496 History and Social Science Instruction for Secondary Educators
- HIST 680 Modern Colonialism
- HIST 680 The First World War
- HIST 790 Research Seminar—Popular Culture
- ILAS 201 Introductory Clinical Experience
Interdisciplinary Affiliations
Affiliated Faculty, NIU World Music Program
Contact
E. Taylor Atkins
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Fulbright Program Advisor
815-753-6699
etatkins@niu.edu
Zulauf 702
Japan and Korea
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997
Office Hours
Tuesday 2-3:30 p.m.
Thursday 9:30-11 a.m.
Or by appointment
(in person)