Sayaka Chatani
11 Arts Link, AS 1-05-43 Singapore 117573
chatani@nus.edu.sg; sayakachatani.com
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Associate Professor, July 2023–present.
Presidential Young Professor, April 2019–November 2024.
Assistant Professor, Department of History, July 2017–June 2023.
National University of Singapore, Singapore
FASS Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History, 2015–2017.
European University Institute, Florence, Italy
Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow, 2014–2015.
EDUCATION
Columbia University, New York City, NY
Ph.D. in History, International and Global History, October 2014.
ADVISORS: Charles Armstrong, Carol Gluck
EXAM FIELDS: Theories and Practices of Modern Imperialism and Colonialism, Global History ofChildhood and Youth, Modern Japan, and Modern Korea
DISSERTATION TITLE: Nation-Empire: Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea,
1895-1945
The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Master of Arts in Political Science, May 2007.
ADVISOR: Bruce Dickson
MAJOR FIELD: Comparative Politics (Chinese politics)
MINOR FIELDS: Political Theory, International Relations
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York City, NY
Master of International Affairs, May 2003.
CONCENTRATION: International Security Policy, China-Taiwan Relations
Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan
B.A. in Law, March 2001.
MAJORS: International Law, International Security Issues
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies, Studies of the
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University (Cornell University Press, December 2018)
Recipient of Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award 2019
Listed as one of the five books in “The Best Books on the Japanese Empire” by Dr.
Jeremy A. Yellen: https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-japanese-empire
Reviewed by:

Journal of Japanese Studies (Peter Cave)
The American Historical Review (Carter J. Eckert)
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Sungyun Lim)
The Journal of Asian Studies (Sidney Xu Lu)
Social Science Japan Journal (Brian Tsui)
The Journal of Asian Studies (review article by Tristan Grunow)
Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies (Hyung-Gu Lynn)
Asian Politics & Policy (Ralph Chan)
Global Japanese Studies (George Z. Gonzales)
The Pacific Affairs (Michael Wert)
The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (Nick Kapur)
Choice Reviews (M.D. Ericson)
The Journal of Social History (Emer O’Dwyer)
History: Review of New Books (Yasuko Sato)
Decolonizing in Postimperial Japan: A History of a Korean Diasporic Community (in progress, anadvance contract with Stanford University Press)
After Exodus: How Zainichi Reshaped North Korea (being co-authored with KumHee Cho, in
progress)

Journal Articles• Co-authored with Chien Wen Kung and Taomo Zhou, “Strategies of Belonging in the Bandung Era:
Diaspora and Cold War Asia,” accepted by Journal of World History.
• Co-authored with Amy Stanley, David Ambaras, Hannah Shepherd, and Chelsea Szendi Schieder,“Scholarly and Public Responses to ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’: The Current State of the
Problem,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 21, issue 11, no. 3 (November 2023).
• “Becoming Korean: Japanese Wives in the Boundary Formation of a Leftist Zainichi Community,”
Critical Asian Studies 54 no.1 (March 2022): 105–127.
• “Revisiting Korean Slums in Postwar Japan: Tongne and Hakkyo in the Zainichi Memoryscape,”
Journal of Asian Studies 80 no. 3 (August 2021): 587–610.
• Co-authored with Amy Stanley, Hannah Shepherd, Chelsea Szendi Schieder, and David Ambaras,“‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’: The Case for Retraction on Grounds of Academic
Misconduct,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 19, issue 5, no. 13 (March 2021).
• “A Man at Twenty, Aged at Twenty-five: The Conscription Exam Age in Japan,” contributed to theroundtable “Chronological Age: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review
125, no. 2 (April 2020): 427–437.

• “Between ‘Rural Youth’ and Empire: Social and Emotional Dynamics of Youth Mobilization in theCountryside of Colonial Taiwan under Japan’s Total War,” American Historical Review 122 no.2 (April2017): 371–398.
• “The Ruralist Paradigm: Social Work Bureaucrats in Colonial Korea and Japan’s Assimilationism in theInterwar Period,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 58 no. 4 (October 2016): 1004–1031.
Book Chapters• “Belief and Ideology,” a chapter in A Cultural History of Youth: The Age of Empire volume edited byDavid Pomfret (London: Bloomsbury, 2023), Chapter Seven.
• “Youth and Rural Modernity in Japan 1900s–1920s” in Transnational Histories of Youth in the
Twentieth Century, edited by Richard Jobs and David Pomfret (London and New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2015), Chapter One.
Other Publications• “Colabo’s Fights against Sexual Exploitation and Misogyny in Japan Today,” September 18, 2023,
KYEOL Research Institute on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery.
• “How to Address Racism at the Heart of Japan-South Korean Tensions: U.S. politicians, businesses
and media should examine their role and help tackle anti-Korean prejudice,” January 17, 2023, UnitedStates Institute of Peace website.
• 「『⽇本史を教える』から『⽇本史で教える』へ：史料翻訳プロジェクトの経緯」「国際⽇本学の今を考える：教育実践の場から ラウンドテーブル」早稲⽥⼤学多元⽂化学会『多元⽂化』11号 2021年 [“From ‘Teaching Japanese History’ to ‘Teaching Through Japanese History’:
The Development of Primary Source Translation Project,” “Roundtable on the Current of International
Japanese Studies: From the Educational Practices,” Waseda University Transcultural Studies 11, 2021]• 「なぜラムザイヤー論⽂は『事件』となったのか」岩波書店『世界』2021年5⽉号 [“Why theRamseyer article became an ‘incident’,” Sekai (May 2021)]
Book Reviews• Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World (2021) by Benjamin R.
Young. Diplomatic History 46, no.5 (2022):1024–1026.
• Japan’s Carnival War: Mass Culture on the Home Front, 1937–1945 (2019) by Benjamin Uchiyama.
The American Historical Review 126 no.1 (April 2021): 292–293.
• Student Radicalism and the Formation of Postwar Japan (2019) by Kenji Hasegawa. The Journal of
History of Childhood and Youth 13, no. 2 (2020): 317–319.
• Ennobling Japan’s Savage Northeast: Tōhoku as Japanese Postwar Thought (2017) by Nathan
Hopson. Global Intellectual History (June 2018).
• Building a Heaven on Earth: Religion, Activism, and Protest in Japanese Occupied Korea (2015) byAlbert L. Park. The Journal of Religion (April 2017): 286-287.

WORK IN PROGRESS• “Japan as Borderlands: Zainichi, Two Koreas, and Cold War East Asia” (an article in progress)• “Japanese Publications on Zainichi Koreans: A Broad Overview” (in progress)• “Establishing Korean Studies in Postimperial Japan” (in progress)
WEB PROJECT
Editor, Grassroots Operations of the Japanese Empire: primary sources translated for teaching purposes
www.japaneseempire.info
Hosting the English translation of a number of select Japanese, Korean, and Chinese primarysources with introductions written by expert historians.
SELECTED AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS• [Group Teaching] NUS Blended Learning 2.0 Grant for revamping HY1101e Asia and the Modern
World: Engaged Histories, AY2023–2024.
• NUS Faculty Teaching Excellence Awards, AY 2020–21 and AY 2021–22.
• NUS ODPRT Research Excellence, FY2020.
• NUS Presidential Young Professorship, April 2019–November 2024.
• NUS Start-up Grant, March 2018-September 2019.
• NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Book Grant, 2018.
• The Canon Foundation in Europe Research Fellowship, 2014–2015.
• The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Dissertation Award, 2013–2014.
• Shawn Fellowship for New Directions in Historical Research, 2013.
• The Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation Research Grant, 2012.
• Social Science Research Council, International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2011.
• Center for Chinese Studies (ROC) Research Grant for Foreign Scholar in Chinese Studies, 2011.
• Shincho Graduate Research Fellowship, 2010–2011.
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences International Travel Award, Columbia University, 2010–2011.
(declined)• Japanese-American Association Honjo Graduate Fellowship, 2010.
• Multiyear Fellowship, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, 2007–2014.
• Selective Excellence Graduate Research Assistantship at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the George
Washington University, working on “Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific,” 2006–2007.
• Multiyear Fellowship, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, the George Washington University,
2005–2007.
• International Security Policy Program Assistantship, SIPA, Columbia University, 2002–2003.
SELECTED SEMINARS, WORKSHOPS, & CONFERENCE TALKS

2024“A Space of Decolonisation: Drawing Boundaries of the Korean Diaspora in Postwar Japan.”

Delivered at the Institute for Transnational and Spatial History, the University of St Andrews, UK, on
29 April, 2024.
“The Politics of the Language and Dialects for Zainichi Koreans in Postwar Japan.” Delivered forTranslation as Method in Japanese Studies workshop at the University of Bergen, Norway, on 23
February, 2024.
2023“Mothers, Daughters, and North Korean Feminism: Zainichi Korean Experiences in Postwar Japan.”A publish talk delivered upon invitation at University of Chicago Center for East Asian studies on 28
November 2021.
“Toward Not Overcoming Ethnic Boundaries.” A book chapter presented and workshopped at
EARTH, University of Chicago, 27 November 2023.

2022“North Korean Feminism: Experiences of Korean Diaspora in Postwar Japan.” A talk delivered at the
FASS Brown Bag Seminar Series, National University of Singapore on 27 October 2022.
“Zainichi and Postimperial Japan through the lens of Chongryon.” A lecture delivered for Race andSociety around the World speaker series, University of Virginia on 13 April, 2022.
“Zainichi Koreans in the Politics of Decolonization and Deimperialization.” A lecture delivered for
the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and the
Korea Institute, Harvard University on 4 April, 2022.
Co-organizer (with Sungyun Lim), a NEAC-sponsored virtual panel, “Breaking Through the Old
Paradigm: Expanding the Landscape of the ‘Comfort Women’ Issue,” the Association of Asian Studies
2022 Annual Conference, Honolulu, Hawai’i. 25 March, 2022.
“Resituating Zainichi in History: Three Approaches.” An open webinar invited to deliver at theCentre for East and Southeast Asian Studies, Lund University. 2 February, 2022.

2021
Invited to speak and discuss with Aaron William Moore and Ran Zwigenberg at a webinar “August1945 in the Asia-Pacific Theater: From Total War to Nuclear War,” hosted by Institute ofContemporary Asian Studies, Temple University Japan Campus. 6 August, 2021.
“Revolutionary Conservatives: Young Women’s Activism in Pro-North Korean Zainichi Community,”a paper presented online at the Society for the History of Children and Youth XI Biennial International
Conference, hosted by the National University of Ireland Galway. 23 June 2021.
Invited to speak [in Japanese] at an online symposium, “Thinking about ‘Now’ of International

Japanese Studies: From Sites of Educational Practice” (『国際⽇本学の今を考える：教育実践の現場から』）, hosted by Global Studies in Japanese Cultures, Waseda University. 19 June 2021.
Invited to speak at an online research seminar with Leo Ching, “Feelings for Japan: Exploring
Taiwanese Sentiments Toward Japanese Colonialism,” organized by Peter Cave and Erica Bafelli at
University of Manchester. 28 April, 2021.
Invited to speak at an online panel with Tadashi Ishikawa and Fang Yu Fu, “Taiwan Makes History I:
The Gender of Empire,” at Center for Taiwan Studies University of California at Santa Barbara. 13
April, 2021.
Invited to speak at a roundtable discussion, “Studying Ethnicity and Urban Governance in an
Interconnected Asia,” in Managing the Cosmopolitan City: Inter-Asian Strategies of Ethnic
Administration, Past and Present. Conference at Asia Research Institute, NUS. 14 January, 2021.
2020“The Emotional Topography of the Zainichi Memoryscape: Korean Ghettos in Postwar Japan
Revisited,” delivered at:
The Program in East Asian Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 10 February
Weatherhead East Asia Institute, Columbia University, 11 February
Japanese History Workshop, Yale University, 12 February
Japanese Studies Seminar, NUS, 11 March“Ideology, Emotions, and Youth in Japan’s Nation-Empire,” an invited lecture delivered for theDaniel C. Morrissey '88 and Chanannait Paisansathan, MD Distinguished Lecture Series in AsianStudies, Boston College. 5 February, 2020.
Convener of a workshop, Asian Diasporas and the Cold War, inviting seven speakers at NUS, 15
January, 2020; Presenting “Korean Diaspora in Japan and Their Transborder Emotional Community.”“Locating Japanese Wives in the Chongryun-Zainichi History,” presented in a panel “Methods of the
Margins: Archives of Women and Gender Histories in 20th-Century ‘Japan’,” American Historical
Association 134th Annual Meeting, New York. 4 January, 2020.

2019
Invited speaker, delivered “Youth and the Japanese Empire,” Re-Thinking Singapore and Global
History Conference, organized by National Institute of Education, at National Museum of Singapore.
4 Nov 2019.
Convener of a mini-workshop on the Chongryon economic activities, inviting Professor O Kyu Sang
and KumHee Cho, at NUS. 26-28 June, 2019.
Discussant at the “Reconceptualizing the Cold War: On-the-ground Experiences in Asia” Workshop,
organized by A/P Masuda Hajimu, at NUS. 22-23 June, 2019.

“Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies,” the Associationof Asian Studies 2019 Annual Conference, Denver, USA. 23 March, 2019.
FASS Bookshare Talk: “Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its
Colonies,” at NUS. 8 March, 2019.
Discussant on 2010 and 2015 reports on Japan, South Korea, and China in “Making Identity Count inAsia” Conference, at NUS. 10 January, 2019.
2018“The Quiet Revolution: The Rise of Youth in Rural Administration in Colonial Korea,” presented at
the Children and Youth in a Global Age Conference, the University of Hong Kong. 25 May, 2018.
“Belief and Ideology” a draft chapter discussed at Youth in the Age of Empire Symposium, organized
by David Pomfret at the University of Hong Kong. 24 May, 2018.
2017“After the Empire: Back in Villages,” presented at the workshop, After Total War: mobilization and its
aftermath in the Japanese wartime Empire, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia
University. 13 May, 2017.
2015“Feeling the Empire: Rural Youth, the Seinendan, and Miyagi Villages in the 1930s,” presented at theinvitation-only workshop, Childhood, Education, and Youth in Pre-1945 Japan and Beyond, theUniversity of Manchester. 23 November, 2015.
“‘Modern Youth’ and Colonial Nationalisms in the Japanese Empire,” presented at the Departmental
Seminar, National University of Singapore. 9 September, 2015.
“Youth at the Dual Peripheries: Okinawan Youth in the Japanese Empire, 1880s-1910s,” presented at
the 9th Max Weber Fellows’ June Conference, European University Institute. June 2015.
Max Weber Programme Working Paper. “From Mobilization to Mobility: the Making of the ‘Rural
Youth Industry’ in Japan’s Northeast Region, 1900s-1920s.” March 2015.
2014
Roundtable panel, “A Global Age: Doing Transnational Histories of Youth,” discussed with Richard
Jobs and David Pomfret, American Historical Association 128th Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
January 2014.
2013“Youthful Nationalisms in Colonized East Asia,” presented at the New Directions in Historical
Research by the Shawn Fellows, Columbia University. October 2013.
“Youth Mobilization in the Japanese Nation-Empire: Towards a Social Theory of Nationalism,”presented at the 18th Annual Association For The Study of Nationalities World Convention, Columbia

University. April 2013.
2012“Nation-Empire: Youth Mobilization in Japan’s Colonized Peripheries,” presented at the Social
Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellow Workshop. October 2012.
“Global, National and Local Interactions in the Making of Rural Youth in the Japanese Empire
1900s-1920s,” presented at the invitation-only workshop for book project, A Global Age:
Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century, The University of Hong Kong. June 2012.
“Strategic Compliance: Rural youth mobilization in Colonial Taiwan and Imperial Japan,” presented
at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Toronto. March 2012.
2010 and before“Hypothesis on ‘Rural Youth’ as an Occupational Space: Miyagi and Colonial Korea Compared,”delivered in Japanese at the Next-Generation Forum, Organization for Asian Studies, Waseda
University, Tokyo, November 2010.
"Voice of Resistance? School Strikes in Colonial Korea 1937-1940," presented at the Graduate
Student Conference on East Asia, Columbia University, February 2009.
"Colonizing Teachers in Taiwan: An Analysis Through Taiwan Kyōiku 1940," presented at China
Undisciplined, Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA, May 2008.

LANGUAGES
Japanese - Native Speaker
Korean - Advanced Proficiency
Yonsei University Korean Language Institute; Seoul National University Language Education
Institute, Seoul. Summers 2006-2008
Mandarin Chinese - Advanced Proficiency
International Chinese Language Program, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. September
2003–December 2004
Classical Chinese and Classical Japanese - Intermediate Reading Proficiency
TEACHING

National University of Singapore
Recipient of :AY2021–2022 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award
AY2020–2021 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award

HY1101: Asia and the Modern World
An introductory-level undergraduate lecture
HY2232: Modern Japan: Conflict in History
An introductory-level undergraduate lecture
HY2220: Korea in the Twentieth Century

An introductory-level undergraduate lecture
HY3206: East Asian International Relations
An upper-division undergraduate lecture-seminar
HY 3xxx: Researching the Past
A workshop-style seminar for honours thesis writers
HY4233: Japanese Colonialism and Imperialism
An upper-division undergraduate seminar
HY6101: Historiography: Theory and Archives
An introductory graduate seminar
BOARD MEMBER• Editorial Board Member, East Asian History (journal). April 2023–present.
• Editorial Board Member, Asian Journal of Women’s Studies. May 2023–present.
• Board Member, Modern Japanese History Association. January 2023–present.
Co-convener of Japanese-English bilingual “New Books From Japan” series and “Research
Exchange Seminar” series.
PEER REVIEW REFEREE
American Historical Review
Asia and Pacific Migration Journal
Diplomatic History
History Compass
Inter-Asia Cultural Studies
International Journal of Asian Studies
Japan Forum
Japan Review
Journal of Asian Studies
Journal of Japanese Studies
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (an entry)
Seoul Journal of Korean Studies
U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal
Routledge (a book manuscript)

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT• Served as a co-organizer of AY2022–2023 NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Brown Bag Series• Served as a referee for 2021 Fass-Sandin Article Prize on the best peer-reviewed journal article on thehistory of childhood or youth, organized by the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth.
• Served as a volunteer commentator for the 1st Japanese Research Showcase History by Early CareerHistory Workshop (rep. University of Tokyo). 21 and 22 February, 2022.
• Invited to speak at panel discussion, “Why is the Comfort Women” issue so intractable?: After
Ramseyer: Challenges and Opportunities for Reconciliation,” for The Women’s Table, YALE STAND. 15
November, 2021.
• Discussed “how historical revisionism emerges” in a popular Japanese podcast channel Tetsugaku
nyūmon channeru, with Nogawa Motokazu, 9 November, 2021.

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• Interviewed by BBC on the Chongryon Zainichi community in Japan and featured in The Lazarus
Heist, Episode 8: The multimillion mistake, published on 14 June, 2021.
• Interviewed by Huf ngton Post Japan, Tokyo Shinbun, and Kanagawa Shinbun on the Ramseyer case.
• Invited to speak about the situation of international responses to J. Mark Ramseyer “Contracting for
Sex in the Paci c War” in a web seminar, “Enough Already: The Denial of Comfort Women being
Sexual Slaves,” organized by Fight for Justice, the Historical Science Society of Japan, the Associationof Historical Science, the History Educationalist Conference of Japan. 14 March, 2021.
• Published A conversation with Chelsea Szendi Schieder on Nation-Empire, Society of History ofChildhood and Youth podcast series. 14 February, 2021.
• A Zoom lecture to students at Pasir Ris Crest Secondary School on “Japanese Empire and World War
II,” 13 January, 2021.
• Interviewed by Nathan Hopson, New Books Network: East Asian Studies, 11 March, 2019. https://
newbooksnetwork.com/sayaka-chatani-nation-empire-ideology-and-rural-youth-mobilization-in-japanand-its-colonies-cornell-up-2018/?
fbclid=IwAR2yXGbLXiEw2zt1go4qCR6Q_mlxp62KbAcfCC10rlpHB6mfta1yqpwe_Gg• An interview by Tristan Grunow, The Meiji at 150 Podcast, podcast audio, 9 November, 2018. https://meijiat150.podbean.com/e/episode-76-dr-sayaka-chatani-nus/.
• “How does an ideology win the hearts of people?” A blog post for Cornell University Press, December
2018. https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/how-does-an-ideology-win-the-hearts-of-people/• Delivered a panel talk and held brief discussion for “Decolonizing Contemporary Conceptions ofFascism,” a student event at Yale-NUS, 13 October, 2018.
• Interviewed by Eugene Yang of the Australian Broadcast Company on the Chongryon Koreans in Japanfor his video and article, “Japan’s stateless Chongryon Koreans long for reunification after leavingNorth Korea behind,” broadcasted on 28 July, 2018, ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/
2018-07-28/japans-stateless-chongryon-koreans-long-for-reunification/9982024• Delivered a public lecture, “The Japanese Community in Prewar Singapore,” delivered for The Battle
For Singapore Public Talks, Voices from the Ground, at the National Museum of Singapore, 28
February, 2016.
• Delivered a public talk with Nobuaki Takekawa for his art exhibition, “Rolling the Dice of History,” at
Ota Fine Arts, Singapore, 12 February, 2016.
• Contributed an article “Generations as an Analytical Category for Modern Global History,” Max Weber
Program Newsletter 8, European University Institute, Italy, winter 2015.