Historian Rotem Kowner (Haifa University): 20 min introduction/provocation
 
Hagen Schulz-Forberg, Discussant

Bio:

Rotem Kowner is a professor of Japanese history at the University of Haifa and the incumbent chair of the Israeli Association of Japanese Studies. A founder of the Department of Asian Studies at the same university and its chair until 2008, he specializes in modern Japanese history, with a particular focus on the way modern Japan engaged in war and has dealt with racial ideology. Kowner has led several large projects that examine broad themes within a global context. One such project concerned the regional and global impact of the Russo–Japanese War, which culminated in several books, among them The Impact of the Russo–Japanese War (Routledge, 2007) and the Battle of Tsushima (OUP, forthcoming). Another ongoing project concerns with questions of race and racism in East Asia and Japan in particular. Kowner's recent publications with this regard include the two-volume book From White to Yellow (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014; forthcoming), and the two co-edited volumes Race and Racism in Modern East Asia (Brill, 2013, 2015).