Susan Townsend
Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts
Contact
Expertise Summary
PhD supervision is available in the following areas:
Comparative urban/planning history involving Birmingham or other 'motor cities' (including Europe and the U.S.) and Japanese or other East Asian Cities (Japanese language not essential).
The history of the Japanese auto-industry in the U.K.
Any history of Nagoya or Aichi Prefecture, Central Japan including environmental history (capability for reading Japanese essential).
The intellectual history of pre-war Japan. I specialise in the intellectual biography of Japanese Christians such as Yanaihara Tadao, Nanbara Shigeru, Nitobe Inazo and Yoshino Sakuzo and in the Kyoto School of Philosophy. I have published on Yanaihara Tadao and on Miki Kiyoshi. I would also be interested in supervising dissertations examining dissent and resistance in pre-war Japan involving both Marxist and non-Marxist intellectuals. I have also studied interpretative methods used by personality psychologists in relation to autobiography as a historical source. It is necessary to have advanced capability in reading Japanese language sources for this research (including pre-war Japanese).
The Asia-Pacfic War and the problems of memory. Any aspect of the way in which participants, the U.S., Japan and the British record their experiences of the war in this theatre, including the memories of Japanese Prisoners of War.
Teaching Summary
Undergraduate teaching - I teach the following specialist courses: a) The Strange Death of Liberal Japan: An intellectual history of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s (special subject year 3). This… read more
Research Summary
After completing a monograph on the social scientist Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961) in 2000, I have just published a monograph on the life and work of one of Japan's preeminent philosophers, Miki… read more
Recent Publications
TOWNSEND, SUSAN C., 2009. Miki Kiyoshi 1897-1945: Japan's Itinerant Philosopher Leiden: Brill.
TOWNSEND, S.C., 2003. Senjika no dai-Nihon teikoku ni okeru bunka, jinshu, kenryoku [Culture, race and power in Japan's wartime empire]. In: KOSUGI, M. and TOWLE, P., eds., Senso no kioku to horyo mondai [the problem of war memories and captivity] Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. 145-160
TOWNSEND, S.C., 2002. 'Yanaihara Tadao and the British Empire as a Model for Colonial Reform'. In: DANIELS, G. and CHUSHICHI, T., eds., The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600-2000: Vol. 5: Social and Cultural Perspectives Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan. 227-46
Current Research
After completing a monograph on the social scientist Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961) in 2000, I have just published a monograph on the life and work of one of Japan's preeminent philosophers, Miki Kiyoshi (1897-1945). My current area of research is a comparative study of the spatial, economic and social development of Nagoya, Japan and Birmingham, England in the mid-twentieth century. These industrial cities were dominated by the car industry for much of this period. My research will compare the processes of planning in the two cities; the relationship between industrialism and urbanism; and the understandings of the physical and natural environment that underpinned those processes.
Supervision
My area of supervision involves any aspect of modern Japanese history. I am also prepared to supervise dissertations on the history of Japanese cities and the history of town planning in Birmingham.
Conferences:
'The Asia-Pacific War and Modern Memory', Centenary Conference of the Historical Association, University of Nottingham, 7 April 2006.
''Monuments of the self': the autobiographical writings of Yanaihara Tadao and Miki Kiyoshi', Japanese Embassy Seminar, University of Leeds, 6 February 2006.
'Miki Kiyoshi's Wanderings Through the World of Books (1897-1945)' First annual Conference in Modern Book History, Faculty of English, University of Oxford, 26 November 2005.
'History and Psychology in Japanese Intellectual History' Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, Nagoya City University, Nagoya, Japan 2 February 2005.
'Japan's New Order in Asia: Rethinking Globalism', Asia-Pacific Research Seminar, Institute for Asia-Pacific Studies, university of Nottingham, 11 March 2003.
'Miki Kiyoshi and the New Order in Asia: Globalism, Culture and Hegemony' Modern Japan Seminar, University of Leiden, 22 October 2002 and the Nissan Institute, Oxford University, 22 November 2002.
'The Japanese Remember the Asia-Pacific War.' The Ray Jenkins Memorial Lecture, Staffordshire University. 14 November 2001
Past Research
My past research was on the political scientist, pacifist and Christian, Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961) who occupied the Chair of Colonial Policy at Tokyo Imperial University before the war. After the war he was responsible in part for rebuilding the system of higher education in Japan.