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TODD S. MUNSON

Assistant Professor
Department of History / Asian Studies Program
Randolph-Macon College
P.O. Box 5005
Ashland, VA 23005
ph: (804) 752-7250; email: tmunson@rmc.edu

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND:

Ph.D. in Japanese History. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 8/2004.
Specialization: Japanese history, 1600-1900; cultural history of Asian international relations
Dissertation title: Imperialism and Infomedia in Bakumatsu Japan: The View From Treaty-Port Yokohama
Director: Jeffery N. Wasserstrom, Professor of History, Indiana University

M.A. in East Asian Studies. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 6/2000.

Thesis title: Broadening the Way: Aizawa Seishisai's "Preprandial Chat"
Director: Richard Rubinger, Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University

B.A. in English Literature. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. 5/1991.

Attended Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, Yokohama, Japan. 8/1996-6/1997.

Attended Indiana University's East Asian Summer Language Institute, Bloomington, IN. 1994, 1995.

OCCUPATIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA (8/2003 - present)

Courses taught include Elementary Japanese, Intermediate Japanese, Japanese Popular Culture, Japanese Film, Modern Japanese Literature, Japanese History 1600-2000, History of Edo/Tokyo, and An Introduction to East Asia.

Lecturer, Tokyo Denki University, Chiba, Japan (9/2002-12/2002)

Taught two courses in the School of Information Technology: Introduction to Asian Studies and Early Modern Japan.

Associate Instructor / Lecturer, Indiana University, Bloomington (8/1995-5/2001)

Planned and led discussion sections for courses entitled An Introduction to East Asia, Japan's Economic Miracle, and first-year Japanese.

PUBLICATIONS:

"A Country Aflame: History and Memory in a Japanese Manga," in Index on Censorship (forthcoming).

"Treaty Port System" and "Opening of Japan," in Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450, ed. Thomas Benjamin. Macmillan Reference, 2006.

"The Procurement of Rarities is a Sign of Peace: Ideological Resistance to Imperialism in Yanagawa Shunsan's Yokohama hanjoki," in Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal 13 (2005).

"Joseph Heco," in Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, ed. Huping Ling. London: M.E. Sharpe, 2005.

"The Strange Case of Fisher v. Rickerby: Press, Satire, and Scandal in Treaty Port Japan," in Asian Cultural Studies 30 (2004).

"A Tempestuous Tea-port: Socio-political Commentary in Yokohama-e, 1859-1862," in East Asian History 26 (12/2002).

"Sadaharu Oh" and "Punitive Campaigns Against Choshu," in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, ed. David Levinson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002-2003.

"Aizawa Seishisai's Preprandial Chat" (translation of 1841 original), in Indiana University Center for Research on Japanese Educational History, Summer 2000.

"Selling China: www.cnta.com and Cultural Nationalism," in The Journal of Multimedia History 2:1 (1999).

BOOK REVIEWS:

Review of The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1929, by Timothy B. Weston, Choice 55 (2003).

Review of Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon, ed. Joseph Tobin, Choice (forthcoming).

Review of Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan, by Daniel Botsman, Choice (forthcoming).

PAPERS PRESENTED:

“Samurai Jack: Back to the Past and Home Again,” presented at the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Associate in the South Conference, Atlantic Beach,
FL, October 7, 2005.

"The Game of Life: Sugoroku Woodblock Prints in Meiji Japan," presented at Image/Object: On The Materiality of Images in East Asian Visual Culture, University of Chicago, 4/2003.

"The 'Whackmire Correspondence': Extraterritorial Follies and the Treaty Port Press," presented at the Asian Forum, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan, 11/2002.

"Cultural Resistance in 19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints," presented at the Bloomington Cultural History Workshop, Bloomington, IN, 11/2001.

"Yokohama, 1861: Hashimoto Sadahide and the 'Scum of Europe,'" presented at the Midwest Conference of Asian Affairs, Bloomington, IN, 10/2000.

FELLOWSHIPS/GRANTS:

  • Walter Williams Cragie Research Grant, Summer 2006.
  • Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program Fellow, 2002.
  • Title IX (GAANN) Fellow, 1995, 1996, 1997.
  • Title VI (FLAS) Fellow, summer 1995.

EXTRACURRICULAR / SERVICE ACTIVITIES:

Higgins Academic Fellow, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2004-present.

Faculty Representative, Committee on College Life, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2004-present.

Faculty Representative, Scholarship Committee, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2005-present.

Undergraduate Advisor, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2004-present.

Faculty Advisor, Japanese Club, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2004-present.

Faculty Advisor, Japanese Animation Club, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2004-present.

Film Studies Council, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2004-present.

Asian Studies Council, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, 2003-present.

Graduate Student Representative, Faculty Curriculum Revision Committee, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2000-2001.

Graduate Student Advisory Committee, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1998-2000.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS:

  • American Association of University Professors, 2003-present. Chapter president, 2006-.
  • American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2004-present.
  • American Historical Association, 1999-present.
  • Association for Asian Studies, 1999-present.
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