Profile

View my CV.

Academic Positions:

• Professor, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University (2005-present)
• Affiliate Professor of Dept. of Sociology, Kyoto University (2000-present)
• Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University (2018-present)
• Visiting Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, MIT (2005-2006)
• Visiting Scholar, Harvard University (Fall, 2015)
• Visiting Scholar, University of California, Santa Barbara (Winter, 2016)
• Affiliate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
• Assistant to the Executive Vice President, Office of Public Relations and Strategic Planning of Kyoto University (2010-2013)

Project leader

‘Integrated Research into the Processes and Mechanisms of Racialization’ (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) by the Ministry of Education and Science), 2016-2022.

Project leader

‘A Japan-based Global Study of Racial Representations’ (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) by the Ministry of Education and Science), 2010-2016.

Research Interests

Areas of Expertise:

Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, American Studies

Fields of Research Interest:

race, ethnicity, immigration studies

Regional Expertise:

U.S.A., Japan

Academic Background:

Ph. D. Anthropology (University of Washington, Fulbright Scholar).

Current Research

My specialist interests are theories of race and ethnicity, which is a development from my earlier studies on Japanese American ethnicity, pan-Asian ethnicity, and African American community organizations. Leading the collaborative research project on the global study of racial representations has broadened my areas of interest to include not only other fields of the humanities but also genetics and physical anthropology. Whilst interdisciplinary oriented, I have kept my fundamental interest as an anthropologist: to understand human-beings, anthropos, as well as to explore the ways in which ‘differences’ are perceived across cultures from comparative perspectives. Focusing on ‘race’ enables me to pursue these anthropological themes by examining the ways in which people are classified and differentiated.

Major Publications (in English)

• Trans-Pacific Minor Visions in Japanese Diasporic Art (Special issue). Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA), 6:1 (Yasuko Takezawa & Laura Kina eds.) 2020
• Yasuko Takezawa and Laura Kina eds. Forum: Trans-Pacific Japanese Diaspora Art: Encounters and Envisions of Minor- Transnationalism. Amerasia Journal, 45(3). University of California.
• Trans-Pacific Japanese American Studies: Dialogues on Race and Racializations (Yasuko Takezawa and Gary Y. Okihiro eds.) University of Hawai’i Press, 2016.
• Racial Representations in Asia. Takezawa ed., Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2011.
• Breaking the Silence: Ethnicity and Redress among Japanese Americans. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
• “Translating and Transforming ‘Race’: Early Meiji Period Textbooks” Japanese Studies, 35:1, Special Issue: Rethinking Race/Racism from Asian Experiences, 2015.
• “Race in Asia” “Japan’s Minority Groups” in Encyclopedia Britannica’s Guide to Black History, 2010.
• “Tabunka Kyosei’ and Community-Rebuilding After the Kobe Earthquake,” in Multiculturalism in New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries within Japan, Ertl et al., eds., Berghahn Books, pp.32-42, 2008.
• “Transcending the Western Paradigm of the Idea of Race,” The Japanese Journal of American Studies 16, pp. 5-30, 2005.
• “Nikkeijin and ‘Multicultural Coexistence’ in Japan: Kobe after the Great Earthquake,” in New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan, Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, et.al., Stanford University Press,.pp.310-330, 2002.
• “Racial Boundaries and Stereotypes: An Analysis of American Advertising,” The Japanese Journal of American Studies 10, pp.77-106, 1999.
• “Children of Inmates: The Effects of the Redress Movement among the Third Generation Japanese Americans,” Qualitative Sociology 14(1): 39-56, 1991.

See a full list of publications.

Teaching

Available to serve as a dissertation committee member, as an Affiliate Professor of the Department of Literature (sociology section) at Kyoto University and an Affiliate Professor of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington. If you are interested in working with me, please contact me. Please do so after you read some of my works.

Courses taught in the U.S.

Courses taught as a teaching associate/teaching assistant at the University of Washington are not listed here.

Courses Taught at Kyoto University

Due to the administrative work for the President Office, I am currently offering only one course aside from some team teaching courses.

Contact

• Email address: takezawa.yasuko.2u[at mark]kyoto-u.jp
• Telephone: (0)75-753-6915 (direct); 6904 (administration office)
• Fax: +81(0)75-753-6903
• Address: Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
• Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan