PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
University of Bergen
Program Chair (Fagkoordinator) Japanese (2024-Present)
Leader, Food Studies Research Group (2024-Present)
Associate Professor, School of Humanities (2021-Present)
Nagoya University
Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences Supervisory Subcommittee (2020-2021)
Affiliated Researcher, Gender Research Library (2020-2021)
International Programs Subcommittee (2020-2021)
Affiliated Faculty, Graduate School of International Development (2019-2021)
Program Chair, Japan-in-Asia Cultural Studies (2018-2021)
Affiliated Researcher, Center for Transregional Culture and Society (2018-2021)
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities (2017-2021)
Designated Associate Professor, Graduate School of Letters (2014-2017)
Yale University
Postdoctoral Associate, Council on East Asian Studies (2013-2014)
Grinnell College
Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept. of Chinese and Japanese (2012-2013)
University of Pennsylvania
Adjunct Lecturer, Dept. of History (2012)
Adjunct Lecturer, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations (2009-2011)
Graduate Teaching Fellow (2008-2010)
Community College of Philadelphia
Adjunct Lecturer, Dept. of Anthropology (2010-2011)
Iwate University
Adjunct Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (2002-2005)
CELC, Inc.
Instructor of Japanese-English Translation (2001-2006)
Fuji University
Lecturer, Dept. of Economics (1999-2001)
PUBLICATIONS
Ennobling Japan’s Savage Northeast: Tōhoku as Postwar Thought, 1945-2011. Harvard University Asia Center (2017).
“Gunma’s 1932-1933 Rural Community Nutritional Improvement Experiment.” Japan Review (Forthcoming 2026).
“Cooperation, Responsibility, Discipline, Hygiene, and Nutrition: Transforming Japan’s School Lunch Program in the 1960s.” Cogent Arts & Humanities 12, no. 1 (2025).
“What to Eat and How Much: The Rule of Three (Colors) in Modern Japanese Nutrition.” Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 25, no. 1 (April 23, 2025).
“‘Whaling: Good for the World, the Nation, and You.’” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 22, no. 10 (5) (November 22, 2024).
“‘Humans Bring Food to Their Mouths, Animals Bring Their Mouths to Food’: The Morality Politics of School-Lunch Sporks in 1970s Japan.“ Food & Foodways 31, no. 1 (2023): 1–21.
“Ingrained Habits: The ‘Kitchen Cars’ and the Transformation of Postwar Japanese Diet and Identity.” Food, Culture & Society, November 2020.
“Eiyō shidōsha (kitchin kā): Amerika nōsanbutsu to sengo Nihon no shokuseikatsu hensen.” JunCture, 2020-03-26, no. 11 (2020): 30–45.
“Nutrition as National Defense: Japan’s Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition, 1920-1940.” Journal of Japanese Studies 45, no. 1 (2019): 1–29.
“‘Fake Food: Authentic Japanese Product’—On the Rise of Visuality in Middlebrow Japanese Culinary Culture.” Japan Forum, 2018.
“‘A Bad Peace?’ – The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition.“ Japanese Studies, August 2018.
“Takahashi Tomio’s Henkyō, The Universal Japanese Frontier (An Interpretation).“ Verge: Studies in Global Asias 4, no. 1 (2018): 85–109.
“Хенкё Такахаси Томио: восточные Востоки и западные Запады.” Translated by Rastyam Aliev. Journal of Frontier Studies 4, no. 12 (December 5, 2018).
“Christopher Noss’ Tohoku and ‘Survey of Rural Fukushima’: Portraits of Tōhoku a Century Before March 11, 2011.“ Asian Cultural Studies, no. 42 (Spring 2016): 139–51.
“Takahashi Tomio’s Phoenix: Recuperating Hiraizumi (1950-71).“ Journal of Japanese Studies 40, no. 2. 353-377. (2014)
“Takahashi Tomio’s Henkyō: Eastern Easts and Western Wests.” Japan Review, no. 27 (2014): 141–170.
“Systems of Irresponsibility and Japan’s Internal Colony.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 11, Issue 52, No. 2, Dec 30, 2013.
“Kokumin, kokka, shoku” JunCture, no. 11 (March 26, 2020).
“Frontiers” (coedited with Ran Zwigenberg, Pennsylvania State University) Verge: Studies in Global Asias, no. 4.1 (Spring 2018).
Hopson, Nathan, Barbara Holthus, and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt. “Dolphins and Dogs in the Diet? The Challenges of Animal Advocacy Politics in Japan.” Society & Animals, under review.
Hopson, Nathan, and Ran Zwigenberg. “Can the Frontier Write Back?“ Verge: Studies in Global Asias 4, no. 1 (2018): vi–xv.
Sawai, Takashi, et al. “World′s First Telepathology Experiments Employing Ultra-high-speed Internet Satellite, Nicknamed ‘KIZUNA’.” Journal of Pathology Informatics 4 (1): 24. (2013)
Hopson, Nathan. “Discipline and Nourish: ‘Sound Judgment’ and ‘Desirable Eating Habits’ in the Japanese School Lunch Program.” In Japanese Food Cultures Handbook, edited by Nancy K. Stalker. Routledge, forthcoming 2026.
“Nutritionists in Japan as a Professional Elite, 1914-1964.” In Professional Elites of Modern Japan, edited by Aleksandra Kobiljski and Nicolas Fiévé. Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Japonaises du Collège de France. Collège de France, forthcoming 2025.
“Glass Ceilings and Factory Floors: Kondō Toshiko and the Dawn of Public Health Nutrition in Japan, 1936-1940.” In Medical Women in the Japanese Empire: Sources and Critique, edited by Hiro Fujimoto, Aya Homei, and Ellen Gardner Nakamura, 71–89. Routledge, 2025.
“Women, Waste, and War: Food, Gender, and Rationalization in Wartime Japanese Discourse.” In Gender and Food in Transnational East Asias: Toward a New Dialogue across Boundaries, edited by Jooyeon Rhee, Chikako Nagayama, and Eric Li, 15–38. Lexington Books, 2021.
Sasagawa, Norikatsu. “An Chunggŭn and the Political Philosophy of Immanuel Kant.” In Peace in the East: An Chunggŭn’s Vision for Asia in the Age of Japanese Imperialism, edited by Eugene Park and Tae-Jin Yi, translated by Nathan Hopson, 111–30. Lexington Books, 2017.
Yamamuro, Shin’ichi. “The Philosophy and Possibilities of An Chunggŭn’s Unfinished On Peace in the East.” In Peace in the East: An Chunggŭn’s Vision for Asia in the Age of Japanese Imperialism, edited by Eugene Park and Tae-Jin Yi, translated by Nathan Hopson, 177–99. Lexington Books, 2017.
“Sengo shisō to shite no Tōhoku: Takahashi Tomio o chūshin ni.” In Gurōbaruka no naka no Nihonshi zō: “Chōki no 19 seiki” o ikita chiiki, edited by Namikawa Kenji and Kawanishi Hidemichi, 263-288. Iwata Shoin, 2013.
『戦後思想としての東北—高橋富雄を中心に』浪川健治・河西英通共編「グローバル化のなかの日本史像 ―『長期の一九世紀』」岩田書院 (2013)。
Book Reviews
Hopson, Nathan. “David Fedman. Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea.” The American Historical Review 129, no. 1 (March 12, 2024): 256–58.
『青森県史 資料編 近現代 7：青森論』「弘前大学國史研究」142号 (2017年3月).
Other
Maxson, Hillary著・Hopson, Nathan訳『家計簿と現代日本の家庭料理の成立』「JunCture」11号 (2020年3月)
Contributor: “The Recipes Project”
“The ’Nutrition Song’: Imperial Japan’s Recipe for National Nutrition” (January 2019)
“’Daily Recipes for Home Cooking’ (1924)” (April 2019)
“Pulverized Food to Pulverize the Enemy!” (April 2020)
“Meals on Wheels―The “Kitchen Cars” and American Recipes for the Postwar Japanese Diet” (December 2020)
“Say Ohm: Japanese Electric Bread and the Joy of Panko” (May 2021)
More coming...
“Rev. Christopher Noss: A Century before Fukushima Daiichi.” Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society Newsletter 38, no. 3 (December 2015).
“The Transparency of the Quotidian: Whither Japan?” Yale Journal of International Affairs. (Jun 2, 2014)
OTHER
Awards
Dissemination Award (Formidlingsprisen), UiB Faculty of Humanities (2024)
Public Outreach and Contributions to the Community
Associate Editor, Journal of Frontier Studies (2018-2021)
Associate Editor, JunCture (2018-2021)
Member, Historians’ Workshop
Volunteer organization supporting the career growth of young historians.
I hosted a Research Showcase at Nagoya, February 18 2020.
Podcast host, New Books in East Asian Studies (2018-), Food (2019-), Japanese Studies (2020-)
For more information, see here.
Podcast creator and host, Roundtable Japan (2025-), sponsored by the Toshiba International Foundation
“Peace for Our Time? - The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition.”
Lecture for G30 for Everyone Studium Generale
(Nagoya University Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences Academic English Support Section)
“Ingrained Habits: The Kitchen Cars and the Transformation of Postwar Japanese Diet and Identity.”
MSU Asian Studies Center, 2020.
Media Interviews
Rahimi, Rosa. "This food looks too good to be real — and it is." CNN Style, 16 December, 2024.
Kristiansen, Nina. "Can't drink hot coffee? Then you have cat tongue." Science Norway, 7 August 2022.
Kvitrud, Marie. "Varm drikke - For noen kan det være ulidelig vondt." kk.no, 29 July, 2022.
Springer, Kate. "How KFC became a Christmas tradition in Japan." CNN Travel, 24 December, 2019.
Fater, Luke. “How a White Lie Gave Japan KFC for Christmas.” Atlas Obscura, 13 December, 2019.
Smith, Marcus. “Ice King, Japanese Ice, Joan of Arc.” Constant Wonder, 9 October, 2019.
Fater, Luke. “How American Gunboat Diplomacy Helped Democratize Japanese Shaved Ice.” Atlas Obscura, 5 September, 2019.