University of Richmond professor receives fellowship to study role of cultural heritage in forming Japanese pre-war identity

April 2, 2009

Tze Loo, assistant professor of history at the University of Richmond, has been awarded a year-long fellowship to investigate the use of cultural heritage as a means of producing a Japanese pre-World War II national identity.

The post-doctoral fellowship, awarded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, will enable Loo to conduct research at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.

Her project, "Treasure of the Nation: Colonialism, Heritage Preservation, and the Making of Shuri Castle," will investigate the pre-war Japanese use of cultural preservation as a form of colonial power on Okinawa. Loo will focus on Shuri Castle, which was named a Japanese national treasure in 1925.

JSPS annually awards fellowships to 20 American researchers with recent Ph.D. distinction to pursue cooperative research in Japan in the social sciences and humanities.

Loo received her Ph.D. in 2007 from Cornell University. She will work under the guidance of Naoyuki Umemori, a professor of political science and economics at Waseda.