Jessamyn Abel
Professor in Asian Studies and History
327A Pond Building
University Park, PA 16802
Curriculum Vitae:
Education:
PhD, Columbia University, 2004
MIA, Columbia University, 1997
BA, Princeton University, 1992
Biography:
I am a historian of modern Japan with interests in democratization, technology, infrastructure, sports, and international relations. My current research focuses on postwar Japan to examine the ways in which institutions of daily life (such as the national railway, the public broadcaster, the police, and Parent-Teacher Associations) work to instill democratic practices and attitudes in a population. My latest book, Dream Super-Express (winner of the 2024 Modern Japan History Association Book Prize), views 1960s Japan through the window of the bullet train, showing how infrastructure operates beyond its intended use to perform cultural and sociological functions. My first book, The International Minimum, examines the transwar development of Japanese internationalism. I have also published on the information society, the Olympics, cultural diplomacy, textbooks, and the history of whaling. These topics inform my teaching, which is aimed at helping students develop a sense of the common experiences shared by diverse groups of people around the world, thus sparking intellectual curiosity about other societies, in addition to prompting them to rethink their own place in the global community.
Recent Publications:
Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World’s First Bullet Train (Stanford University Press, 2022).
“Information Society on Track: Communication, Crime, and Japan’s First Bullet Train.” Journal of Japanese Studies 47, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 349-379.
“Technologies of Cold War Diplomacy: Transforming Japan.” Technology and Culture (January 2021): 128-155.
“Railway Stations and the Production of Invisibile Infrastructures.” City and Society (August 2020) DOI: 10.1111/CISO.12322.
“Borrowed Spectacle: Olympic Rhetoric in Political Battles.” In The Routledge Handbook of Sport in Asia, edited by Fan Hong and Lu Zhouxiang, 515-521. Routledge, 2020.
“The Power of a Line: How the Bullet Train Transformed Urban Space.” Positions: Asia Critique 27, no. 3 (August 2019): 531-555.
“Ethics and Internationalism in Japanese Education, 1933-1945.” Modern Asian Studies 52, no. 2 (March 2018): 532-575.
The International Minimum: Creativity and Contradiction in Japan’s Global Engagement, 1933-1964 (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015).
“Cultural Internationalism and Japan’s Wartime Empire.” Tumultuous Decade: Japan’s Challenge to the International System, 1931-41. Eds. Tosh Minohara and Masato Kimura. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
“Japan’s Sporting Diplomacy: The 1964 Tokyo Olympiad.” The International History Review (June 2012), 1-18.
“When Athletes Are Diplomats: Competing for World Opinion at the Tokyo Olympiads.” The East Asian Olympiads 1934-2008: Building Bodies and Nations in Japan, Korea, and China. Eds. William M. Tsutsui and Michael Baskett. Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2011.
“The Ambivalence of Whaling: Conflicting Cultures in Identity-Formation.” JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life. Eds. Gregory M. Pflugfelder and Brett L. Walker. Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies 52. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2005.
Awards:
Princeton University Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies Fellowship (Spring 2026).
McCourtney Institute for Democracy Research Grant (2025).
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2025).
Global Humanities Research Impact Award, Center for Global Studies, Penn State (2024–2025).
Center for Humanities and Information Faculty Fellow, Penn State University (2024–2025).
NEAC-AAS, Short-term Research Travel to Japan Grant (2024, 2015).
Modern Japan History Association Book Prize for Dream Super-Express (2024).
Kenneth B. Pyle Prize for Best Article in the Journal of Japanese Studies (2021).
Humanities Institute Resident Scholar, Penn State University (Spring 2019).
Center for the Study of Sports in Society Faculty Research Grant, Penn State Univ. (2018).
Service:
Book Review Editor, Journal of Japanese Studies (2024–2027).
Chair of the Conference Program Committee and member of the Board of Directors, Association for Asian Studies (2025–2026); Vice-Chair, Conference Program Committee (2024–2025).
Fulbright-IIE National Screening Committee for Japan (2023–2025).
Recent Courses:
HIST 474 Early Modern Japan
ASIA 101N Sports in Asia
ASIA 430 Japan in the World
ASIA 400 International Culture in East Asia
HIST 172 Introduction to Japanese Civilization