Japan in the Long 1980s

In this one-day workshop, six historians of modern Japan will present new scholarship on "the long 1980s," conceptualized as a distinct, coherent historical period from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. From 1985 to 1991, Japan seemed on the verge of taking over the world, buoyed by unstoppable growth in the real estate and stock markets, only to collapse once economic fundamentals brought to heel the popular euphoria driving all bubbles. Thereafter, Japan entered a prolonged period of economic, political, even demographic malaise known as the “Lost Decades” during the 1990s and well into the twenty-first century. While the bubble era has been studied by social scientists, mostly in economics and political science, there is a surprising dearth of historical scholarship that integrates the 1980s with the broader scholarship of modern Japanese history, both in its postwar and contemporary variants. This workshop brings together six historians of modern Japan who will present new research on the "long 1980s" that demonstrate how the peculiar economic conditions of 1980s Japan intersected in surprising ways with the social, cultural, and political histories of Japan.

Participants

Simon Avenell (Australian National University)
Nick Kapur (Rutgers-Camden)
Connor Mills (University of St. Thomas)
Hiromi Mizuno (University of Minnesota)
Benjamin Uchiyama (USC)
Kirsten Ziomek (Adelphi University)

Discussant
Yoshikuni Igarashi (Vanderbilt University)

Other speakers TBA

This workshop is co-sponsored by the USC East Asian Studies Center