My research focuses on northeastern China, a region once called Manchuria. I have found the history of this region absorbing because in it is encapsulated much of the tensions and dynamics shaping the wider world: indigenous peoples displaced by encroaching capitalist societies, imperialist rivalries and the imposition of colonial rule, the advent of state planning and experimentation with fascist systems of organization, the mobilization of society and the ensuing military conflict evident in the Asia-Pacific War (the Pacific theatre of the Second World War), emerging Cold War tensions, the postwar creation of communist states, and the problems of international relations, national identity, and memory inherent in postwar reconstruction. These are issues encountered around the world of course, but in this region the complexity is compounded by the variety of peoples involved – the history of Manchuria includes not only Chinese and Japanese experiences, but also the experiences of Koreans, Mongolians, Russians, Manchus, and still others. It also involves powerful states, including Japan, the Republic of China, the People’s Republic of China, Russia and the Soviet Union, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as active albeit less powerful states in Mongolia and the Korean peninsula. Cover image for Resilient Japan from a Meiji-Taishō era collection of photographs of a Halifax family: The John Cooper Robinson collection, now at the University of British Columbia [link].

• PhD, History, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2000)
  
  
• MA, History, University of California, Davis (1986)
  
  
• BS, History, Linguistics, Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison (1983)
  

• Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun, 1905-45 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019)
  
  
• John Lee, Seven Crucial Centuries: Changes in Premodern Chinese Society and Economy, 499 BCE – 1800 CE, ed. Bill Sewell (Halifax: Department of History, Saint Mary’s University, 2016)
  
  
• Resilient Japan: Papers Presented at the 24th Annual Conference of the Japan Studies Association of Canada, ed. Bill Sewell (Halifax: Japan Studies Association of Canada, 2013) [Kindle]
  
  

• “Japanese Public Health Concerns in Treaty-Port Manchuria,” Canadian Journal of History 57:1 (April 2022): 81-111 [link]
  
  
• with Norio Ota, “Sakuta Shōichi, ‘The Light of Asia’,” in Translating the Occupation: The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931-45, ed. Jonathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman Smith (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021), 39-49 [link]
  
  
• “East Asian Treaty Ports as Zones of Encounter,” Journal of Urban History 45:6 (November 2019): 1315-1325 — books reviewed: Adam Clulow, The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), Simon Partner, The Merchant's Tale: Yokohama and the Transformation of Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), Johnathan Andrew Farris, Enclave to Urbanity: Canton, Foreigners, and Architecture from the Late Eighteenth Century to the Early Twentieth Centuries (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016), Edward Denison and Guangyu Ren, Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016) [link]
  
  
• “Missions to Manchuria,” Canadian Journal of History 54:1-2 (Spring/Summer 2019): 84-110 [link]
  
  
• “Introduction,” and “Manufacturing Japan in Manchuria,” in Resilient Japan: Papers Presented at the 24th Annual Conference of the Japan Studies Association of Canada, ed. Bill Sewell (Halifax: Japan Studies Association of Canada, 2013), 6-8, 204-224
  
  
• “Beans to Banners: The Evolving Architecture of Pre-War Changchun,” in Harbin to Hanoi: Colonial Built Environment in Asia, 1840 to 1940, ed. Laura Victoir and Victor Zatsepine (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 37-57 [link]
  
  
• “Manshūkoku kokuto ‘Shinkyō’ no datsukōchiku” (Manchukuo’s ‘New Capital’ in Contemporary Perspectives), tr. Saikawa Takashi, in Nitchū sensōki Chūgoku no shakai to bunka (Chinese Society and Culture during the Sino-Japanese War), ed. Ezra Vogel and Hirano Ken’ichirō (Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2010), 291-327
  
  
• “Feng Yuxiang,” “Harriman Affair,” “Manchuria,” “South Manchuria Railway,” and “Warlordism,” in Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations, ed. Yuwu Song (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), 105-6, 128-9, 185-6, 263-4, 306-7
  
  
• “Crisis, War, and Culture: The Global Significance of Japanese National Cultures,” in Why Japan Matters!, ed. Joseph F. Kess and Helen Landsowne (Victoria: Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, 2005), vol. 1, 98-108

• “Reconsidering the Modern in Japanese History: Modernity in the Service of the Prewar Japanese Empire,” Japan Review 16 (2004), 213-258
  
  
• “Kyū Manshū ni okeru senzen Nihon no machizukuri katsudō” (Prewar Japanese City Making in Manchuria), Nichibunken Foramu (Nichibunken Forum) No. 160 (December 2003), 30 pp booklet
  
  
• “Postwar Japan and Manchuria,” in Japan at the Millennium: Joining Past and Future, ed. David W. Edgington (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003), 97-119
  
  
• “Railway Outpost and Puppet Capital: Urban Expressions of Japanese Imperialism in Changchun, 1905-1945,” in Colonialism and the Modern World: Selected Studies, ed. Gregory Blue, Martin Bunton, and Ralph Crozier (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2002), 283-298
  
  
• More than fifty books reviewied in Asian Affairs: An American Review, The Canadian Journal of History, Historical Geography, Pacific Affairs, Progress in Development Studies, The University of Toronto Quarterly, and the Journal of Urban History as well as on H-Net through H-Diplo, H-HistGeog, H-Japan, and H-US-Japan (available at: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/).
  
  

PAPERS PRESENTED

• “Public Health Concerns in Treaty-Port Manchuria,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, Virtual Conference, 17 October 2020
  
  
• “Sakuta Shōichi, ‘The Light of Asia’,” at “Translating the Japanese Occupation of China: Part II,” Sponsored by Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the American Council of Learned Societies, UBC Department of History, and the UBC Institute of Asian Research,” University of British Columbia, 26 May 2017
  
  
• “Collapse and Consequences: Roads Home for Japanese in Manchuria, 1945-46,” Japan Studies Association of Canada , Ryerson University, 17 October 2014
  
  
• “Beans to Banners:  Changchun's Evolving Prewar Architecture,” From Harbin to Hanoi: Colonial Built Environment, 1840-1940, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 4-5 June 2010
  
  
• “Japanese Society in a Manchurian Treaty Port,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, Lethbridge, Alberta, 4 October 2009
  
  
• “Asia 101: The Texts,” Canadian Asian Studies Association, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, 15 November 2008
  
  
• “The Survey Course: Tradition and Transformation,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, 3 October 2008
  
  
• “Historicizing the Manchurian Incident,” Canadian Asian Studies Association, La Malbaie, Québec, 22 November 2007
  
  
• “Manufacturing Japan in Manchuria,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, 17 August 2007
  
  
• “Reorienting the Manchurian Incident,” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Boston, MA, 24 March 2007
  
  
• “Manchukuo’s ‘New Capital’ in Contemporary Perspectives,” The Third International Conference on Chinese-Japanese Relations during the Sino-Japanese War, Hakone, Japan, 25 November 2006
  
  
• “Between Rocks and a Hard Place: Missionaries and Empires in Prewar Manchuria,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, Kamloops, British Columbia, 13 October 2006
  
  
• “Civilizational and Identity ‘Clashes’ in Manchuria during the Long Twentieth Century,” Joint conference of the East Asian Committee of the Canadian Asian Studies Association and the Japan Studies Association of Canada, Edmonton, Alberta, 1 October 2005
  
  
• “Crisis, War, and Culture: The Global Significance of Japanese National Cultures,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, 16 October 2004
  
  
• “Reinventing Imperialism: Morality in Japanese Manchuria,” Canadian Asian Studies Association, Calgary, Alberta, 9 October 2004
  
  
• “The M-Word Strikes Back: Japan’s Prewar Empire, Current Dilemmas, and the Allure of the Modern,” Japan Studies Association of Canada, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, 17 October 2003
  
  
• “Public Health Concerns in a Manchurian Treaty Port,” presented at a workshop entitled “Foreign Fevers and Colonial Cures: Disease and Medicine in the British, French and Japanese Empires,” at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, 23 August 2003
  
  
• “Kyū Manshū ni okeru senzen Nihon no machizukuri katsudō” (Prewar Japanese City Making in Manchuria), International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) and Japan Foundation, Kyoto, Japan, 8 April 2003
  
  
• “Senzen Nihon teikokushugi no toshi hyōgen” (Urban Expressions of Prewar Japanese Imperialism), presented to the Nichibunken Cooperative Research Group seeking “A Comprehensive Study of the Culture of Modern Northeast China (the Former Manchuria),” International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto, Japan, 21 December 2002
  
  
• “Modernity at Work: Making Theory Concrete in Colonial Manchuria,” Nichibunken Evening Seminar, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan, 2 November 2002
  
  
• “A Beacon to the World: The Modernist National Project in Changchun,” Association for Asian Studies, San Diego, California, 11 March 2000
  
  
• “Railway Outpost and Puppet Capital: Urban Expressions of Japanese Imperialism in Changchun, 1905-1945,” World History Association International Conference, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, 25 June 1999, and Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 18 June 1999
  
  
• “Japanese Imperialism and Civic Construction in Manchuria, 1905-1945,” New York Conference on Asian Studies, State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, New York, 17 October 1998
  
  
• “Japanese Imperialism, Chinese Development, and Notions of Civic Progress in Northeast China,” Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, 20 June 1998
  
  
• “Japanese Imperialism and Manchukuo’s Imperial Capital,” Ph.D. Kenkyukai, International House of Japan, Tokyo, Japan, 17 February 1998
  
  
• “Asia, Africa, and ‘Involution’,” Qualicum Conference, Qualicum, British Columbia, Canada, 30 January 1994
  
  
• “Grappling with the Plunge: Kōsaka Masaaki and the 1930s World Historical Crisis,” Qualicum Conference, Qualicum, British Columbia, Canada, 31 January 1993
  
  

OTHER CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES

• Discussant, “The Multi-Imperial Asian City I: Intertwined Empires in Early & Semi-Colonial Urban Space,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference, Honolulu, 27 March 2022
  
  
• Discussant/Keynote Response Roundtable: “Built Japan: Environment, City, and Empire,” University of British Columbia, UBC Institute of Asian Research, 9-10 February 2018
  
  
• Discussant, “Consolidating Russia's Conquest of Asia: The Flow of Peoples, Ideas, and Currency across the Vast Sino-Mongol-Russian Border, 1860-1920,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference, San Diego, 21 March 2013
  
  
• Organized 24th Annual Japan Studies Association of Canada (JSAC), Saint Mary’s University, 18-20 August 2011
  
  
• Co-organized “Through the Lens: The Moving Image in Japanese Culture,” Japanese film workshop at Saint Mary’s University, 10-11 March 2006
  
  
• Organized Asian Studies in Atlantic Canada, 24 September 2005