History professor Tze Loo wins post-doc from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to study in Tokyo for one year

Tze Loo, an assistant professor of history at the University of Richmond, has been awarded a 12-month residential post-doctoral fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The fellowship will enable Loo to conduct research at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan under the mentorship of Naoyuki Umemori, a professor of political Science and economics.
 
Loo’s project is titled “Treasure of the Nation: Colonialism, Heritage Preservation, and the Making of Shuri Castle.” The book manuscript is an investigation into how cultural heritage preservation functioned as a form of Japanese colonial power in Okinawa during the prewar period (1868-1945). The study focuses on Shuri Castle, the palace of the former Ryûkyuan king, which was designated a Japanese national treasure in 1925. Loo’s work argues that rather than the recognition of an already-existing cultural value, “cultural heritage” was something produced by the Japanese state as it fashioned its national identity.
 
Loo began teaching at the University of Richmond in 2007 after receiving her Ph.D. degree in history from Cornell University.

Posted March 30, 2009