Tze Loo

Tze Loo, assistant professor of history, 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 member of the faculty of political science and economics.

Loo’s project is “Treasure of the Nation: Colonialism, Heritage Preservation, and the Making of Shuri Castle.” This 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 M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Cornell University, an M.A. in Japanese studies from the National University of Singapore, and a B.A. degree from the University of Sydney. She teaches East Asian history courses which emphasize regional interconnectedness. Her research is on the history of Japanese cultural heritage preservation, with a focus on state power and memory.