About Ran Zwigenberg

I am an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University. My research focuses on modern Japanese and European history, with a specialization in memory and heritage history. I taught and lectured in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Japan, and published on issues of war memory, atomic energy, psychiatry, and survivor politics. My two main areas of interest are nuclear history (mainly Hiroshima) and modern use of medievalism. I published two books that corresponded to these areas and have a third with the press now (on psychiatry and the A-bomb)My first book, Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2014), won the 2016 Association for Asian Studies’ John W. Hall book award. Hiroshima deals comparatively with the commemoration and the reaction to the Holocaust and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. My second, co authored book, with Oleg Benesch (York) was on the modern history of Japanese castles (I was on NBN for that one). For more information on this and other projects, please see https://sites.psu.edu/zwigenbe...