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...

Ran Zwigenberg is an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University.

Ran's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Ran:

Paul D. Barclay, "Kondo the Barbarian: A Japanese Adventurer and Indigenous Taiwan's Bloodiest Uprising" (Eastbridge Books, 2023)

January 22, 2024

Kondo the Barbarian

Paul D. Barclay
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Kondo the Barbarian: A Japanese Adventurer and Indigenous Taiwan's Bloodiest Uprising (Eastbridge Books, 2023) is a gripping and revealing account of …

Aaron Skabelund, "Inglorious, Illegal Bastards: Japan's Self-Defense Force During the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2022)

September 24, 2023

Inglorious, Illegal Bastards

Aaron Skabelund
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

In Inglorious, Illegal Bastards: Japan's Self-Defense Force During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2022), Aaron Herald Skabelund examines how the Self-Defen…

Erik Linstrum, "Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire" (Oxford UP, 2023)

September 18, 2023

Age of Emergency

Erik Linstrum
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
Listen:

When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period…

Gennifer Weisenfeld, "Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

September 5, 2023

Gas Mask Nation

Gennifer Weisenfeld
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
Listen:

Airplanes, gas masks, and bombs were common images in wartime Japan. Yet amid these emblems of anxiety, tasty caramels were offered to children with p…

Robert Hellyer and Harald Fuess, "The Meiji Restoration: Japan as a Global Nation" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

August 9, 2023

The Meiji Restoration

Robert Hellyer and Harald Fuess
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
Listen:

In world history, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 ranks as a revolutionary watershed, on a par with the American and French Revolutions. In this volume,…

Rotem Kowner, "Tsushima" (Oxford UP, 2022)

July 7, 2023

Tsushima

Rotem Kowner
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg
Listen:

Today I talked to Rotem Kowner about Tsushima (Oxford UP, 2022), which is part of the great battle series in Oxford University press. The Battle of Ts…

H. Yumi Kim, "Madness in the Family: Women, Care, and Illness in Japan" (Oxford UP, 2022)

March 8, 2023

Madness in the Family

H. Yumi Kim
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

To fend off American and European imperialism in the nineteenth century, Japan strove to strengthen itself by drawing on the most updated ideas and pr…

A. Carly Buxton, "Un-Thinking Collaboration: American Nisei in Transwar Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

October 26, 2022

Un-Thinking Collaboration: American Nisei in Transwar Japan

A. Carly Buxton
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Today I will be talking to Carly Buxton about her book Unthinking collaboration: American Nisei in transwar Japan, which came out this year [2022] wit…

Jennifer S. Prough, "Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

October 21, 2022

Kyoto Revisited

Jennifer S. Prough
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2022) looks at the uses and effects of heritage in tourism in Kyoto today see…

Lasse Lehtonen, "Yuming's The 14th Moon" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

September 23, 2022

Yuming's The 14th Moon

Lasse Lehtonen
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Today I will be talking to Lasse Lehtonen about his book The 14th Moon, which came out with Bloomsbury this year (2022). With me today is Dr. Brooke M…

Christopher Craig, "Middlemen of Modernity: Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)

August 5, 2022

Middlemen of Modernity

Christopher Craig
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Christopher Craig’s Middlemen of Modernity: Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2021) is a thoroughly research a…

Jeff Hayton, "Culture from the Slums: Punk Rock in East and West Germany" (Oxford UP, 2022)

July 28, 2022

Culture from the Slums

Jeff Hayton
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Jeff Hayton's book Culture from the Slums: Punk Rock in East and West Germany (Oxford UP, 2022) is a cultural history of punk in Germany. The manuscri…

Robert A Jacobs, "Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha" (Yale UP, 2022)

April 13, 2022

Nuclear Bodies

Robert A Jacobs
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Robert Jacob’s book Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale UP, 2022) re‑envisions the history of the Cold War as a slow nuclear war, fought on rem…

Naoko Wake, "American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

November 16, 2021

American Survivors

Naoko Wake
Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

The little-known history of U.S. survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings reveals captivating trans-Pacific memories of war, illness, g…