The narratives of black emancipation and white settlement are usually separated in U.S. and Canadian history, but they are actually intertwined, says Professor Asaka.
Ikuko Asaka
Assistant Professor
Biography
I am a historian of the United States with an emphasis on the nineteenth century, empire, U.S. in the world, African American history, and women, gender and sexuality. Trained in U.S. and Japanese institutions, I have always taken comparative and transnational approaches in my study of history. In all of my work, I explore how race and its related processes—class, gender, and sexuality—organized and were organized by global structures and circumstances as well as by systems of exclusion and inclusion at national, colonial, and imperial levels.
Research Interests
- U.S. empire in 18th and 19th centuries; U.S. in the world; African American history; women, gender and sexuality; Pacific/Atlantic world
Education
- PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Gender and Women's History Program, 2010
Distinctions / Awards
- Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors Award, 2016-18
- American Council of Learned Societies, New Faculty Fellowship, Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, 2012-13
Courses
- HIST275 African American History to 1877
- HIST285 History of Gender in the United States
- HIST385 Transnational Sexualities
- HIST482 Slavery in the United States
- HIST570 Race, Gender, and Sexuality in North American Colonialisms
Selected Publications
Books
Journal Articles
Lucretia Mott and the Underground Railroad: The Transatlantic World of a Radical American Woman Journal of the Early Republic 38 4 2018, p. 613-642.
Different Tales of John Glasgow: John Brown's Evolution to 'Slave Life in Georgia' Journal of Black Studies 49 3 2018, p. 212-234.
'Colored Men of the East': African Americans and the Instability of Race in US-Japan Relations American Quarterly 66 4 2014, p. 971-997.
'Our Brethren in the West Indies’: Self Emancipated People in Canada and the Antebellum Politics of Diaspora and Empire Journal of African American History 97 3 2012, p. 219-239.
Book Contributions
Liberia and African American Migration across Anglophone Settler Colonial Empires Powering Up the Global: Taking U.S. History into Transimperial Terrain Liberia and African American Migration across Anglophone Settler Colonial Empires Duke University Press 2019.
In The News
Join us in Congratulating Professor Ikuko Asaka who was just named as a Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors Scholar.
