Tessa Morris-Suzuki, BA (Hons) (Bristol), PhD (Bath), FAHA
Convenor and Professor of Japanese History, Division of Pacific and Asian History

Email: tessa.morris-suzuki@anu.edu.au

Biographical Statement

I am currently engaged in a two joint ARC discovery projects, one on humanitarian action in mid-20th century Asia and the Pacific, and one on conflict and reconciliation between Japan, China and the two Koreas. I also have a major research interest in migration and refugee issues in Northeast Asia, and am completing a book on border controls and migration in Japan in the period 1945-85. I convene the Asian Civil Rights Network (funded by the Toyota Foundation), and co-edit the network's online journal Asiarights. My most recent books include Exodus to North Korea, a study of the mass migration of ethnic Koreans from Japan to North Korea in the Cold War era, The Past Within Us: Media, Memory, History, which discusses the representation of history in varied popular media, and an eight-volume history of the Asia-Pacific War, of which I am co-editor, published in Japanese by Iwanami Publishers, 2005-2006.

Research Interests

The border controls and migration in East Asia; national identity and ethnic minorities in Japan; modern Japanese historiography; human rights in Asia; globalisation processes (with particular reference to Northeast Asia); the history of indigenous peoples in Northeast Asia.

Key Publications

• Beyond Computopia: Information, Automation and Democracy in Japan, Kegan Paul International, 1988.
• The Technological Transformation of Japan, Cambridge University Press, 1994. (also published in Chinese and Korean translations)
• Re-Inventing Japan: Time Space, Nation, M.E. Sharpe, 1998. (also published in Spanish translation)
• Demokurashii no Bôken (Ventures in Democracy, co-authored), Shûeisha, 2004.
• The Past Within Us: Media, Memory, History, Verso, 2005. (also published in Japanese translation)
• Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan’s Cold War, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. (also published in Japanese translation)

Career Highlights

Member of the Priority Panel on Australia's Asian Context, Research Grants Committee of the Australian Research Council (1993); Chair of Faculty, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University (1994-96); International Secretary, Australian Academy of the Humanities (1995-98); Vice-President, Asian Studies Association of Australia (1998-2000); President, Asian Studies Association of Australia (2000-2002); Member, Foreign Affairs Council (1998-2001); Convenor, Asian Studies in Asia Network (1999-2005); Convenor, Asian Civil Rights Network (2003-present).