Nathan Hopson
Biographic Data
| ID | 875495 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nathan Hopson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Hopson |
| SIGNATURE | HOPSON N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bergen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1670-1624 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Demand for Demand
This article examines Japan’s contemporary commercial whaling industry through the lens of “demand for demand,” i.e., efforts to 1) stimulate whale product consumption and 2) preserve the domestic industry, via public subsidy if necessary. Focusing on Shimonoseki, Japan’s principal pelagic whaling port, it analyzes strategies aimed at overcoming intergenerational whale meat consumption differences, particularly via the city’s public school lunch …
Cooperation, responsibility, discipline, hygiene, and nutrition
This is a case study of Japan’s school lunch program (kyūshoku) in the long 1960s. Using previously unexamined archival materials, I present concrete evidence for the ideological and practical transformation of kyūshoku during those years. I argue that with basic nutrition essentially assured after 1958, hygiene, discipline, mutual responsibility, and other aspects of social learning were increasingly prioritized over the original goal of improvi…
David Fedman. Seeds of Control
Journal Article David Fedman. Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea. Get access David Fedman. Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2020 Pp. 320. Cloth $40.00. Nathan Hopson Nathan Hopson University of Bergen, Norway Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1670-1624 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Schola…
Whaling
This article explores the evolving rhetoric of commercial whaling advocates in Japan and Norway, who frame whaling as essential for global, national, and personal health. I show that proponents leverage sustainability discourse and health narratives to present whaling as beneficial for marine ecosystems, national food security, and individual well-being. By coopting the language of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and cast…
"Humans bring food to their mouths, animals bring their mouths to food"-The morality politics of school-lunch sporks in 1970s Japan
We are not only what we eat, but how. This article examines the 1970s' morality politics of spork usage that accompanied the rollout of rice in school lunches. I argue that these discourses about the material culture and etiquette of eating reflect the economic and political context of 1970s Japan and (re)emergent tensions about national identity and the role of children's diet and table manners in determining Japan's future. Japan's national sch…
Ingrained habits
This article explores the history and politics of American-funded food demonstration buses (“kitchen cars”) in postwar Japan. Their express mission was to transform the Japanese national diet. I make two primary arguments. First, at least in the short to medium term, the kitchen cars were a win-win for both the United States and Japan. On the one hand, Japan benefited because the kitchen cars taught Japanese women how to cook cheap, nutritious, m…
Nutrition as National Defense
This article explores the early history of nutrition science and nutritional activism in Japan, 1920–40, focusing on the role of the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition (IGIN). I argue that the IGIN, the world's first government-sponsored nutrition institute, was a manifestation and key instrument of Japan's state-led program of national nutrition as civilization and national defense. The IGIN's successes in science and dietary reform wer…
Takahashi Tomio's Henkyō , the Universal Japanese Frontier (an Interpretation)
85 Translation Translated by Nathan Hopson Takahashi Tomio’s Henkyō, the Universal Japanese Frontier (an Interpretation) In 1979’s Henkyō: Mō hitotsu no Nihonshi (The Frontier: Another Japanese History), historianTakahashiTomio(1921–2013)appliedFrederickJackson Turner’s frontier thesis to the history of ancient Japanese state formation . The frontier, in Japan’s case the East and Northeast (Tōhoku), was thought of as a savage outback forever fai…
Can the Frontier Write Back
vi Editors’ Introduction Nathan Hopson and Ran Zwigenberg Can the Frontier Write Back? This issue of Verge is about reclaiming one of the F- words of academia: frontier (Klein 1996). Sometimes a frontier is just a political border or a border zone (witness frontière in French and biānjiāng in Chinese, for example ), but the word frontier is often highly charged, used to describe the outermost limits of expansion and “progress.” Space is the “fin…
A Bad Peace?’ – The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition
The March–May 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition (NPPPE) promoted the Nagoya region as an industrial and cultural center of the empire. Though intended to show the city prospering in free-trade, capitalist peace, it was a ‘mega-event,’ large and complex enough to permit alternative interpretations, resistance, and even discord. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) objected to a ‘peace’ expo, extracting various concessions from NPPPE organizers,…
Fake food
Food replicas (shokuhin sanpuru) line the show windows of cafes and restaurants in cities, towns, and villages throughout Japan. They are usually found artfully arranged in restaurant show windows or cases, facing and visible from the street, corridor, hall, etc., on which the restaurant is located. Building on consumers’ familiarity with foods, ingredients, and cooking techniques, these replicas visually evoke other senses – taste, scent, textur…
Ennobling Japan's Savage Northeast
"When Japan embarked on modernization, historical prejudice, contemporary politics, and economic calculation led to Tohoku's marginalization. After 1945, attempts were made to overcome this image and rehabilitate the Northeast as a source of new national values. This book unravels the contested postwar meanings of the region in national narratives"
Takahashi Tomio’s Phoenix
Since 1945, Hiraizumi has by turns been envisioned as exemplar of the independent history and culture of Tohoku (northeastern Japan), of the possibilities of local culture for national recuperation, and as an exceptional instance of the shared heritage of humankind. This article explores the role of Hiraizumi in the early postwar work of historian Takahashi Tomio, whose vision of an independent Hiraizumi polity governed by and for Tohoku shaped t…
Systems of Irresponsibility and Japan's Internal Colony
In the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, much has been said about the character of Japan, and especially about Tōhoku and its people. In the early weeks and months, the exceptionally good behavior of an overwhelming majority of Japanese in the face of a disaster of almost unthinkable magnitude was the object of much admiration. Especially in the foreign press, mixed in with cringe-inducing references to the "Fu…
Takahashi Tomio’s Phoenix
Since 1945, Hiraizumi has by turns been envisioned as exemplar of the independent history and culture of Tohoku (northeastern Japan), of the possibilities of local culture for national recuperation, and as an exceptional instance of the shared heritage of humankind. This article explores the role of Hiraizumi in the early postwar work of historian Takahashi Tomio, whose vision of an independent Hiraizumi polity governed by and for Tohoku shaped t…
Systems of Irresponsibility and Japan's Internal Colony
In the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, much has been said about the character of Japan, and especially about Tōhoku and its people. In the early weeks and months, the exceptionally good behavior of an overwhelming majority of Japanese in the face of a disaster of almost unthinkable magnitude was the object of much admiration. Especially in the foreign press, mixed in with cringe-inducing references to the "Fu…
Systems of Irresponsibility and Japan's Internal Colony
In the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, much has been said about the character of Japan, and especially about Tōhoku and its people. In the early weeks and months, the exceptionally good behavior of an overwhelming majority of Japanese in the face of a disaster of almost unthinkable magnitude was the object of much admiration. Especially in the foreign press, mixed in with cringe-inducing references to the "Fu…
Takahashi Tomio’s Phoenix
Since 1945, Hiraizumi has by turns been envisioned as exemplar of the independent history and culture of Tohoku (northeastern Japan), of the possibilities of local culture for national recuperation, and as an exceptional instance of the shared heritage of humankind. This article explores the role of Hiraizumi in the early postwar work of historian Takahashi Tomio, whose vision of an independent Hiraizumi polity governed by and for Tohoku shaped t…
Ennobling Japan's Savage Northeast
"When Japan embarked on modernization, historical prejudice, contemporary politics, and economic calculation led to Tohoku's marginalization. After 1945, attempts were made to overcome this image and rehabilitate the Northeast as a source of new national values. This book unravels the contested postwar meanings of the region in national narratives"
Takahashi Tomio's Henkyō , the Universal Japanese Frontier (an Interpretation)
85 Translation Translated by Nathan Hopson Takahashi Tomio’s Henkyō, the Universal Japanese Frontier (an Interpretation) In 1979’s Henkyō: Mō hitotsu no Nihonshi (The Frontier: Another Japanese History), historianTakahashiTomio(1921–2013)appliedFrederickJackson Turner’s frontier thesis to the history of ancient Japanese state formation . The frontier, in Japan’s case the East and Northeast (Tōhoku), was thought of as a savage outback forever fai…
Can the Frontier Write Back
vi Editors’ Introduction Nathan Hopson and Ran Zwigenberg Can the Frontier Write Back? This issue of Verge is about reclaiming one of the F- words of academia: frontier (Klein 1996). Sometimes a frontier is just a political border or a border zone (witness frontière in French and biānjiāng in Chinese, for example ), but the word frontier is often highly charged, used to describe the outermost limits of expansion and “progress.” Space is the “fin…
A Bad Peace?’ – The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition
The March–May 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition (NPPPE) promoted the Nagoya region as an industrial and cultural center of the empire. Though intended to show the city prospering in free-trade, capitalist peace, it was a ‘mega-event,’ large and complex enough to permit alternative interpretations, resistance, and even discord. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) objected to a ‘peace’ expo, extracting various concessions from NPPPE organizers,…
Fake food
Food replicas (shokuhin sanpuru) line the show windows of cafes and restaurants in cities, towns, and villages throughout Japan. They are usually found artfully arranged in restaurant show windows or cases, facing and visible from the street, corridor, hall, etc., on which the restaurant is located. Building on consumers’ familiarity with foods, ingredients, and cooking techniques, these replicas visually evoke other senses – taste, scent, textur…
Nutrition as National Defense
This article explores the early history of nutrition science and nutritional activism in Japan, 1920–40, focusing on the role of the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition (IGIN). I argue that the IGIN, the world's first government-sponsored nutrition institute, was a manifestation and key instrument of Japan's state-led program of national nutrition as civilization and national defense. The IGIN's successes in science and dietary reform wer…
Ingrained habits
This article explores the history and politics of American-funded food demonstration buses (“kitchen cars”) in postwar Japan. Their express mission was to transform the Japanese national diet. I make two primary arguments. First, at least in the short to medium term, the kitchen cars were a win-win for both the United States and Japan. On the one hand, Japan benefited because the kitchen cars taught Japanese women how to cook cheap, nutritious, m…
"Humans bring food to their mouths, animals bring their mouths to food"-The morality politics of school-lunch sporks in 1970s Japan
We are not only what we eat, but how. This article examines the 1970s' morality politics of spork usage that accompanied the rollout of rice in school lunches. I argue that these discourses about the material culture and etiquette of eating reflect the economic and political context of 1970s Japan and (re)emergent tensions about national identity and the role of children's diet and table manners in determining Japan's future. Japan's national sch…
David Fedman. Seeds of Control
Journal Article David Fedman. Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea. Get access David Fedman. Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2020 Pp. 320. Cloth $40.00. Nathan Hopson Nathan Hopson University of Bergen, Norway Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1670-1624 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Schola…
Whaling
This article explores the evolving rhetoric of commercial whaling advocates in Japan and Norway, who frame whaling as essential for global, national, and personal health. I show that proponents leverage sustainability discourse and health narratives to present whaling as beneficial for marine ecosystems, national food security, and individual well-being. By coopting the language of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and cast…
Cooperation, responsibility, discipline, hygiene, and nutrition
This is a case study of Japan’s school lunch program (kyūshoku) in the long 1960s. Using previously unexamined archival materials, I present concrete evidence for the ideological and practical transformation of kyūshoku during those years. I argue that with basic nutrition essentially assured after 1958, hygiene, discipline, mutual responsibility, and other aspects of social learning were increasingly prioritized over the original goal of improvi…
Demand for Demand
This article examines Japan’s contemporary commercial whaling industry through the lens of “demand for demand,” i.e., efforts to 1) stimulate whale product consumption and 2) preserve the domestic industry, via public subsidy if necessary. Focusing on Shimonoseki, Japan’s principal pelagic whaling port, it analyzes strategies aimed at overcoming intergenerational whale meat consumption differences, particularly via the city’s public school lunch …
Japanese History and Culture (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · History (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · History (4 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (3 works)