Jolyon Baraka Thomas

Michigan Talks Japan

In this episode, Allison Alexy talks with Prof. Jolyon Baraka Thomas, whose research focuses on religion as it intersects with media, freedom, education, and capitalism. The conversation centers on his book Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan. Topics of discussion include: State Shintō, religious freedom, the Meiji Constitution, the Allied Occupation of Japan, tools of American empire, rhetoric and practices of freedom, development studies, anti-Black racism in Japan and in Asian Studies, education, inequities, DEI rhetoric and practices.

In the course of our conversation, which occurred before the murders in Atlanta and subsequent attention to ongoing violence toward Asian and Asian American people, Dr. Thomas referenced a few public materials highlighting racism and anti-Black racism in Japan, Asian Studies, and the United States. We have gathered them here, in case listeners might want to explore them further (in the order they appear in our conversation):

• Petition to the AAS Board of Directors in Support of Black Scholars of Asia
• #BlackInTheIvory
• NHK's animated video trying to "explain" Black Lives Matter protests
• AAS Roundtable on "Asian Studies and Black Lives Matter"
• The podcast Japan on the Record has a series of episodes focused on these issues, starting in June 2020.

Dr. Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. You can find him on twitter @jolyonbt.

Michigan Talks Japan is produced by Robin Griffin, Justin Schell, and Allison Alexy and is supported by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan.