Category: People in the Department

Cover image of the journal "Television and New Media, white text on black background with vertical lines of faded blue.

Meagan Finlay publishes research article on Japanese Public Broadcasting

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

EALCS PhD candidate Meagan Finlay has recently published a research article titled “Japanese Public Broadcasting: Construction of Publics and Identity in Virtual Space” in the journal Television and New Media. The open access article may be found at https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764261456595.

Here is the article’s abstract:

In 2008, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, or Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) launched their online distribution platform NHK On Demand (NOD). This service is land-locked within the geographical borders of Japan. Through an investigation of corporate and government documents and content analysis, I find that NHK’s move into virtual space presents an inward, domestic-focused version of Japanese nationhood and national identity that parallels the Japanese government’s global strategy for national branding, namely the Cool Japan initiative (soft power policy). In doing so, I argue that NHK—and by extension the state—cleaves their public in two: a domestic public based in Japan and a global public including overseas Japanese nationals, diaspora Japanese, and non-citizens. Virtual space becomes the stage for conflicting conceptualizations of Japanese identity through the creation of different publics and different goals for each.

Congratulations, Meagan!

Photo of Howard Chiang in a blazer and tie

Howard Chiang Wins Dan David Prize

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

Prof. Howard Chiang has recently been awarded the Dan David Prize, one of the most prestigious awards available in the discipline of history, for his pioneering contributions to the study of modern East Asian thought and culture with an emphasis on the critical study of science, medicine, race, gender, and sexuality.

You can read more about Prof. Chiang’s achievement in The Current and on the Dan David Prize’s website.

Congratulations, Prof. Chiang!

Screenshot of the webpage for the Audre Lorde Prize on the LGBTQ+ History Association's website.

Prof. Howard Chiang Wins 2026 Audre Lorde Prize

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

Prof. Howard Chiang recently won the 2026 Audre Lorde Prize for an Outstanding Article in LGBTQ History from the LGBTQ+ History Association, an affiliate of the American Historical Association, for his article, “Hide and Seek: Elmer Belt, Agnes, and the Battle over Castration in Transsexual Surgery, 1953–1962,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 98, no. 3 (2024): 394–427.

The full citation, which can be found at https://lgbtq-ha.org/prizes/audre-lorde-prize, reads:

Howard Chiang’s deeply researched article makes an important contribution to trans history by shedding new light on the work of urologist Elmer Belt and the cryptorchidism surgical technique he practiced in the 1950s and early 1960s. Making revealing use of Belt’s correspondence, Chiang illustrates how developments in trans medicine were understood and negotiated between doctors and patients and between practitioners of different medical specialities in a particular moment of “transsexual science.” While Belt’s lack of publications later led to his being neglected by historians, Chiang convincingly uncovers “a largely forgotten surgical logic of trans embodiment” and carefully registers the agency of trans patients without obscuring the unequal power relations inherent to the medicalized setting.

Congratulations, Prof. Chiang!

Meagan Finlay awarded Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s dissertation fellowship

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

Meagan Finlay, a 5th year PhD candidate studying under Professor Katherine Saltzman-Li, has been awarded the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center‘s Dissertation Fellowship for the 2025-2026 cycle. Meagan’s dissertation, “From Early Modern Kabuki Stages to Modern Screens: Production Practice Legacies and the Crafting of National Identity in Japanese Television Period Dramas”, explores the development of the Japanese period drama genre on TV and the ways in which it has carried over certain characteristics and practices from early modern kabuki. In her work, Meagan is heavily engaged with interdisciplinary methods including archival research, interviews, and observation techniques, and draws upon frameworks from Theatre Studies, Media Industry Studies, and Performance Studies. She is looking forward to becoming an IHC Fellow in the fall!

Wandi Wang stands with her committee members and the Department chair, with one additional member appearing on a laptop in front of them.

Wandi Wang defends dissertation, accepts professorship at Lehigh University

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

We are delighted to announce that EALCS PhD candidate Wandi Wang successfully defended her dissertation, “Taste and Gastropoetics in Traditional China, Ninth to Seventeenth Centuries CE,” on May 30, 2025. She has also accepted an offer to take up a position as Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at Lehigh University.

Congratulations, Professor Wang!