Naoko Wake , Ph.D.
Holmes Hall, W-29
919 E. Shaw Lane
East Lansing, MI 48825
United States
LBC Courses Taught
Biography
I am a historian of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and memory in the twentieth century United States and the Pacific region. I am intrigued by the ever-present tension between objectivity and subjectivity in medical and cultural practices, and by the historically changing ways in which people with disabilities, caregivers, and physicians have grappled with such tension. I have written on the history of psychiatric and psychoanalytic approaches to homosexuality in my first book Private Practices: Harry Stack Sullivan, the Science of Homosexuality, and American Liberalism (Rutgers, 2011). My second monograph concerns Japanese American and Korean American survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, titled American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Cambridge, 2021). In this work, as well as in my co-authored book (with Shinpei Takeda) Hiroshima/Nagasaki Beyond the Ocean (Yururi Books, 2014), I have explored gender, racial, cross-national identities that emerged in Asia and Asian America in post-colonial contexts, and a range of grass-roots activism that took shape in response to the nuclear destruction: patient rights, civil rights, anti-war and -nuclear activism. I continue to be fascinated by personal experiences and memories of trauma, pain, and illness, and how they coexist and collide with social and cultural institutions. My current project is about the history of disability, archives, and literature in Asian American/Pacific Islander families and communities.
Education
- Ph.D., History (U.S. modern history), Indiana University, Bloomington. Minors: History and philosophy of science, European history of philanthropy
- M.A., History (U.S. modern history), Indiana University, Bloomington
- M.A., Education (Comparative history of education), Kyoto University, Japan
- B.A., Education (Comparative history of education), Kyoto University, Japan
Honors and Awards
- Barbara Rootenberg Short-term Research Fellowship in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences, UCLA Library Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, 2024–25.
- Dibner Research Fellow in the History of Science and Technology, The Huntington Library, 2018–19.
- Agnese N. Haury Travel Grant, Center for the United States and the Cold War, New York University, 2018–19.
- Wallis Annenberg Award, University of Southern California Libraries, 2018.
- Oral History Association Best Article Award, for “Surviving the Bomb in America: Silent Memories and the Rise of Cross-national Identity,” 2018.
- Science, Technology, & Society Grant, National Science Foundation, for “Knowledge from the Margins” (PI: Logan Williams, co-PIs Shobita Parthasarathy, Naoko Wake, and Kyle White), 2014–15.
- Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims Research Grant, Nagasaki, Japan, 2012–13.
- Research Travel within the United States Grant, Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, 2012.
Research
"Asian American Disability: History, Archives, Method," Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2o50XsBMFA
"American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Asian American/Asian Research Institute, The City University of New York. https://aaari.info/22-03-04wake/
“Naoko Wake American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” New Books in History. https://newbooksnetwork.com/american-survivors
“American Citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” C-SPAN. https://www.c-span.org/program/american-history-tv/american-citizens-in-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/400416
“Naoko Wake Collection of Oral Histories of US Survivors of the Atomic Bombs,” Densho Digital Repository. https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1021/
“Naoko Wake Collection of Oral Histories of US Survivors, Families, and Supporters,” G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University, East Lansing. https://d.lib.msu.edu/search?q=Naoko+Wake%2C+oral+history
Publications
Books
American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021, Paperback ed. 2023).
Hiroshima/Nagasaki Beyond the Ocean 海を越えたヒロシマナガサキ (co-authored with Shinpei Takeda) (Nagasaki, Japan: Yururi Books, 2014).
Private Practices: Harry Stack Sullivan, the Science of Homosexuality, and American Liberalism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011).
Articles
“Surviving the Bomb in Diaspora: Intergenerational Suffering and Justice Seeking among Korean Pihaeja,” American Historical Review Vol. 30, No. 3 (September 2025), co-authored with Michael R. Jin.
“Asian American Disability: A History and Its Archives,” Journal of American Ethnic History, editor of special issue “Asian American Disability,” Vol. 43, No. 3, 2024, pp. 5-33.
“A Long Road to Disability Compensation in Cold War America,” in Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific, edited by Elyssa Faison and Alison Fields (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2024), pp. 237-257.
“The ‘Hiroshima Maidens’ on Different Shores: De-centralizing Scarred Japanese Femininity in the A-bomb Victimhood,” Gender and History, Vol. 34, No. 1, March 2022, pp. 201-221.
“Lack of Empathy Takes the United States Deeper into the Second Cold War,” The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol. 18, Issue 14, No. 17 (July 2020). https://apjjf.org/2020/14/Wake
“Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis Meet at a Mental Hospital: An Early Institutional History,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol. 74, No. 1, January 2019, pp. 34-56.
“Surviving the Bomb in America: Silent Memories and the Rise of Cross-national Identity,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 3, August 2017, pp. 472-509.
Additional Articles and Media
Online Article: “Despite its Big Night at the Oscars, ’Oppenheimer’ is a Disappointment – and a Lost Opportunity," The Conversation, 2024.
Online Article: “Remembering Asian American Women Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Ms. Magazine, 2021.
Opinion Contribution: “76 Years after Hiroshima, American Survivors Remind Us All Wars Hit Home," The Hill, 2021.
Opinion Contribution: “Asian America’s Fear, Anger and Isolation is Rooted in US History,” The Hill, 2021.
Featured in: “Critics Say Omitting the Japanese Toll Makes ‘Oppenheimer’ ‘Morally Half-Formed,” L.A. Times, 2023.
Featured in: "The Overlooked American Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” TIME Magazine, 2021
Featured in: “Japanese-Americans Recount Their Personal Stories from Hiroshima,” The Wall Street Journal. 2016.