Kristin Roebuck

Assistant Professor & Howard Milstein Faculty Fellow

455 McGraw Hall
kar79@cornell.edu
607/255-8862

Education

PhD, MPhil, and MA in East Asian History, Columbia University

BA in History, Barnard College

Waseda University Graduate School of Political Science and Economics, Exchange Researcher

Departments and programs

Asian Studies
Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program
History

Affiliated Colleges

College of Arts and Sciences

Academic interests

Empires and Colonialism
Gender and Sexuality
History of Science and Medicine
Legal and Constitutional
Migration and Citizenship
Race and Ethnicity

Keywords

history of the body, medicine, and law; race and sexuality; slavery; Japanese international relations

Research Focus

Kristin Roebuck is an historian of modern Japan whose research interests encompass the history of the body, medicine and law, race and gender, trafficking and enslavement, and war and international relations.

Publications

Scholarship

Japan Reborn: Race, Sex and Eugenics from World War to Cold War. Under contract, Columbia University Press.

"Science without Borders? War, Empire, and the Contested Science of 'Race Mixing' in Japan, East Asia, and the West." In Who Is the Asianist? The Politics of Representation in Asian Studies, eds. Will Bridges, Nitasha Tamar Sharma, and Marvin D. Sterling (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022).

"Remember Girl Zero: Asia-Pacific Patriliny and Female Slavery." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies Vol. 81.1&2 (June–Dec. 2021).

“Orphans by Design: ‘Mixed-Blood’ Children, Child Welfare, and Racial Nationalism in Postwar Japan.” Japanese Studies Vol. 36.2 (Sep. 2016).

“De-Provincializing Eugenics: The Persistence of ‘Race Hygiene’ in Japan after Its Decline in the West.” In Asia and Africa across Disciplinary and National Lines (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Press, 2015).

Mass Media

"Princess Mako of Japan's Commoner Wedding Suggests Sexism Will Doom the Royal Family." NBC News (31 Oct. 2021).

"Akihito Bows Out, Ushering in New Era for Japan's Post-War Generation." The Hill (30 April 2019).

"Japan, U.S. Face Legacies of Forced Sterilization." Global Journalist, National Public Radio (25 Oct. 2018).