Aoki Shin

I have been conducting research on transpacific histories and memories of popular music and entertainment in the 20th century. Most of my works were published in Japanese, one of which was a historical ethnography on cultural contacts around U.S. military bases in postwar Japan, entitled Meguriau Monotachi no Gunzo: Sengo Nihon no Beigun Kichi to Ongaku 1945-1958 (Otsuki Shoten Publishing, 2013). My article in English is “Singing Exoticism: A Historical Anthropology of G.I. songs “China Night” and “Japanese Rumba,” The Journal of American History, Vol.103 No. 4, 2017, and I have continued tracing the trajectories of the Japanese song “Shina no Yoru/China Nights” across the Pacific, specifically focusing on its various cover versions in the 1950s to the 1960s. In recent years, I have started new research project delving into hidden histories of Japanese acrobats among American circuses and vaudeville shows in the early 20th century.