Assistant Professor
Phone: 903.566.7371
Email: emilycole@uttyler.edu
Department: History
Emily Cole
- B.A., The University of North Texas
- M.A., The University of Oregon
- Ph.D., The University of Oregon
Emily E. Cole is a historian of modern Japan whose research explores photography, identity, and transnational connections in the twentieth century. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Oregon and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies.
Dr. Cole is completing her first book, Photographic Encounters in Postwar Japan, 1945–1955 (Lexington Books), which examines how Japanese photographers used the camera to pursue creative expression, forge national and international networks, and help shape Japan’s postwar identity. Anchored in the world of amateur photographers but attentive to professionals, editors, and transnational exchanges, Dr. Cole’s book argues that photography became a vibrant arena for community and creativity, representation and resistance, and negotiation of authority in a society remade by war and occupation.
Dr. Cole’s next project will link the histories of Japan, the U.S., and Latin America through a study of Japanese American and Japanese Latin American internment during World War Two. While scholarship on the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952) often treats the Occupiers as a homogenous group of Caucasian Americans, nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans served in military and civilian roles, many of whom had been forcibly relocated to internment camps during the war. At the same time, thousands of Japanese Peruvians were similarly relocated during the war to be used in prisoner of war exchanges. Most were rendered stateless after 1945 and yet drafted into U.S. military service during the Korean War and other conflicts. Their experiences raise complex questions about democracy, identity, and citizenship: what does it mean to serve in the military—citizen or not—and promote democratic ideals when just a short time prior you had been branded an enemy of the state? By uncovering these overlooked stories, Dr. Cole investigates how experiences of displacement and military service influenced discourses of identity, community, race, and power across national borders.
At the University of Texas at Tyler, Dr. Cole teaches courses in World History and East Asian History. She emphasizes the “everyday world” in her classroom, encouraging students to engage with the past through graphic novels, film, video games, food, and fashion. When not reading and writing about Japan and beyond, you can find Dr. Cole juggling, exploring the outdoors, reading science fiction, or making ice cream.