In Moral Nation: Modern Japan and Narcotics in Global History, Professor Kingsberg examines illegal drugs as the foundation of a global consensus on the nature of political legitimacy in nations and empires. She provides “in-depth understanding of how Japan’s experience with narcotics influenced global standards for sovereignty and shifted the aim of nation building, making it no longer a strictly political activity but also a moral obligation to society.” Specializing in the history of modern Japan, Kingsberg has focused recently on the anthropology, archaeology and national identity of 20th-century Japan and the world. In 2010–12, she was an academy scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She won a Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies for her current book project, provisionally titled Japan’s Midwar Generation: Anthropologists and Nation in the 20th Century. She will spend the 2014–15 academic year working on her research as a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City.
