Hiroshima Peace Institute

INDEX

Researchers at the Hiroshima Peace Institute

 


Name: Robert A. Jacobs
Title: Associate Professor
Date of Birth: January 21, 1960
Specialization: Science and technology in American culture, history and culture of nuclear weapons and warfare, popular culture, peace studies, modern American history
Place of Birth: Miami, Florida, USA
Email: jacobs@peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp

 

Education

1993 B.A. (Independently designed), University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, USA
1995 M.A. (History), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
2004 Ph.D. (History), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

 

Professional Career

1994-1995 Teaching Assistant: Introduction to Modern American History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1995-1998 Research Assistant: Superconducting Super Collider Group, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Oct. 2005-

Dec. 2009

 Assistant Professor, Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University
Jan. 2010- Associate Professor, Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University

  

Publications
Books

  • The Dragon's Tail: Americans Face the Atomic Age (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010).


Edited Books

  • Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future: Art and Popular Culture Respond to the Bomb (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010).


Chapters in Books

  • "The Manhattan Project and the American Narrative of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Hiroshima and Peace (Hiroshima: Keisuisha Publishing, 2010), pp. 29-40.
  • "Nuclear Culture in Cold War America: Events and Impacts," Hiroshima and Peace (Hiroshima: Keisuisha Publishing, 2010), pp. 83-94.
  • "Dodging Dystopia: The Role of Nuclear Narratives in Averting Global Thermonuclear Warfare," in Antony Adolf, ed., Nonkilling History: Shaping Policy with Lessons from the Past (Honolulu: The Center for Global Nonviolence, 2010), pp. 219-236.
  • "Target Earth: The Origins of the Image of the Whole Earth in the Ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," in Robert Jacobs, ed., Filling the Hole in the Nuclear Future: Art and Popular Culture Respond to the Bomb (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 187-205.

 

Refereed Journal Articles

  • "The Psychological Bomb: The Relationship of the American Social Scientists to Nuclear Weapons in the Early Cold War," Peace and Change 35:3 (July 2010), pp. 434-463.
  • "Atomic Kid: Duck and Cover and Atomic Alert Teach American Children How to Survive Atomic Attack," Film and History 40:1 Visions of Science and Technology in Film Special Issue (Spring 2010), pp. 25-44.
  • "Reconstructing the Perpetrator's Soul By Reconstructing the Victim's Body: The Portrayal of the 'Hiroshima Maidens' by the Mainstream American Media," Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific 24 (June 2010): http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue24/jacobs.htm
  • "'There Are No Civilians, We Are All At War': Nuclear War Shelter and Survival Narratives During the Early Cold War," The Journal of American Culture 30:4 (December 2007), pp. 401-416.
  • "Good Bomb/Bad Bomb: Talking About Atomic Tests in Nevada," Interdisciplinary Humanities 24:1 (Spring 2007), pp. 65-82.
  • "Strategic Fallout: Dirty and Clean Weapons in the Cold War," Thematica 2, Illinois, U.S.A., 1995, pp. 25-56.


Non-Refereed Publications

  • "Perspective Essay: Atomic Bomb / Energy as Destructive Force," in Pop Culture Schools Database (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio), forthcoming 2011
  • "Backyard Bomb Shelters," in Alfred J. Andrea, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Vol. 21 (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio), forthcoming 2011.
  • "Destruction vs. The Peaceful Atom," in Alfred J. Andrea, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Vol. 21 (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio), forthcoming 2011.
  • "Anti-Nuclear Weaponry Protests," in Alfred J. Andrea, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Vol. 21 (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio), forthcoming 2011.
  • "No-Nukes Protests," in Alfred J. Andrea, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Vol. 21 (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio), forthcoming 2011.
  • "Your Child's Teeth Contain Strontium-90," in Alfred J. Andrea, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Vol. 21 (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio), forthcoming 2011.
  • "24 Hours After Hiroshima: National Geographic Channel Takes Up the Bomb," in The Asia-Pacific Journal, 47-2-10, November 22, 2010: http://japanfocus.org/-Robert-Jacobs/3446
  • "Hiroshima," in Ray Hutchinson, ed., Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications), 2009, pp. 357-8.
  • "President-elect Obama and US Nuclear Policy," in The Chugoku Shimbun Newspaper, November 9, 2008, p. 4.
  • "The Origins of the Image of the Whole Earth in the Hiroshima Bombing," in Hiroshima Research News 11:3 Hiroshima Peace Institute, March 2009, p. 6.
  • "The Origins of the Dirty Bomb: The U.S. Military and Radiological Weapons," in Hiroshima Research News, Vol.10, No.3, Hiroshima Peace Institute, March 2008, p. 6.
  • "Facing the Future in Iraq By Facing the Past," in Hiroshima Research News Vol.8 No.3, Hiroshima Peace Institute, March 2006, p. 3.

 

Conference Papers

  • "Architectures of Annihilation: The Logic of Building 'Japanese Houses' at the Nevada Test Site," presented to the Cold War Cultures Conference at the University of Texas, Austin, TX, September 2010.
  • "Nuclear Doomsday and the Origins of the Whole Earth," presented to the Society for Social Studies of Science Conference at Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan, August 2010.
  • "Neighbors As Enemies: Narratives of Community Violence in Fallout Shelters and During Nuclear War in Early Cold War America," presented to the Nordic Association of American Studies Conference at the University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, May 2009.
  • "Target Earth: Cartoon Images of Globalism in the Ashes of Hiroshima," presented to the British Association of American Studies Conference at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, April 2009.
  • "Atomic Familiars: Animal Guides to the Radioactive Landscape in Early Cold War America," presented to the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference, Western Australia School of Mines, Kalgoorlie, Australia, December 2008.
  • "Reconstructing the Perpetrator's Soul By Reconstructing the Victim's Body: The Hiroshima Maidens in the American Mind," presented to the Interrogating Trauma: Arts & Media Responses to Collective Suffering Conference, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, December 2008.
  • "Alone in the Flash: Duck and Cover and Atomic Alert," presented to the Film and History Conference, Chicago, IL, October 2008.
  • "Curing the Bomb: Social Scientists Analyze the Roots of Human Violence After Hiroshima," presented at the International Society for Universal Dialogue's Seventh World Congress in Hiroshima, Japan, June 2007.
  • "Radiation As a Cultural Talisman in Cold War Popular Culture," presented at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Joint National Conference, Boston, MA, April 2007.
  • "Good Bomb/Bad Bomb: American Nuclear Narratives During the Atmospheric Testing Era," presented at the International Committee for the History of Technology Conference, Leicester, United Kingdom, August 2006.
  • "Narratives of Survival Under Atomic Attack," presented at the Southwest Popular Culture Association Conference, Albuquerque, NM, February 2006.
  • "Sharing the Horizon with the Atomic Bomb," presented at the History of Science Society Conference, San Diego, CA, November 1997.
  • "The Atomic Egg: Nuclear Tests and the Radioactive Generation of Monsters and Aliens in Fifties Sci-Fi," presented at the Atomic Age Opens Conference, Bowling Green, OH, July 1995.
  • "The Atomic Café as Activist Art and Politics," presented at the Atomic Age Opens Conference at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, July 1995.
  • "Genetic Fallout: Geneticists and the AEC," presented at the Mephistos Conference on Science Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, April 1995.


Invited and Public Lectures

  • "US Nuclear Testing in the Pacific in Global Perspective," presented to the Nuclear Institute of the College of the Marshall Islands, Majuro, Marshall Islands, January 2011.
  • "Project Ichiban: Completing the ABCC Dose Reconstruction at the Nevada Test Site," presented as an invited speaker at Tokyo Institute of Technology, January 2011.
  • "American Nuclear Weapons," presented to the Peace Seminar at Hiroshima Jogakuin University in Hiroshima, Japan, August 2010.
  • "Americans and Nuclear Weapons at a Time of Declining Empire," presented as a panelist at the International Symposium, "What Should We do to Advance Nuclear Abolition?: Reflections on the 2010 NPT Review Conference," at the Hiroshima Peace Museum, Hiroshima, Japan, July 2010.
  • "Atomic Films: Documentaries and Propaganda Films of the 1950s," presented as part of the Hiroshima Peace Film Festival, Hiroshima Peace Museum, Japan, November 2009.
  • "The US Presidential Election and Nuclear Policy in Historical Perspective," presented during the Hiroshima Peace Institute Tenth Lecture Series for the Citizens of Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan, November 2008.
  • "Atomic Bombs in America," presented to the Peace Seminar at Hiroshima Jogakuin University, Hiroshima, Japan, August 2008.
  • "Survival in Ten Easy Graphics: An Iconographic Analysis of Civil Defense Pamphlet Art," presented to the Faculty in Art at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, December 2007.
  • "Lessons From Hiroshima," presented to the Japan-America Student Conference, Aster Plaza, Hiroshima, Japan, August 2007.
  • "American Hibakusha," presented to the Rotary Peace Forum, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan, October 2006.
  • "What Do Americans Think About the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Why," presented to a Hiroshima Peace Institute Research Forum, Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima, Japan, September 2006.
  • "Nuclear War Movies and Survivors in American Culture," presented during the Hiroshima Peace Institute Fifth Lecture Series for the Citizens of Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan, June 2006.
  • "The Alchemical Narrative: Nuclear Weapons and Social Transformation," presented to the Cold War Science and Technology Colloquium at Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA, February 2000.

 

Distinctions and Grants

  • 2008-2010 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Kaken-hi Grant for the Study of the Use of Information Gathered at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission to Design Plans for Radiological Warfare and for Troop Participation in Nuclear Tests in the United States
  • 2008-2011 Hiroshima City University President Designated Research Grant for the Comparative Study of American and Japanese Narratives of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  • 1995-1998 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Research Board Grant for study of the Superconducting Super Collider
  • 1994-1995 University of Illinois list of teachers ranked as excellent by their students
  • 1991 University of Minnesota Buchta Merit Award

 
Community Positions

  • 2009-present Peer Reviewer, University of Massachusette Press
  • 2008-present Board Member, Hiroshima Peace Film Festival
  • 2006-present Editorial Board Member, H-Peace Listserv, H-NET
  • 2006-present Book Review Editor, H-Peace Listserv, H-NET
  • 2006-present Speakers Bureau, Historians Against the War
  • 2006-present Core Faculty Member, Hiroshima and Peace Summer Intensive, Hiroshima City University
  • 2008 Peer Reviewer, Hiroshima Journal of International Studies
  • 2007 Advisor, Japan America Student Conference

 

Professional Memberships

  • American Culture Association
  • American Historical Association
  • Peace History Society
  • Popular Culture Association
  • The Society for the History of Technology
  • Society for Social Studies of Science