Dr. Greg Dvorak is Professor of International Cultural Studies (History and Cultural Studies, Art Studies, Gender Studies of Pacific and Asia) at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he is based in both the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies (GSICCS) and the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS). Born in Philadelphia, USA, but with a personal background of growing up, studying, and working between the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Japan, the United States, and Australia, his research and teaching focus is on Japanese and American postcolonial histories in Oceania, with an emphasis on transoceanic intersections of art, gender, and militarism in popular culture. He completed his MA at the University of Hawai'i (2002) and his PhD at the Australian National University (2008), with a concentration in Pacific Islands History. He has published in academic publications such as The Contemporary Pacific Journal, Journal of Pacific History, Critical Ethnic Studies, and American Quarterly, and also written for popular culture and art publications such as E-Flux Journal, the acclaimed international culture magazine COLORS, and the subjective guide to Tokyo, Tokyo Totem. In addition to authoring several scholarly chapters in academic edited volumes, his own monograph, Coral and Concrete: Remembering Kwajalein Atoll between Japan, America, and the Marshall Islands was published by University of Hawai'i Press in 2018 and reprinted in paperback in 2020. He also appears on television programs from time to time as a commentator and gives talks on postcolonial resistance and art in Oceania. Dvorak is the founding director of project35 (projectsango), a grassroots network that aims to raise awareness about the Pacific Islands region in Japan through art and scholarly exchange. As part of this initiative, he has been collaborating with local artists and researching/helping to curate art from Oceania, especially from Micronesia and areas that have been most impacted by Japanese and American colonialism. He was a key member of the Honolulu Biennial Curatorial Advisory Board in 2017. In 2019 he also conceived, curated, and coordinated a special program at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival entitled "AM/NESIA: Forgotten 'Archipelagos' of Oceania," undertaking a curatorial residency at the Bellas Artes Foundation in the Philippines in the same year. In conjunction with this work examining the intersections between art, identity, science, and scholarship, he was awarded a three-year grant by the Japanese government (kakenhi) to study how indigenous artists from Oceania resist and decolonize through global art channels. Based on this research, he served as the co-curator of the "Air Canoe" exhibit in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Gallery of Art in 2021-2022. At Waseda, he teaches a suite of history/gender studies/area studies/transnational culture undergraduate courses based in Pacific Islands Studies (Transoceania 1: Pacific Perspectives on Empire, War, and Globalization and Transoceania 2: The Pacific in the 21st Century World) every year. He also teaches a core culture and identity course on gender studies every spring semester. In addition to these courses, he teaches an advanced seminar in cultural studies and self-reflexive feminist approaches to selected topics. At the graduate level, he supervises a cohort of doctoral and masters students in a wide range of cultural studies topics, and coordinates the culture study plan. In 2020, he was awarded the prestigious Waseda University e-Teaching Award for Good Practice for his innovative teaching methods. Forthcoming publications include a chapter in The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean, Part 2, as well as two chapters in the Japanese publication Oceania Bunka Jiten (Cultural Encyclopedia of Oceania) from Maruzen Press, both slated for publication in late 2022-early 2023.
