PSU professor wins Oregon Book Award

Ken Ruoff, Portland State history professor and director of the PSU Center for Japanese Studies, received the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction on Monday, April 23 at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony.

“It’s extremely rare for an American scholar of Japanese history, society or culture to research and write in such a way that his work is equally welcomed and esteemed in both Japan and America,” said Laurence Kominz, PSU professor of Japanese language, literature and drama.

Ruoff was honored for his book, Imperial Japan at its Zenith, which examines Japan’s 1940 celebrations that commemorated a contrived national history focused on imperial ideology and expansion.

“In the case of this book, Ken is dealing with a topic that is very, very important, but which the Japanese haven’t wanted to touch for the past 60 years due to issues of political correctness,” Kominz said. “In a way, they are happy that a competent scholar is doing dirty work that has to be done so that they don’t have to do it—and doing it in such a way that the conclusions make sense to both them and a worldwide readership.”