E. Taylor Atkins

E. Taylor Atkins is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. Hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas, he has traveled extensively to Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Germany. His first book, Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (2001) won the 2003 John Whitney Hall Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, for best book about Japan or Korea. All author proceeds from his book Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945 are donated to the Tahirih Justice Center (www.tahirih.org), which arranges pro-bono legal, medical, and social services for immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence. A second edition of his 2017 book A History of Popular Culture in Japan, From the Seventeenth Century to the Present was published in 2022. Taylor is a member of the Bahá'í Faith (www.bahai.org) and plays bass and baritone 'ukulele for the Wild Blue 'Ukulele Orchestra and the Aseda reggae band.