Simon Avenell is Professor in the School of Culture, History, and Language and Director of the Japan Institute at the Australian National University. He specialises in modern Japanese history, postwar Japanese society and politics (1945-present), civil society, social movements, and the history of ideas. His has published in major Japan and area studies journals such as The Journal of Japanese Studies, positions: east asia cultures critique, Social Science Japan Journal, Environmental History, and Modern Asian Studies.  He has four single-authored books: Making Japanese Citizens: Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japan (University of California Press, 2010) a history of civic thought, social activism, and civil society in postwar Japan; Transnational Japan in the Global Environmental Movement (University of Hawaii Press, 2017), an exploration of Japanese activists role in environmental movements worldwide from the 1960s onwards; Asia and Postwar Japan: Deimperialization, Civic Activism, and National Identity (Harvard Asia Center, 2022), which traces Japan’s complicated reengagement with Asia after colonial empire and militarism, and A History of Postwar Japan: Recovery, Prosperity, and Transformation (University of Hawaii Press, 2025), which tells the epic story of Japan from 1945 to the present. He previously served as Director of the ANU Japan Institute from 2014 to 2016 and as Associate Dean (Higher Degrees by Research) 2016-2022 in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific. He is currently researching the history of youth, aging, and generation in contemporary Japan. For more information see: https://savenell.wordpress.com/.