Akiko Takenaka teaches in the Department of History at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of "Architecture for Mass-Mobilization: The Chureito Memorial Construction Movement,1939-1945 ,” in Alan Tansman ed., The Culture of Japanese Fascism (Duke University Press, forthcoming). She is currently working on a book manuscript on the history and politics of Yasukuni Shrine (tentatively titled Yasukuni: Nationalism, Violence, Memory). She is a Japan Focus associate.