Vanessa Ward is a professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand.  She specialises in modern Japanese history, with a special interest in post-WWII Japanese intellectual life and publishing culture. She is currently researching the thought and contribution of a Japanese woman to intellectual life in the 1950s, and the history of a Japanese pacifist text. In recent publications she has explored the representation of leftist intellectuals and publishing culture in 1990s neo-nationalist discourse. For more details, see the University of Otago website.  She is a Japan Focus associate.