This event will be organized in three parts: the first will be a conventional book talk, where Matsumura will lay out the theoretical stakes and argument of her recently published monograph, Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan’s Empire. In addition to theoretical stakes and argument, she will discuss issues of archival destruction and recovery that she grappled with as she worked with a distinct set of documents, the Farm Household Surveys managed by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture. The second part, a conversation with discussant Mairead Hynes, will discuss the methodological and ethical issues that each scholar has grappled with in their projects. This discussion is an extension of many conversations that the two had during their times at Doshisha University and Kyoto University, respectively. The final part of this event invites attendees to share the lessons they have learned as scholars working in their respective fields on Japan/Asia, in a spirit of building spaces where we can not merely present our research findings, but where we can think through ethical, theoretical, and methodological challenges together.