Emily Matson
Emily Matson
Professorial Lecturer
Part-time Faculty
Programs: MA International Affairs
Contact:
The Elliott School of International Affairs
Foggy Bottom Campus
1957 E Street, NW, 503S
Washington DC 20052
Emily Matson is a professorial lecturer of International Affairs at GWU's Elliott School. She is also a fellow in the third cohort of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations (2025), a Stephen M. Kellen term member on the Council on Foreign Relations, and a research affiliate at the University of Virginia's East Asia Center. She is a passionate historian and educator and has designed and taught a variety of courses in modern East Asian History at Georgetown University, American University, the College of William and Mary, and Randolph College.
Emily's first manuscript, "China's Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II," is under contract with the University of Michigan Press, China Understandings Today Series, to be published in June 2026: https://press.umich.edu/Books/C/China-s-Date-Debate3
Her research interests include Manchuria (东北), historical memory, museums, and World War II. Emily speaks/reads/writes fluent Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, professional Japanese, and intermediate Russian.
East Asian history, China, Korea, Japan, World War II, historical memory, Manchuria
Phi Beta Kappa
Stephen M. Kellen Term Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Non-Resident Fellow, University of Pennsylvania Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations
Manuscript (to be released in June 2026): China's Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II, University of Michigan Press, China Understandings Today Series
Doctor of Philosophy, University of Virginia
Master of Arts, University of Virginia
Bachelor of Arts, The College of William and Mary
IAFF 6318
2024. "Beyond a Site of Memory: The Puppet Emperor Palace Museum.” In Contesting Memorial Spaces of Japan’s Empire. Edited by Edward Boyle and Steven Ivings. Bloomsbury, SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan.
July 2024. From Victimhood to Victory: The Evolution of China's Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. Wilson Center Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
June 2024. "Complicity and Cold War Politics: The Long Shadow of Unit 731 in Sino-US Relations." Journal of American-East Asian Relations 31(2): 129-155. Theme Issue: Legacies of World War II and the Cold War in U.S.-East Asian Relations. Awarded “best article prize” at the 2025 Southeast Conference for the Association for Asian Studies
June 2024. “Reading Natsume Sōseki as a Historian of Twentieth-Century East Asia.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal.
July 2023. How China's leaders changed the history of the War of Resistance to bolster Party prestige. NuVoices.
May 2022. From Regional to National: Northeastern Scholars and the National Discourse on the War of Resistance against Japan. Published by the Wilson Center in 2021-2022 Wilson Center China Fellowship: Essays on U.S. and China Policy.
Winter 2022. “Empathy, Memory, and Teaching East Asia’s World War II.” Education about Asia 27(3): 62-65.
October 2021. Why it's misleading to call Xi Jinping the "New Mao." NuVoices.