Special Initiatives

Environmental Studies

The UH Environmental Center Document Preservation Project has been awarded c. $35,000 in grant funds to digitize and make available online State of Hawai‘i Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) dating back to the 1970s. The project has been developed in partnership with the State of Hawai‘i Office of Environmental Quality Control Center, the UH Water Resources Research Center, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ Papakilo Database.  Reports have been made available via the OEQC and Papakilo Database websites. History’s Prof. Kieko Matteson is the PI on this project.

Empire Studies Initiative

“Studies of the Empire of Japan and Its Legacies: New Directions and New Perspectives” (“The Empire Studies Initiative”) is an educational and research initiative that seeks to make the campus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) a new platform for promoting study of the Empire of Japan and its legacies in the Asia-Pacific region. This initiative promotes, in particular, (1) international research and collaboration, (2) development of scholarly and public resources, and (3) cross-border exchange of scholarly knowledge and methods regarding the history of the Empire of Japan and its legacies in the twentieth century. In pursuit of its research and educational goals, this initiative draws upon the University of Hawaiʻi’s strengths as one of the world’s premier research institutions in the linked fields of Japanese, Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific studies, and especially the strengths of the University Library’s holdings of general library materials, archival sources, rare books, and other original historical documents relating to these regions.

“War and Society in Imperial Japan” (August 20-22, 2019) brochure: here
“Empires in Motion” (March 21-23, 2022) website: here

Hawaiian History

Hawaiian History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is focused on training graduate students to produce historical analysis that draws upon the vast Hawaiian language “archives” which has long been marginalized by scholars. Its goals are to provide open-access to primary source materials in Hawaiian and English for a broad public, but also to provide new historical insights into the field of Hawaiian and U.S. History and Hawaiʻi in the world, based out of these sources. We emphasize excellence in archival research, reading, and translation in Hawaiian and English. Themes we are currently focusing on in classes and in digital humanities projects are Hawaiian history and literature through the kanikau project, intellectual history, and Hawaiian governance and law.

History Forum & History Workshop

The Department of History hosts two ongoing series, History Forum and History Workshop, for talks and presentations by UH faculty and visiting scholars throughout the year. The series are also available for graduate students to present research and practice job talks.

Library Treasures Initiative

The University of Hawaiʻi Library is home to numerous unique collections that illuminate aspects of the history, arts, languages & literature, politics & society, law, economy, geography, medicine, botany, environment, and various other fields of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and technology relating to the peoples and countries across the globe. The Library Treasures Initiative, launched in Fall 2017, provides the University of Hawaiʻi with a new platform for showcasing our library’s collections, promoting student research, and inviting donor participation. It is co-sponsored by the College of Arts & Humanities and Hamilton Library, and funded by an anonymous donor of the library. For more information, visit: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/library/about/news/library-treasures/

War Crimes Documentation Initiative

“War Crimes Documentation Initiative” (WCDI) seeks to develop digital resources that provide comprehensive documentation of known instances of war crimes committed by the members of Japanese armed forces during World War II in Asia and the Pacific (1931-1945), by utilizing the latest geospatial mapping technologies and data science tools. This initiative is part of a much broader effort to establish on the University of Hawaiʻi campus a War Studies platform, whose purpose is to promote trans-Pacific research partnership and collaboration to enrich our knowledge of World War II and its enduring legacies to the present. For more information, visit https://manoa.hawaii.edu/wcdi/ or send an email to wcdi@hawaii.edu.