Laura L. Neitzel

Laura L. Neitzel

Research Interest

Modern Japanese history 

Laura Neitzel is a Senior Lecturer in History and Senior Fellow in Global Thought at Columbia. She is a historian of modern Japan whose research focuses on mass “danchi” housing and the reimagining of middle-class life and aspirations after World War II. She is the author of The Life We Longed For: Danchi Housing and the Middle Class Dream in Postwar Japan (MerwinAsia 2016).

Neitzel teaches undergraduate and Masters courses in Global Thought, including “Histories of the Global,” “Seminar in Global Thought: Inquiries Into an Interconnected World,” “Global 20: Youth in a Changing World,” and “Local/Global Worlds.” She has also offered courses in Japanese history, including “Japan in the World.” She codirects the “Youth in a Changing World” project of the Committee on Global Thought.