Alistair Swale is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Following on from his earlier research in Japanese intellectual history, which culminated in the book The Meiji Restoration: Monarchism, Mass Communication and Conservative Revolution (2009), he has been exploring the role of contemporary popular culture texts in negotiating historical memory and nostalgia. In addition to the current work, he has more recently been working on aspects of interactive media and digital culture.