Dr. Jason Petrulis is a historian of global capitalism, broadly conceived to include empire, war, culture, politics, and racism and race-making, especially across the US and Asia.

His book in progress, Wig: A Global History, 1958-1979, uses a curious commodity as a lens on Asian industrialization. Wig draws on archival, library, and field research at sites from India and Hong Kong to the US, Singapore, and South Korea. “ ‘A Country of Hair’: A Global Story of South Korean Wigs, Korean American Entrepreneurs, African American Hairstyles, and Cold War Industrialization,” based on this research, was awarded the Philip Scranton “Best Article” prize and also Honorable Mention for the Mira Wilkins prize for best article in international/comparative history. A second article, “Making a global beauty business: the rise and fall of Hong Kong wigs in the 1960s,” examines postwar industrialization in Hong Kong.

He is also working on a project on Black performances and performances of “Blackness” connected with the US Navy’s expedition to Japan (1853-54). An article from the project, “From Jonkonnu and Son de los diablos to Congo Square and Son Jarocho: Global Histories of the Jawbone/Quijada as a Black Musical Instrument,” was awarded Honorable Mention for the Frances Densmore Prize. A second article, “What the Perry Expedition’s artists saw, and chose not to see, in Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, 1853-1854,” appeared in the catalog for an exhibition at the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History.