Benjamin Hiramatsu Ireland, Ph.D.
b.ireland@tcu.edu817-257-6356Scharbauer Hall 3207
Program Affiliations
Education
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
MBA, The Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University
ECHE, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education
J.D. Candidate, University of Hawaiʻi, William S. Richardson School of Law
B.A., Davidson College
Biography
Dr. Benjamin Hiramatsu Ireland is Associate Professor and Coordinator of French Studies. He currently serves as Director of Asian Studies at Texas Christian University, where he also holds an academic affiliation with the John V. Roach Honors College. His interdisciplinary scholarship examines the intersections of the French Pacific, Japanese diaspora, colonialism, and global history through transnational and comparative perspectives.
Raised in Kurashiki, Japan, and New Orleans, Louisiana, Dr. Ireland's academic and professional training spans the humanities, business, and law. He earned his Ph.D. in French from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, later completing an MBA at TCU's Neeley School of Business and Harvard University's Executive Certificate in Higher Education Leadership (ECHE), where he developed expertise in strategic leadership and executive financial management. He is currently pursuing a J.D. at the University of Hawaiʻi William S. Richardson School of Law.
At TCU, Dr. Ireland teaches French and Japanese language and culture courses, including all levels of the Japanese curriculum and upper-division interdisciplinary seminars. Beyond the classroom, he has led initiatives across the AddRan College of Liberal Arts, having created new pathways for undergraduate learning and research in Europe and the Asia Pacific.
Dr. Ireland is the author of Voices Beyond the Grave: Japanese Internment in the French Pacific (University of Hawaiʻi Press). His scholarship, integrating archival, literary, linguistic, historical, and financial perspectives, has appeared in leading journals across the humanities and social sciences. He is currently completing a second book manuscript exploring Franco-Japanese countercultures in the postwar period while continuing his international humanitarian initiative.
Beyond his scholarship, Dr. Ireland is committed to mission-centered leadership in higher education. His professional philosophy is grounded in principled governance, responsible stewardship, and systems thinking in service of the communities that universities are privileged to serve.
Courses Taught
Asia and French Empire: Postcolonial Indochina, Oceania, and Postwar Japan
Race, Death, and Photography: Visual Culture of the Holocaust and the Algerian War
Carceral Visualities: Critical Theory Seminar on Transnational Violence
Islands and Archipelagoes: Environmental Politics
Paris-Tokyo: Literary and Cinematic Visions
Asia in Francophone Societies: Postcolonial Vietnam to Postmodern Japan
Identity: Friendship, Love, and Deception in French Literature (Premodern to Modern
Literature)
Introduction to French Literature
Advanced French Composition
Introduction to French Composition
Advanced French Grammar and Contemporary France
Early Advanced French through Film
Intermediate French through Film
Intensive Review of Elementary French
Elementary French
Elementary Japanese Language
Late Intermediate Japanese Language
Advanced Japanese Language
Introduction to University Life
For a more comprehensive bibliography, please see my CV.
- “From the Asia Pacific to Algeria: Carceral Memories of Japanese and North African Internment” at the Prisoners of the Asia-Pacific War: History, Memory, and Forgetting International Symposium, Kyoto, Japan, February 7, 2023.
- “Hauntological Utopias and Literary Indigeneity: Tahiti and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)” at the International Multidisciplinary Symposium (Utopia and Migration: Renewing the Imagination of Borders in the 21st Century), Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, Oxford University; Oxford, UK. 2021.
- “Rage against Nuclear N/Oceans: Chantal Spitz and Henri Hiro’s Poetic Voices in French Polynesia.” International conference sponsored by the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, Cambridge University; Cambridge, UK. 2020.
- “Roland Barthes’s Rendez-vous sans paroles.” Kyushu University. International conference sponsored by the Department of French Literature. Fukuoka, Japan. 2019.
- “The Pacific Islands: Environmental Activism and the American University.” AddRan Back-to-Class Public Event. Texas Christian University. Fort Worth. 2019.
- “The Japanese of New Caledonia: Mixed Race Histories of Ethnocide in the French Pacific and Australia.” Asian Studies Association of Australia. University of Sydney, Australia. 2018.
- “Mixed Race Poetics of the Francophone Indian Ocean: Afrasian Animal-Maroons.” MLA Convention. New York City, New York. 2018.
- “East Asian Diasporas in Francophone Oceania: Vanishing Ethnicities, Preserving Voices.” MLA Convention. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2017.
- “Ook Chung’s Kimchi: Foodways in the Francophone Nippo-Korean Novel.” Appetites: Discourses of Consumption. University of Michigan Comparative Literature Conference. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 2016.
Last Updated: August 08, 2026