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Humanities Division
History Department
Instructor
Faculty
Cowell College
Adjunct Faculty
Humanities Building 1
535
Cowell 242
In Person: HUM 1, Rm. 535, Wednesdays, 5:00-6:00pm / Zoom Office Hours Available Upon Request
Cowell College
PhD in East Asian History (2024)
I'm broadly interested in the intersections of the supernatural and media in modern Japan. I am interested in things like the relationship of feng shui, rumour, and radio projects in Okinawa, the occult history of the Japanese post office, and the relationship of Japanese native ethnography, yokai, and early Japanese encyclopediae.
I am also a Director of Research and Curricular Development for the Okinawa Memories Initiative.
Research Keywords: East Asia; Modern Japanese history; Media studies; Monsters, Yokai, and the Supernatural; Folklore; Minzokugaku;
2024 Hosei University International Foreign Scholars Fellowship
1,800,000 JPY, Hosei University
2022-2023 Okinawa Memories Initiative Dissertation Writing Fellowship
24,000 USD, University of California, Santa Cruz
2022 History Department Dissertation Sabbatical Fellowship
8000 USD, University of California, Santa Cruz
2020-2021 Visiting Researcher Fellowship
3,600,000 JPY, Kokugakuin University
2021 History Department Summer Research Fellowship,
2000 USD, University of California, Santa Cruz
2019 Toshiba International Foundation Summer Fellowship
800,000 JPY, Toshiba Foundation
2019-20 Nippon Foundation Fellowship
28,000 USD tuition, 1,365,000 JPY; Inter-University Center for Japanese Studies
2019-20 IUC Alumni Scholarship
5000 USD tuition, Inter-University Center for Japanese Studies
2019 The Humanities Institute Summer Research Fellowship
2500 USD, University of California, Santa Cruz
2018 Social Science Research Council Dissertation Development Program
5000 USD, Social Science Research Council and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
2017 The Middle Ages in the Wider World Research Grant
2100 USD, University of California, Berkeley
2016 Regents’ Fellowship
12,000 USD, University of California, Santa Cruz
2015 Kadokawa Culture Promotion Media-Content Research Project
132,000 JPY, University of Tokyo
2025 “Yokai: An Introduction to the Monsters of Everyday Life,” introductory articleand guest editor for special issue on “Yokai” in The Journal of Gods and Monsters. Forthcoming December 2025.
2023 “(Re)Making the Monsters of Everyday Life: Minakata, Minzokugaku, and Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi,” in Anime, Philosophy, and Religion, ed. Bill Anderson (Vernon Press), 99-115.
2022 “Supernatural Snow Stories: Some Notes on Suzuki Bokushi’s Hokuetsu Seppu and Regional Identity in Echigo,” 「雪、妖怪、ゆるキャラ ― 北越雪譜と越後のアイデンティティについて―」, English and Japanese, in「見えざるものをカタル」[Speaking of the Unseen] (Kokugakuin UP), 35-49.
2021 “The 50th Anniversary of the Koza Uprising,” Public History Weekly, 9 (2021) 6, DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2021-18602
2021 “Pokémon, Yo-Kai Watch, Yuru Kyara: Economies of Friendship and Ethnography at Play,” REPLAYING JAPAN, Vol. 3, Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies. DOI: http://doi.org/10.34382/00014540
Modern Japanese History: The State and the People
Monsters, Media, and the History of the Supernatural in Modern Japan
History and Memory in the Okinawan Islands
Re-Imagining Samurai and Society in Tokugawa Japan
Dungeons, Dragons, and Yokai: Transnational Japanese Fantasy
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