School of Humanities and Sciences


Showing 11-20 of 23 Results

  • Yoshiko Matsumoto

    Yoshiko Matsumoto

    Yamato Ichihashi Chair of Japanese History and Civilization and Professor, by courtesy, of Linguistics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsBased on in-depth analyses of Japanese with a cross-linguistic perspective, my research emphasizes the importance of linguistic and extralinguistic context in understanding the structure, meaning and use of language. I have worked on the pragmatics of linguistic constructions (e.g. frame semantics of noun-modifying construction, reference, honorifics, discourse markers) and sociocultural aspects of discourse (e.g. politeness theories, speech acts, bilingualism, intersection of language, gender and age, ideology, and identity reflected in Japanese as a second language). Topics of my current research center around conversational narratives especially of older adults and disaster survivors – (re)framing of narratives, ordinariness, stances taken by participants, integration of pragmatic factors in Construction Grammar, and typology and functions of noun-modifying constructions.

  • Yumi Moon

    Yumi Moon

    Associate Professor of History and, by courtesy, of East Asian Languages and Cultures

    BioI joined the department in 2006 after I completed my dissertation on the last phase of Korean reformist movements and the Japanese colonization of Korea between 1896 and 1910. In my dissertation, I revisited the identity of the pro-Japanese collaborators, called the Ilchinhoe, and highlighted the tensions between their populist orientation and the state-centered approach of the Japanese colonizers. Examining the Ilchinhoe’s reformist orientation and their dissolution by the Japanese authority led me to question what it meant to be collaborators during the period and what their tragic history tells us about empire as a political entity. I am currently working on a book manuscript centered on the theme of collaboration and empire, notably in relation to the recent revisionist assessments of empire. My next research will extend to the colonial period of Korea after the annexation and will examine what constituted colonial modernity in people’s everyday lives and whether the particulars of modernity were different in colonial and non-colonial situations. To explore these questions, I plan to look at the history of movie theaters in East Asia between 1890 and 1945, a subject which will allow me to study the interactions between the colonial authority, capitalists and consumers, as well as to look at the circulation of movies as consumed texts.

  • Thomas Mullaney

    Thomas Mullaney

    Professor of History and, by courtesy, of East Asian Languages and Cultures

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History and Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, by courtesy. He is also the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress, and a Guggenheim Fellow.

    He is the author or lead editor of 7 books, including The Chinese Typewriter (winner of the Fairbank prize), Your Computer is on Fire, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China, and the forthcoming The Chinese Computer—the first comprehensive history of Chinese-language computing.

    His writings have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and his work has been featured in the LA Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and more. He holds a PhD from Columbia University.

  • James Reichert

    James Reichert

    Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures

    BioJames Reichert is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. He has previously published In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality in Meiji Literature (Stanford University Press, 2006). His forthcoming book, Literature for the Masses: Japanese Period Fiction, 1913-1941 (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025), explores popular adventure tales about premodern swordsmen. He has also written on prewar Japanese detective fiction, silent Japanese film, Edo-period books, Boys’ Love comics, and Japanese Romanticism.

  • Gi-Wook Shin

    Gi-Wook Shin

    William J. Perry Professor, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of East Asian Languages and Cultures

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsKorean democratization; Korean nationalism; U.S.-Korea relations; North Korean politics; reconciliation and cooperation in Northeast Asia; global talent; multiculturalism; inter-Korean relations

  • Ariel Stilerman

    Ariel Stilerman

    Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures

    BioMy research examines the transformation of courtly literary and artistic practices into broader cultural forces across diverse social spaces.

    My first book in English, Court Poetry and the Culture of Learning in Japan (Harvard Asia Center, 2025), traces the evolution of waka poetry as it embraced a wider base of practitioners. Initially the purview of the aristocracy, waka gradually engaged military and priestly elites, then lower-ranking monks and warriors, and eventually urban merchants. As waka became a shared cultural language, its form and content were reshaped to reflect new social priorities. When its significance waned amid the cultural reforms of the 19th century, the tea ceremony evolved to assume its role as a gateway into traditional culture.

    My second project, Meet the People Who Built Japan: The Culture of Work in Early Medieval Japanese Literature, explores discourses on technology, community, and affect in connection to the lives of working people. It examines poems in which aristocrats imagine themselves as workers, illustrated tales that bring crafting communities to life, and long-form narratives that reframe violence as a professional pursuit.

    My broader interests include the tea ceremony, psychoanalysis, design, and critical making.

    I welcome proposals on classical, medieval, and early modern literature and culture through the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, as well as transdisciplinary projects through the Program in Modern Thought and Literature.

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    Investigador, traductor y docente en literatura japonesa. Máster en estudios japoneses por la Escuela de Estudios Orientales y Africanos (Universidad de Londres) y en literatura clásica japonesa por la Universidad de Waseda, y doctor en literatura japonesa por la Universidad de Columbia. También egresado del programa del arte del té Urasenke Midorikai (Kioto).

    Docente en las universidades de Columbia, del Estado de Florida y, actualmente, de Stanford. Miembro del comité académico del Instituto Superior de Estudios Japoneses de Buenos Aires.

    Entre sus publicaciones se encuentran Los cien poemas del arte del té (Madrid: Satori, 2022), El archipiélago: Ensayos para una historia cultural de Japón., ed. con Paula Hoyos Hattori (Buenos Aires: Lomo, 2018), y Poema a tres voces de Minase (Madrid: Sexto Piso, 2016).

    Cada año, su seminario de literatura japonesa premoderna ofrece a los estudiantes de maestría y de doctorado entrenamiento en japonés clásico, sino-japonés y paleografía. Cursos para estudiantes de grado incluyen Belleza y Renunciamiento (sobre literatura clásica, con docentes de Medio Oriente, Europa e India), Objetos Funcionales Japoneses (tecnología y estética, con docentes de Ingeniería Mecánica y Física), y La Cultura del Té en Japón.

  • Chao Sun

    Chao Sun

    Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and, by courtesy, of Linguistics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy primary research interest is in Chinese linguistics studying how linguistic forms and meanings vary systematically in different socio-cultural contexts in modern Chinese languages. My other works concern with morphosyntactic changes in the history of Chinese and pedagogical grammar in teaching Chinese as Second Language.

  • Melinda Takeuchi

    Melinda Takeuchi

    Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Emerita

    Current Research and Scholarly Interestshorse culture of Japan.