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About Me

I am a historian of premodern Japan and currently the Operations Leader of Japan Past & Present, a global information hub and repository that promotes research and teaching in the Japanese humanities across disciplinary, temporal, and geographic borders and a project of the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities at UCLA. My research focuses on metal caster organizations from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries and their relationships with elite institutions. I also work on documentary forgery production and socioeconomic networks during Japan’s late medieval period.

I am interested in digital humanities and the use of digital tools to analyze premodern historical sources. I manage and collaborate in several online projects, including the Digital Humanities Japan initiative; an online database for resources related to East Asia; the collection and visualization of job market data in East Asian Studies, and formerly the blog What can I do with a B.A. in Japanese Studies? and the digital archive Carving Community: The Landis-Hiroi Collection.

Recent Publications

Scholarly Articles

“The Materiality of Mokkan: Creating Sources for Reflection on Text in Ancient Japan.” In Teaching Japan: A Handbook. MHM Limited, 2024.

“On Kami and Avatars: Social Media Literacy and Academics as Public Intellectuals.” In Introduction to Digital Humanities – Religion, Vol. 6: Across Asia: Studying Religions Digitally. Eds. Cornelis van Lit and James Harry Morris, 257-287. Degruyter, 2023.

「海外における日本中世史研究の動向―若手研究者による研究と雇用の展望」 (The State of the Field for Medieval Japanese History Overseas: Research by Early Career Scholars and the Job Market). In『海外の日本中世史研究：「日本史」・自国史・外国史の交差』 (Overseas Research on Medieval Japanese History: the Intersection of “Japanese History” in Japan and Abroad). Eds. Xiaolong Huang and Yasufumi Horikawa, 101-115. Bensei Shuppan, 2023.

“Taking the Fight for Japan’s History Online: The Ramseyer Controversy and Social Media.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 19, no. 22:3. December 1, 2021.

“An Entrepreneurial Aristocrat: Matsugi Hisanao and the Forging of Imperial Service in Late Medieval Japan.” Monumenta Nipponica 75, no. 2 (2020): 241-279.

“An Entrepreneurial Aristocrat: Matsugi Hisanao and the Forging of Imperial Service in Late Medieval Japan.” Monumenta Nipponica 75, no. 2 (2020): 241-279.

Essays and Other Publications

“北米におけるデジタル・ヒューマニティーズと日本研究の現状：発展、協働、そして課題 (The State of Digital Humanities and Japanese Studies in North America: Developments, Collaborations, and Challenges).” Current Awareness Portal no. 356. June20, 2023.

“Recent Developments in Digital Japanese Studies.” International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter 92 (Summer).

“Bronze Bell.” Perspectives on History, The American Historical Association. February 24, 2022.

“Taking the Fight for Japan’s History Online.” Critical Asian Studies. October 12, 2021.

“Surveying Premodern Historians of Japan: Past, Present, and Future Directions of the Field.” #AsiaNow. June 21, 2021.

“Ramseyer and the Right-Wing Ecosystem Suffocating Japan.” Tokyo Review. May 30, 2021.

《巻頭言》「デジタル・シフトとデジタル日本研究の未来」 (The ‘Digital Shift’ and the Future of Digital Japanese Studies), 人文情報学月報 / Digital Humanities Monthly 115-1 (2021). [English version]

“Embracing the Rebirth of Japanese Studies.” #AsiaNow (Association for Asian Studies). May 18, 2020.

“Japan’s Once and Future Female Emperors.” Nursing Clio. Apr 30, 2019.

Translations

Itō Keisuke. “Why Were There No Severe Famines in Fourteenth-Century Japan? Social Change, Resilience, and Climatic Cooling.” Monumenta Nipponica 73, No. 2 (2019): 187-212. [Link]

Takagi Kiyoko. “Emperor Kōken,” “Emperor Shōtoku,” “Emperor Meishō,” “Emperor Go-Sakuramachi.” In Hachinin no jotei (The Eight Female Emperors of Japan: A Brief Introduction to their Lives and Legacies). Tokyo: Fuzambō International, 2005. Publication in English by Fuzambō International.

Reviews

Akiko Walley. Tekagami & Kyōgire. Ars Orientalis 52 (2023).

Sachiko Kawai. Uncertain Powers: Sen’yōmon-in and Landownership by Royal Women in Early Medieval Japan. Monumenta Nipponica 77:1 (2022).

William Wayne Farris. A Bowl for a Coin: A Commodity History of Japanese Tea. H-net Reviews (Feb 2021).

“Bodies and Structures.” Reviews in Digital Humanities 1, no. 10 (Oct 2020).

Media Coverage

Social Media

@paularcurtis

Country Focus

Japan

Expertise by Geography

Asia, East Asia, Japan

Expertise by Chronology

Medieval, Pre-17th century

Expertise by Topic

Economic History, Law, Politics