Interdisciplinary historian of modern Japan
I am a doctoral researcher in the Department of History at the University of Zurich, Switzerland (Faculty page: EN / DE). I study the history of agricultural science in modern Japan and Taiwan, specifically looking at how premodern Confucian ideologies translate into the epistemology and politics of modern science, as well as how its legacies continue through empire into foreign aid today. You can read more about my project here.
In the past, I have also worked on the cultural history of contemporary Japan, including topics like the politics of contemporary art [1], ideologies of multiculturalism [1][2], Japanese popular culture [1][2], and the history of postwar Yokohama [1][2]. My theoretical interests include the philosophy of history and psychoanalysis.
I am a polyglot, and learning new languages and cultures is a joy. I speak fluent English, French, Chinese, and Japanese; I’m currently learning Italian and Classical Chinese/Japanese; and my German is somewhere in between.
On this website, you can find an abbreviated CV and PDF downloads of my publications. You can also catch my unhinged musings on Bluesky.
The above photo is from an Ansei 3 (1856) book titled "Collection of a Hundred Poems from the Pleasure District" 花街百人一首. I came across it while absentmindedly browsing through the Osaka municipal archives during my first visit to Japan.
The image to the left is from a postcard distributed at one of Nagasaki’s twentieth-century expositions. Regrettably, I cannot remember which.