core faculty

Gregory M. Pflugfelder

Gregory Pflugfelder

Associate Professor

Office: 408 Kent Hall
Office Hours: R 4:00-5:30 or by appointment
Phone: (212) 854-5035
Email: gmp12@columbia.edu

Educational Background

AB: Harvard University (’81)
MA: Waseda University (’84)
PhD: Stanford University (’96)

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1361 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: Japan
HSEA UN3871 Modern Japan: Images and Words
HSEA GR6009 Graduate Colloquium on Early Modern Japan

Research Interests

Early-Modern and Modern Japanese History, Gender, Sexuality, Visual Culture

Gregory Pflugfelder specializes in Japanese history and gender studies. He received his A.B. from Harvard, his M.A. from Waseda, and his Ph.D. from Stanford. His books include Seiji to daidokoro: Akita-ken joshi sanseiken undôshi (Politics and the kitchen: a history of the women’s suffrage movement in Akita prefecture), which received the 1986 Yamakawa Kikue Prize, and Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950. His current work engages the the historical construction of masculinities, the history of the body, and representations of monstrosity.

Selected Publications

“The Nation-State, the Age/Gender System, and the Reconstitution of Erotic Desire in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies (2012)

Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950 (University of California, 1999)

JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan’s Animal Life (co-editor, University of Michigan, 2005)

 

David Max Moerman

moermanD. Max Moerman

Professor, Chair of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College

Office: 303 Milbank
Office Hours: W 4:00-6:00 and by appointment
Phone: (212) 854-5540
Email: dm438@columbia.edu

Educational Background

AB: Columbia College (’86)
PhD: Stanford University (’99)

Classes Taught

AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
RELI GU4611 The Lotus Sutra

Research Interests

East Asian Buddhism, Visual and Material Culture of Japanese Religions

D. Max Moerman is Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures. He is Co-Chair of the Columbia University Seminar in Buddhist Studies and an Associate Director of the Columbia Center for Buddhism and Asian Religions. He holds an A.B. from Columbia College and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests are in the visual and material culture of Japanese religions. His current book project, Geographies of the Imagination: Buddhism and the Japanese World Map, is under contract with the Harvard University Asia Center.

Selected Publications

“The Buddha and the Bathwater: Defilement and Enlightenment in the Arima Engi,”
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (2015)

“Demonology and Eroticism: Islands of Women in the Japanese Buddhist Imagination,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (2009)

Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2005)

David Lurie

lurieDavid Lurie

Associate Professor

Office: 500C Kent
Office Hours: T 2:00-3:00, R 11:00-12:00
Phone: (212) 854-5316
Email: dbl11@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Harvard University (’93)
MA: Columbia University (’96)
PhD: Columbia University (’01)

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1361 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: Japan
CPLS GU4111 World Philology
HSEA GR9875 Graduate Seminar in the Cultural History of Premodern Japan

Research Interests

Japanese History and Literature, Technology of Language in Premodern Japan

In addition to the history of writing systems and literacy, David Lurie’s research interests include: the literary and cultural history of premodern Japan; the Japanese reception of Chinese literary, historical, and technical writings; the development of Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias; and the history of linguistic thought. Professor Lurie’s first book investigated the development of writing systems in Japan through the Heian period. Entitled Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing, it was awarded the Lionel Trilling Award in 2012. He is currently preparing a new scholarly monograph, tentatively entitled The Emperor’s Dreams: Reading Japanese Mythology. Along with Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, he was co-editor of the Cambridge History of Japanese Literature (2015), to which he contributed chapters on myths, histories, gazetteers, and early literature in general.

Please see his website for a complete list of publications and contributions.

Selected Publications

Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing (Harvard University Asia Center, 2011)

“The Development of Japanese Writing,” in The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change (SAR Press, 2012)

“Language, Writing, and Disciplinarity in the Critique of the ‘Ideographic Myth,’” Language & Communication (2006)