CV

Morgan Pitelka

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2022-present, Bernard L. Herman Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC)
2019-present, Chair, Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, UNC
2016-2022, Professor, Depts. of History and Asian Studies, UNC
2013-2019, Director, Carolina Asia Center, UNC
2011-2013, Director, Triangle Center for Japanese Studies, UNC
2010-2016, Associate Professor (with tenure), Dept. of Asian Studies, UNC
2008-2010, Chair, Asian Studies Dept., Occidental College
2007-2010, Associate Professor (with tenure), Occidental College
2001-2007, Luce Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, Occidental College

EDUCATION

2001, Princeton University, PhD, East Asian Studies Dept.
1998-99, Kyoto University, visiting researcher, Japanese History
1994, Oberlin College, BA, honors in East Asian Studies, history minor
1992-93, Associated Kyoto Program, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan

HONORS AND GRANTS

2023, International Convention of Asia Scholars, Longlist, Humanities Book Prize
2021, Honorable mention, William F. Sibley Memorial Award for Japanese Translation
2017-2018, Academic Leadership Program, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, UNC
2017, Faculty Fellowship, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, UNC
2016, Book Prize, Southeastern Conference of the Association of Asian Studies
2011-2012, National Humanities Center Fellowship
2012, Research Fellowship, Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program, UNC (declined)
2008-2010, Associate-in-Research, East Asian Studies Center, USC
2007-2008, NEH Fellowship
2004, Occidental College, Advisor of the Year Award
2001, Sainsbury Postdoctoral Fellowship, SOAS, University of London
1999-2000, Santokuan Fellowship
1998-99, Fulbright-IIE Grant
1998, Fulbright-Hays Grant (declined)
1998, Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship, Freer and Sackler Galleries
1997-1998, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS)
1994-95, Watson Fellowship (Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand)
1994, Honors in East Asian Studies, Oberlin College
1994, Phi Beta Kappa, Oberlin chapter

TEACHING

ASIA 63: First-Year Seminar: Japanese Tea Culture
JAPN 231/HIST 271: Ancient and Medieval Japanese History and Culture
JAPN 246/HIST 247: Early Modern Japanese History and Culture
JAPN 363/HIST 370: Samurai, Monks, and Pirates: History & Historiography of Japan’s Long Sixteenth Century
JAPN 451: Swords, Tea Bowls, and Woodblock Prints: Exploring Japanese Material Culture
HIST 720: Readings in Asian History
HIST 890: Material Culture and Material Histories
ASIA 725: Methods and Themes in Asian and Middle Eastern History

CURRENT GRADUATE STUDENTS

Mariko Azuma, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University, committee member
Jason Castro, M.A.-Ph.D. student, Department of History, UNC, co-advisor with Cemil Aydin
Sylvie Hack, M.A. student, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, UNC, advisor
Megan McClory, M.A.-Ph.D. student, Department of History, UNC, advisor
Maria Slautina, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton, committee member
Jim Sojourner, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, UNC, committee member
Dalvin Tsay, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, UNC, committee member
Morgan Wilson, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, UNC, co-advisor with Susan Pennybacker

PODCASTS

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan.Cambridge University Press, 2022. International Convention of Asia Scholars, Longlist, Humanities Book Prize.
Letters from Japan’s Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Correspondence of Warlords, Tea Masters, Zen Priests, and Aristocrats, with Reiko Tanimura and Takashi Masuda. University of California, Berkeley, IEAS Publications, 2021. Honorable mention, William F. Sibley Memorial Award for Japanese Translation.
Japanese Art: Critical and Primary Sources. Editor. 4 vols. Material Cultures; Visual Cultures; Printed Matter; and Sites and Patrons, Knowledge and Power. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Spectacular Accumulation: Material Culture, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Samurai Sociability. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016. Winner, 2016 Book Prize, Southeastern Conference of the Association of Asian Studies.
Kyoto Visual Culture in the Early Edo and Meiji Periods: The Arts of Reinvention. Coeditor with Alice Tseng. New York: Routledge, 2016.
What’s the Use of Art? Asian Visual and Material Culture in Context. Coeditor with Jan Mrazek. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005.
Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History, and Practice. Editor. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Selected essays

“Beyond the Momoyama Mythohistory: Situating Japan in Social and Global Contexts.” In Anton Schweizer and Mimi Yeungpraksawan, eds. Beyond the Southern Barbarians. Brill, under review.
“The Environmental and Material Foundations of Kyoto.” In Joshua Schlachet and William Hedberg, eds. Interdisciplinary Edo: New Perspectives on Early Modern Japan. Routledge, under review.
“The End of Civil War and the Formation of the Early Modern State in Japan.” In David L. Howell, ed., Early Modern Japan in Asia and the World, Volume 2 of The New Cambridge History of Japan. Cambridge University Press, 2024, 15-57.
“Defining Raku Ceramics: Translations, Elisions, Evolutions.” Ars Orientalis 53 (2023): 190-207.
“The Life and Afterlife of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616),” in Gary P. Leupp and De-min Tao, eds., The Tokugawa World (Routledge, 2021).
“Name and Fame: Material Objects as Authority, Security, and Legacy” in Mary Elizabeth Berry and Marcia Yonemoto, ed.,What is a Family? Answers from Early Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2019)
“The Return of Seduction,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 77.2 (2017): 153-163.
“Chinese Ceramics and Warrior Sociability in Sixteenth-Century Japan,” in Dora Ching, Louise Cort, and Andrew Watsky, ed. Around Chigusa: Tea and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton University Press, 2017.
“Form and Function: Tea Bowls and the Problem of Zen in Chanoyu,” in Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine, ed., Zen and Material Culture. Oxford University Press, 2017.
“Warriors, Tea, and Art in Premodern Japan.” Samurai: Beyond the Sword. Ed. Birgitta Augustin. Detroit Institute of Arts, 2014.
“The Tokugawa Storehouse: Ieyasu’s Encounters with Things.” Early Modern Things: Objects and their Histories, 1500-1800. Ed. Paula Findlen. London and New York: Routledge, 2013.
“Art, Agency, and Networks in the Career of Tokugawa Ieyasu.” Blackwell Companion to Asian Art. Ed. Deborah Hutton and Rebecca Brown. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
“The Empire of Things: Tokugawa Ieyasu’s Material Legacy and Cultural Profile.” Japanese Studies (May, 2009).
“A Raku Wastewater Container and the Problem of Monolithic Sincerity.” Impressions 30 (2008). In Japanese translation: “Raku no kensui to ichimaiwateki seijitsusei no mondaiten.” Bijutsu Forum 21 (2010).
“Introduction to the Early Modern Warrior Experience.” Early Modern Japan 16 (2008).
“Back to the Fundamentals: ‘Reproducing’ Rikyû and Chōjirō in Japanese Tea Culture.” In Rupert Cox, ed. The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Slightly altered and in Japanese translation: “Chanoyu ni okeru ‘utsushi’: dentō bunka no eizokuka” [Reproduction in Japanese Tea Culture: The Perpetuation of Traditional Culture]. Wabi: Chanoyu kenkyû 4 (2007).
“Tea Taste: Patronage and Collaboration among Tea Masters and Potters in Early Modern Japan.” Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Fall-Winter, 2004.
“Kinsei ni okeru Rakuyaki dentō no keisei” [The Structure of Tradition in Early Modern Raku Ceramics]. Nomura Bijutsukan kiyō (Spring, 2000).