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, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (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

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

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Jason Castro, M.A.-Ph.D. student, Department of History, UNC, co-advisor with Cemil Aydin
Megan McClory, M.A.-Ph.D. student, Department of History, UNC, advisor.
Sophie Eichelberger, M.A. student, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, UNC, advisor.
Sylvie Hack, M.A. student, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, UNC, advisor.
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.

VIDEO

2022, Arizona State University, “Daily Life in a Medieval (Japanese) City”
2022, Seattle Urasenke Tankokai, Seattle Asian Art Museum, “The Way of Tea: Tradition and Innovation in a Changing World” (“Teabowl Truths in Chanoyu” from 56:47-1:12:35)
2022, JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles, “The Ceramics of Mino”
2022, Carolina Public Humanities, “The Global Relevance of Japan”
2022, Autonomous University of Barcelona, “The Reception of Korean Ceramics in Japan (1537-1647),” a resource for the online exhibition “Stories of Clay: Discovering Choson Korean Potters in Tokugawa Japan“
2021, Alfred University, "The Social Life of Raku Teabowls," part of the conference "Path of the Teabowl"
2021, Ackland Art Museum, “Valuable Vessels I: An Oribe Dish from Japan“
2021, Joan B. Mirviss Japanese Fine Art, “Tea as Context: Treasuring Ceramics,” (Raku ceramics from 33:50-43:30 and 1:10:13-1:18:33)
2020, Carolina Public Humanities, Virtual Happy Hour, “Monasteries and Mountaintops: Religious Traditions of Solitude,” (eremitic traditions in China and Japan from 4:40-15:23)
2020, University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, “Reading Medieval Ruins: A Material History of Urban Life in 16th-Century Japan“
2018, Durham Tech Global Distinction program, “Tokugawa Japan’s Floating World“
2018, Durham Tech Global Distinction program, “Japan’s Modern Revolution: The Meiji Restoration and Japanese Modernity“
2017, Ishibashi Foundation Keynote Lecture, Kyushu National Museum, “Individuals, Objects, and Networks in the History of Japanese Tea Culture“

PODCASTS

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan.Cambridge University Press, 2022.
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.
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

“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).