CV

Morgan Pitelka

• Bernard L. Herman Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• Chair, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
• Professor, Department of History and Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Courses

• 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.
• Drisana Misra, Ph.D. candidate, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University, committee member.

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).