Ellen’s History Lab

PhD Dissertation Mentorship

With former colleagues Jeff Kurashige and Carey Benom,
alongside the first IMAP cohort (2011)

A. E., “Assembling Dazaifu: Society, Politics, and Space in a Gate-Front Town during the Bakumatsu Period” (幕末太宰府の生成変化に関する基礎的研究)

T. K., “The History of Budō 武道: Its Ethical, Religious, Intellectual and Aesthetic Evaluation in Transition”

J. R., “Eiketsu 英傑: The Making of Bakumatsu Heroes”

MA Thesis Mentorship

Ongoing
Z. J., “Vessel of Vestiges: Investigating Kamuiyaki Ware within New Frameworks of Ryukyu History”

2025
‍ ‍D. W., “Contextualizing the Phaeton Incident: Incursions into Japanese Waters in the Late Edo Period”

2024
T. C., “Timeless Tenshu: Constructing Castle Spaces and Historical Narratives”
R. K., “The Reception and Spread of Chinese Fengshui: A Case Study of Daishōgun Hachi Shrine and Daishōgun Belief”

2023
K. S., “Beyond the Veil: Gender, Morality, and Identity through Women's Head- and Face-Covering Practices in Premodern Japan”
B. W., “Symbiotic Propaganda: Suematsu Kenchō and The Risen Sun”

2022
B. Y. Y. C, “Beyond the Academy: Sinitic Practices of Court Women in the Early Heian Period”
D. F., “Salt from the Tides: The Economic History of the Yugeshima Maritime Estate in the Thirteenth Century”
L. R., “Miyajidake Kofun: The Making of a Sacred Place in Seventh-Century Japan”

2021
A. E., “Beyond the Gate: A Shipping Agent in the Social Space of Nineteenth-Century Dazaifu”
J. R., “Arrest and Development: Perpetual Adolescence and Japanese Detective Fiction”
R. Z., “Gairaigo and COVID-19: How a Pandemic Affected the Use of Modern Loanwords in Japanese”

2020
J. A., “The Racial Ideology of Naisen Yūwa: (Dis)harmony between Japanese and Koreans in the Imperial Metropole in the 1920s and ’30s”
B. A. W., “Gatekeepers of The Way of Tea: The Voices that Defined the Japanese Tea Ceremony”

2019
N. S., “The Hollowed Stone: A Critical Look at the Life of Tsukushi no Iwai during the Expansion of the Yamato State”
G. S., “Japan’s Early Private Traders: The Lives and Activities of Overseas Merchants, ca. 800–1126”
H. Y., “The Movement and Construction of Daianji, ca. 639–752”

2017
W. Y., “Money, Power, and Authority: Go-Kashiwabara's Enthronement Ceremony in 1521”
S. S. G., “Howl as a Tengu in Miyazaki Hayao’s Howl’s Moving Castle”

2016
Y. Z., “The Idealized Monk: A Study of Ganjin’s Earliest Hagiographies”
M. J., “Three Waves of Scholarship: Changing Perspectives on Chōgen’s Journeys to China”
M. C. M., “Educating Hakatakko 博多っ子: Language Planning, Dialect and Identity in Hakata Elementary School”

2015
T. L., “English Influences on Japanese: Gairaigo and Wasei Eigo”
Y. P., “Water in Eighth-Century Japanese Gardens”

2014
P. C., “Hakata Gion Yamakasa: A Tradition Adapting to the Times”
X. H., “Portrayals of Oda Nobunaga from the Late Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century 時代にかけて変化した織田信長の人物像－１６～１９世紀を中心に”

2013
Y. L., “Writings on Onmyōdō: An Analysis of Hoki Naiden, Volume 1”

With students at Kumamotojō Inari Shrine