Thomas Keirstead

Associate Professor
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2pm-3:30pm. Robarts Library, Room 14-085

Campus

Areas of Interest

  • Japanese history
  • Medieval Japan historiography

Biography

Thomas Keirstead is interested equally in the history of medieval Japanese culture and in the writing of that history. The former interest has found expression in articles on such topics as medieval peasant rebellions and outcast groups, as well as a book, The Geography of Power in Medieval Japan (Princeton). The latter interest has led him into writing about film, anime and print culture and to a book manuscript on Medieval Japan and the Making of a Modern Past (forthcoming). He is currently engaged in writing a cultural history of monsters and the monstrous in medieval Japan, which allows him to read strange stories about wizards and demons, and to indulge an interest in Japanese monster movies.

Courses

  • Premodern East Asian History
  • Premodern Japan
  • Japanese Monsters
  • Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka: Urban Culture in Early Modern Japan
  • Samurai Culture

Education

PhD, History, Stanford University (1989)
MA, East Asian Studies, Stanford University (1983)