Associate Professor
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2pm-3:30pm. Robarts Library, Room 14-085
Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
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)
Publications
- "Outcasts Before the Law: Pollution and Purification in Medieval Japan" (Figueroa Press : 2009)
- "Nation and Postnation in Japan" (University of Michigan Press : 2000)
- “Inventing Medieval Japan: The History and Politics of National Identity” (SAGE Publishing : 1998)
- "Gardens and Estates: Medievality and Space" (Duke University Press : 1993)
- The Geography of Power in Medieval Japan (Princeton University Press : 1992)