Ethan Isaac Segal
ACADEMIC POSITIONS HELD
Michigan State University: Associate Professor of History, July 2010 to present.
Assistant Professor of History, August 2003 to June 2010.
Harvard University: Visiting Assistant Professor of Pre-modern Japanese History, Department of
East Asian Languages & Civilizations, September 2008 to June 2009.
EDUCATION
Stanford University: Ph.D., Department of History, August 2003.
Tokyo University: Fulbright Scholar at the Historiographical Institute, Sept. 1999 to Jan. 2001.
University of Washington: M.A. in Japan Regional Studies, with honors, June 1996.
Kalamazoo College: Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, June 1990.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
BOOK: Coins, Trade, and the State: Economic Growth in Early Medieval Japan. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Asia Center, May 2011.
ARTICLES/CHAPTERS: “Can Samurai Teach Critical Thinking? Primary Sources in the Classroom.”
Education About Asia (Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies). Vol. 15:3 (Winter 2010), pp. 5-8.
“Money and the State: Medieval Precursors of the Early Modern Economy.” Bettina Gramlich-Oka and
Gregory Smits, eds., Economic Thought in Early Modern Japan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010), pp. 23-48.
“Awash with Coins: The Spread of Money in Early Medieval Japan.” In Gordon M. Berger, Andrew
Edmund Goble, Lorraine F. Harrington, & G. Cameron Hurst III, eds., Currents in Medieval
Japanese History: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey P. Mass (Los Angeles: USC Center for East Asian
Studies and Figueroa Press, 2009), pp. 331-61.
“The Textbook Controversy and Domestic National History” (written in Japanese – “Kyôkasho
mondai kara jikokushi ninshiki no arikata wo kangaeru”), The Journal of Historical Studies
(Rekishigaku kenkyû), No. 758 (January 2002).
REVIEWS: Ferejohn and Rosenbluthʼs War and State Building in Medieval Japan (Stanford University
Press, 2010) in Japanese Studies (Taylor & Francis), forthcoming.
Carol Tsangʼs War and Faith: Ikkô Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan (Harvard University Press, 2007)
in International History Review (University of Toronto), Volume XXXI, 1 (March 2009).
Janet Goodwinʼs Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan (Univ. of
Hawaiʼi Press, 2007) in Japanese Studies (Taylor & Francis), Vol. 28, No. 2 (Sept. 2008).
REFERENCE WORKS: Three chapters for Karl Friday, ed., Japan Emerges: Introductory Essays on
Premodern History (Westview Press, forthcoming).
“Hôjô Masako” and “Jôkyû War.” for Louis Perez, ed., Japan at War (ABC-Clio, forthcoming).
“Textbook Controversy in Japan.” in Peter N. Stearns, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern
World: 1750 to the Present. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Vol. 7, pp. 237-38.
TRANSLATIONS: “1247 as a Turning Point for the Kamakura Bakufu.” Translation of Kondo
Shigekazu, “Kamakura bakufu no tenkaiten to shite no 1247.” In Edstrom, Bert, ed., Turning Points
in Japanese History (Japan Library, 2002).
A Snailʼs Pace: Haiku for the Seasons (City of Numazu, June 2000). Translation of Saitô Mamoru,
Gyûho (Kyôei Printing, March 1999).
Ethan Segal
April 2011
Page 2 of 3
RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“From Samurai to Sources: Teaching Critical Thinking in the Premodern Japanese History Classroom.”
Presented at the Teaching Japan Conference, DePaul University, October 29-30, 2010.
“Rethinking Women in Early Warrior Society.” At the Toshiba International Foundation Symposium
Japanʼs Cultural Imagination and Its Contributions to the World, Pittsburgh, October 17, 2009.
“Money and the State: Medieval Precursors of the Early Modern Economy.” For the Columbia University
Seminar on Modern Japan, June 2009.
“Analyzing Japanʼs Early Medieval Economy.” For Text and Context: New Directions in Medieval
Japanese Literary and Historical Studies, Bowdoin College, May 9, 2009.
“Wife, Mother, Shogun: Hôjô Masako and Family Politics in 13th-century Japan.” Paper given at the
Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, University of Minnesota, June 2008.
“Blood on the Shrine Steps: The Politics of Revenge in 13th-century Japan.” Paper presented at the
Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, April 2008.
“Hôjô Masako and the Politics of Gender in Early Medieval Japan,” Paper presented at the Midwest
Japan Seminar, DePaul University, December 1, 2007.
“Foreign Coins and Attitudes toward China in Medieval Japan,” Paper presented at the Association
for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, March 2007.
RECENT INVITED PRESENTATIONS
“Historical Memory, Textbook Patriotism, and Japanʼs Move to the Right,” as part of a speaker series
for the MSU Asian Studies Center, April 7, 2011.
“Three Puzzles from Medieval Japan: Chinese Coins, Flying Cash, and Money for the Dead.”
Research Presentation at Kalamazoo College, January 28, 2010.
“Rethinking the Samurai: History, Warfare, and Medieval Japan.” Talk sponsored by the Oberlin
College History Department, October 8, 2009.
Speaker for the plenary session “The U.S. Financial Crisis and Asia” at the Harvard Program for Asian
and International Relations Business Conference, Tokyo, Japan, August 6-9, 2009.
“History, Fantasy, and The Last Samurai: Creative Memories of Japanʼs 19th-century Revolution.”
Invited lecture for the Kalamazoo College Liberal Arts Colloquium, April 23, 2009.
GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, & AWARDS
MSU Teacher-Scholar Award, 2011.
Richard Sullivan Endowed Award for Teaching Excellence, MSU Department of History, 2007.
Development Team Member for the University of Coloradoʼs Imaging Japanese History Curriculum
Development Grant awarded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, March 2007.
Lilly Teaching Fellow, Michigan State University, 2006-07. Research Project: “Prior Knowledge,
Misconceptions, and Critical Thinking in the Asian History Classroom.”
Fintz Award for Teaching Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, received from the MSU Center for
Integrated Studies in the Arts and Humanities, 2006.
Intramural Research Grant Recipient for “Cash Fever on the High Seas: Prices and Inflation in
Medieval Japan.” MSU Office of the Vice President for Research, 2004.
Stanford Humanities Center Doctoral Fellow and Geballe Prize Recipient, 2001-2002.
Fulbright Scholarship for Study at the University of Tokyo, 1999-2000.
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April 2011
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COURSES TAUGHT
At Harvard University:
JAPNHIST 111a “Ancient and Medieval Japan”
JAPNHIST 201 “Graduate Seminar in Pre-Meiji History”
JAPNHIST 202 “Introduction to Heian and Medieval Sources”
JAPNHIST 300 “Directed Reading”
HS A-14/E-1851 “Japan: Tradition and Transformation” (co-taught with Prof. Andrew Gordon)
At Michigan State University:
HST 201 “Methods & Skills: Docile Women, Loyal Warriors, and Other Myths of Old Japan”
HST 210 “Modern East Asia”
HST 369 “Japan to 1800: The Age of Courtiers and Warriors”
HST 370 “Japan since 1800”
HST 485 “Seminar in Asian History: Gender in Medieval Japan”
HST 832 “Seminar in Japanese History”
HST 890 “Graduate Directed Reading”
IAH 204 “Asia and the World”
IAH 211B “Japanese Popular Culture in International Perspective”
Collaboratively-taught classes at MSU:
SSC 291 “Introduction to Asian American Studies”
AL 892 “Women and the Problem of Agency” (2005); “Conceptions of Self and Other in Medieval
and Early Modern Societies,” (2006); “The Nature of Nature in Premodern Worlds” (2008).
TEACHING PRESENTATIONS
At the University of Colorado:
Resident Historian at the Program for Teaching East Asia Summer Institutes:
“The Making of Japanese Culture in the Premodern Era” (2004)
"Visualizing Japan: Case Studies for Teaching Japanese History through the Arts" (2006 and 2007)
For Michigan State University:
Lecturer for the MSU Teaching About East Asia Program, 2005-07.
“Teaching with Skype and Other Adventures in Online Education.” Lunch and Learn, March 18, 2010.
At Florida International University:
Lecturer on “Medieval China and Japan” for the NCTA Program, January 12, 2008.
CURRICULA DEVELOPED
For the Michigan State University Asian Studies Center:
Nine lessons and three modules for educators as part of the “Windows on Asia” website,
http://asia.isp.msu.edu/wbwoa/study_units.htm
For the University of Colorado Program for Teaching East Asia:
Three historical background essays on teaching Japanese history through the arts, available at
http://www.colorado.edu/CAS/tea/curriculum/imaging-japanese-history/index.html
SELECTED SERVICE AND OUTREACH
“On the Crises in Japan” Community Forum (Organizer and Speaker), March 23, 2011.
John Whitney Hall Book Prize Selection Committee for the Northeast Asia Council, 2010 and 2011.
Member of the Executive Board of the Midwest Japan Seminar, 2009 to present.
Asian Studies Center Advisory Board Member, 2006-08, 2010-12.
Faculty Sponsor, MSU Student Exchange Program with the University of the Ryukyus, 2006-present.
“Bringing Womenʼs Studies into Global Perspective” Advisory Committee Member, 2006-07.