University of Pittsburgh: Department of History

Richard J. Smethurst

University of Pittsburgh
Department of History
3536 Posvar Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412-648-7472
rsmet@pitt.edu

Education

B.A. History, Dickinson College, 1955
M. A. Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1961
Ph. D. History, University of Michigan, 1968

Pre-doctoral Awards and Honors

National Defense Education Act Fellowship, 1960-1, 1962-64, 1966-67

Ford Foundation Grant (for language study in Japan), 1961-62

Foreign Area Fellowship (Ford Foundation), 1964-66

Research Fellow, Institute of Social Science, Tokyo University, 1965-66

Academic Employment

Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 1967-73

Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 1973-85

Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 1985-

Chair, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, 1988-91, 92-94

University Center for International Studies Research Professor, 1988-

Postdoctoral Awards, Grants, and Honors

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 1969

Asian Studies Center Research Grant, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1970-97 (7 grants)

Fulbright-Hays Senior Research Fellow, 1974-75

Research Associate, Institute for Humanistic Studies, Kyoto University, 1974-75

American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council Fellowship, 1977-78, 1984, 1995-6

Member, Modern Japan University Seminar, Columbia University, 1982-2002

Japan Foundation Research Fellowship, 1984

Japan Iron and Steel Federation and Mitsubishi Endowment Fund Research Grant, 1986-2006 (17 grants)

Distinguished Lecturer, Northeast Asian Council, Association of Asian Studies, 1987

Research Associate, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, 1992-2006

Research Associate and Visiting Professor, School of Commerce, Keio University, Tokyo, 1996-2006

Visiting Fellow, School of Oriental Studies and Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 1999

Life Member, Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 1999-

Visiting Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000

Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, Japan Foundation Fellowship (declined), 2000-01

Publications

Books

A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1974. Published in Chinese translation, 1995.

Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870-1940, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986.

Going Against Going Alone: Takahashi Korekiyo and the Political Economy of Japan, 1854-1936, Harvard Asia Studies Center, 2007.

The Woodblock Prints of Tsukioka Kôgyo, with J. Thomas Rimer, Robert Schaap, and Mae Smethurst., Hotei Press, Amsterdam, 2007

Articles

"The Origins and Policies of the Japan Teachers' Union, 1945-56," University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, Occasional Papers, 10 (1967), 117-160

"The Military Reserve Association and the Minobe Crisis of 1935," in George M. Wilson, ed., Crisis Politics in Prewar Japan, Sophia University Press, Tokyo, 1970, 1-23.

"The Creation of the Imperial Military Reserve Association in Japan," Journal of Asian Studies, 30-4 (1971), 815-828.

Comments on Irokawa Daikichi, "The Survival Struggle of the Japanese Community," Japan Interpreter, 10-1 (1975), 121-124.

"The Army, Youth and Women," in Edward R. Beauchamp, ed., Learning to Be Japanese," Hamden, Connecticut, 1978, 137-166.

"A Social Origin of World War II," in Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy, eds., Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1983, 269-281.

Essays on "Tenancy Disputes," "Japanese Militarism," and "Military Factionalism," in The Encyclopedia of Japan, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1983.

"A Challenge to Orthodoxy and Its Orthodox Critics: A Reply to Nishida Yoshiaki," Journal of Japanese Studies, 15-2 (1989).

Essays on "Allied Occupation of Japan," "Japanese Popular Protest," and "Samurai," in The Encyclopedia of Social History, Garland Publishing Company, 1993.

"Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan," Rekishigaku kenkyu (Historical Studies), December 1993, in Japanese.

"Japan's First Experiment with Democracy, 1870-1940," in Reid Andrews and Herrick Chapman, eds., The Social Meaning of Democracy, New York University Press, New York, 1995.

"Fukai Eigo and Japanese Monetary Policy," New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1997.

Essays on "Greater Japan Federated Youth Association," "Greater Japan National Defense Women's Association," "Imperial Military Reservist Association," "Inoue Junnosuke," "Takahashi Korekiyo," and "Tanaka Giichi," in Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism, Garland, 1998.

"The Self-Taught Bureaucrat: Takahashi Korekiyo and Economic Policy during the Great Depression," in John Singleton, ed., Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.

"The Creation of the Imperial Military Reserve Association," reprinted in Peter Karsten, ed., Recruiting, Drafting, and Enlisting: Two Sides of the Raising of Military Forces, Garland Publishing Company, 1998.

"Takahashi Korekiyo's Fiscal Policies in the1930s and their Meiji Roots," The Suntory Centre Papers, London School of Economics, 1999.

"Internationalism among Japanese Financial Bureaucrats in the 1930s," in Japan in the World, the World in Japan: Fifty Years of Japanese Studies at Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2000.

"Takahashi Korekiyo and Militarism in Japan," Kindai Nihon kenkyu, 18 (2001), 260-88.

"Takahashi Korekiyo’s Fiscal Policies and the Rise of Militarism in Japan, 1931-1936," Bert Edstrom, ed., Turning Points in Modern Japanese History, Japan Library, 2002.

"The Appeal of Noh," Kanze, 71-8 (August 2004), pp. 34-5, in Japanese.

"Takahashi Korekiyo’s Political and Economic Philosophies and Their Origins," in the Mita Business Review,” in Japanese., in 2006.

"Takahashi Korekiyo and Japan’s Victory in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5," in Philip Towle and Nobuko Margaret Kosuge, eds., Two Island Empires and Their Trade: Britain and Japan, 1895-1995. I. B. Tauris,London, 2007.

"Two Nô Plays Written during World War II," with Mae J. Smethurst, forthcoming in Stanca Schulz-Csonka, Nô Theatre Transversal, Institute für Theaterwissenschalft, Munich University.

Book Reviews in American Historical Review, Journal of Japanese Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Japan Interpreter, Monumenta Nipponica, and Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

In the past twenty years, I have delivered papers or lectures at Harvard University, Columbia University (three times), Princeton University, Cambridge University (twice), Rochester University, the University of California, Los Angeles (twice), University of California, San Diego, Carleton University in Ottawa, Augsburg University, John Carroll University, London School of Economics, the University of Maryland, the University of Michigan (twice), the University of Texas (twice), Keio University, Oberlin College, Osaka Gakuin University, Osaka University, the Bank of Japan (three times), Chinese University of Hong Kong (three times), Hong Kong University, the University of Washington (Seattle), the University of Pennsylvania, and Portland State University. I have given papers, or served as a panel chair or discussant at the annual meetings of the Association of Asian Studies in 1992, 1994, 1996, and 2006. I have delivered papers or been a discussant at Columbia University's Modern Japan Seminar four times, most recently in 1998. I gave a paper at the triennial meetings of the European Association of Japanese Studies, in Lahti, Finland, in August 2000. I presented a paper on a panel of Japanese and American economic historians at the Social and Economic History Association at Sophia University in Tokyo in May 2001. The same panel reappeared in upgraded form at the meetings of the Social Science History Association in Portland in November 2005.

Current Research

I have begun a project to study the modern history of the Nô Theatre in Japan, How did a theatre form that was closely associated with the feudal order before the Meiji Restoration revive itself in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries? My study will look into such subjects as the relationship of the leading schools of nô actors to the imperial family and the new Japanese nationalism, their finances, and their internal politics.

Courses Taught

Modern Japan

Economic History of Japan

World War II in Asia

Graduate Seminar on Modern Japan

Graduate Seminar on World War II in Asia

Undergraduate Seminar: The Historiography of World War II in Asia

Undergraduate Seminar: Biography in Modern Japanese History

The History and Culture of East Asia--co-taught with Cho-yun Hsu

Japanese Noh Drama in its Historical Setting, with Mae J. Smethurst

Recent or Current University and Professional Service

Abe Foundation Program Committee, Social Science Research Council, 2000-2006

University of Pittsburgh faculty member who obtained and organized access to the Mitsui Collection, a gift from SMBC to the university in 2004. The collection contains 47,000 books, journals, and statistical yearbooks useful to those of us who study Japanese economics, social sciences in general, and economic, political and cultural history.

Co-curator with Mae Smethurst, Thomas Rimer, and Robert Schaap of an exhibition of the noh prints of Tsukioka Kôgyo, Frick Art and Historical Museum, Pittsburgh, February-April 2007.


Richard J. Smethurst University of Pittsburgh Department of History 3536 Posvar Hall Pittsburgh, PA 15260 412-648-7472 rsmet@pitt.edu Education B.A. History, Dickinson College, 1955 M. A. Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1961 Ph. D. History, University of Michigan, 1968 Pre-doctoral Awards and Honors National Defense Education Act Fellowship, 1960-1, 1962-64, 1966-67 Ford Foundation Grant (for language study in Japan), 1961-62 Foreign Area Fellowship (Ford Foundation), 1964-66 Research Fellow, Institute of Social Science, Tokyo University, 1965-66 Academic Employment Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 1967-73 Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 1973-85 Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 1985- Chair, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, 1988-91, 92-94 University Center for International Studies Research Professor, 1988- Postdoctoral Awards, Grants, and Honors Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Grant, University of Pittsburgh, 1969 Asian Studies Center Research Grant, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1970-97 (7 grants) Fulbright-Hays Senior Research Fellow, 1974-75 Research Associate, Institute for Humanistic Studies, Kyoto University, 1974-75 American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council Fellowship, 1977-78, 1984, 1995-6 Member, Modern Japan University Seminar, Columbia University, 1982-2002 Japan Foundation Research Fellowship, 1984 Japan Iron and Steel Federation and Mitsubishi Endowment Fund Research Grant, 1986-2006 (17 grants) Distinguished Lecturer, Northeast Asian Council, Association of Asian Studies, 1987 Research Associate, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, 1992-2006 Research Associate and Visiting Professor, School of Commerce, Keio University, Tokyo, 1996-2006 Visiting Fellow, School of Oriental Studies and Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 1999 Life Member, Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 1999- Visiting Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000 Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, Japan Foundation Fellowship (declined), 2000-01 Publications Books A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1974. Published in Chinese translation, 1995. Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870-1940, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986. Going Against Going Alone: Takahashi Korekiyo and the Political Economy of Japan, 1854-1936, Harvard Asia Studies Center, 2007. The Woodblock Prints of Tsukioka Kôgyo, with J. Thomas Rimer, Robert Schaap, and Mae Smethurst., Hotei Press, Amsterdam, 2007 Articles "The Origins and Policies of the Japan Teachers' Union, 1945-56," University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, Occasional Papers, 10 (1967), 117-160 "The Military Reserve Association and the Minobe Crisis of 1935," in George M. Wilson, ed., Crisis Politics in Prewar Japan, Sophia University Press, Tokyo, 1970, 1-23. "The Creation of the Imperial Military Reserve Association in Japan," Journal of Asian Studies, 30-4 (1971), 815-828. Comments on Irokawa Daikichi, "The Survival Struggle of the Japanese Community," Japan Interpreter, 10-1 (1975), 121-124. "The Army, Youth and Women," in Edward R. Beauchamp, ed., Learning to Be Japanese," Hamden, Connecticut, 1978, 137-166. "A Social Origin of World War II," in Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy, eds., Japan Examined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1983, 269-281. Essays on "Tenancy Disputes," "Japanese Militarism," and "Military Factionalism," in The Encyclopedia of Japan, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1983. "A Challenge to Orthodoxy and Its Orthodox Critics: A Reply to Nishida Yoshiaki," Journal of Japanese Studies, 15-2 (1989). Essays on "Allied Occupation of Japan," "Japanese Popular Protest," and "Samurai," in The Encyclopedia of Social History, Garland Publishing Company, 1993. "Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan," Rekishigaku kenkyu (Historical Studies), December 1993, in Japanese. "Japan's First Experiment with Democracy, 1870-1940," in Reid Andrews and Herrick Chapman, eds., The Social Meaning of Democracy, New York University Press, New York, 1995. "Fukai Eigo and Japanese Monetary Policy," New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1997. Essays on "Greater Japan Federated Youth Association," "Greater Japan National Defense Women's Association," "Imperial Military Reservist Association," "Inoue Junnosuke," "Takahashi Korekiyo," and "Tanaka Giichi," in Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism, Garland, 1998. "The Self-Taught Bureaucrat: Takahashi Korekiyo and Economic Policy during the Great Depression," in John Singleton, ed., Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998. "The Creation of the Imperial Military Reserve Association," reprinted in Peter Karsten, ed., Recruiting, Drafting, and Enlisting: Two Sides of the Raising of Military Forces, Garland Publishing Company, 1998. "Takahashi Korekiyo's Fiscal Policies in the1930s and their Meiji Roots," The Suntory Centre Papers, London School of Economics, 1999. "Internationalism among Japanese Financial Bureaucrats in the 1930s," in Japan in the World, the World in Japan: Fifty Years of Japanese Studies at Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2000. "Takahashi Korekiyo and Militarism in Japan," Kindai Nihon kenkyu, 18 (2001), 260-88. "Takahashi Korekiyo’s Fiscal Policies and the Rise of Militarism in Japan, 1931-1936," Bert Edstrom, ed., Turning Points in Modern Japanese History, Japan Library, 2002. "The Appeal of Noh," Kanze, 71-8 (August 2004), pp. 34-5, in Japanese. "Takahashi Korekiyo’s Political and Economic Philosophies and Their Origins," in the Mita Business Review,” in Japanese., in 2006. "Takahashi Korekiyo and Japan’s Victory in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5," in Philip Towle and Nobuko Margaret Kosuge, eds., Two Island Empires and Their Trade: Britain and Japan, 1895-1995. I. B. Tauris,London, 2007. "Two Nô Plays Written during World War II," with Mae J. Smethurst, forthcoming in Stanca Schulz-Csonka, Nô Theatre Transversal, Institute für Theaterwissenschalft, Munich University. Book Reviews in American Historical Review, Journal of Japanese Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Japan Interpreter, Monumenta Nipponica, and Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In the past twenty years, I have delivered papers or lectures at Harvard University, Columbia University (three times), Princeton University, Cambridge University (twice), Rochester University, the University of California, Los Angeles (twice), University of California, San Diego, Carleton University in Ottawa, Augsburg University, John Carroll University, London School of Economics, the University of Maryland, the University of Michigan (twice), the University of Texas (twice), Keio University, Oberlin College, Osaka Gakuin University, Osaka University, the Bank of Japan (three times), Chinese University of Hong Kong (three times), Hong Kong University, the University of Washington (Seattle), the University of Pennsylvania, and Portland State University. I have given papers, or served as a panel chair or discussant at the annual meetings of the Association of Asian Studies in 1992, 1994, 1996, and 2006. I have delivered papers or been a discussant at Columbia University's Modern Japan Seminar four times, most recently in 1998. I gave a paper at the triennial meetings of the European Association of Japanese Studies, in Lahti, Finland, in August 2000. I presented a paper on a panel of Japanese and American economic historians at the Social and Economic History Association at Sophia University in Tokyo in May 2001. The same panel reappeared in upgraded form at the meetings of the Social Science History Association in Portland in November 2005. Current Research I have begun a project to study the modern history of the Nô Theatre in Japan, How did a theatre form that was closely associated with the feudal order before the Meiji Restoration revive itself in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries? My study will look into such subjects as the relationship of the leading schools of nô actors to the imperial family and the new Japanese nationalism, their finances, and their internal politics. Courses Taught Modern Japan Economic History of Japan World War II in Asia Graduate Seminar on Modern Japan Graduate Seminar on World War II in Asia Undergraduate Seminar: The Historiography of World War II in Asia Undergraduate Seminar: Biography in Modern Japanese History The History and Culture of East Asia--co-taught with Cho-yun Hsu Japanese Noh Drama in its Historical Setting, with Mae J. Smethurst Recent or Current University and Professional Service Abe Foundation Program Committee, Social Science Research Council, 2000-2006 University of Pittsburgh faculty member who obtained and organized access to the Mitsui Collection, a gift from SMBC to the university in 2004. The collection contains 47,000 books, journals, and statistical yearbooks useful to those of us who study Japanese economics, social sciences in general, and economic, political and cultural history. Co-curator with Mae Smethurst, Thomas Rimer, and Robert Schaap of an exhibition of the noh prints of Tsukioka Kôgyo, Frick Art and Historical Museum, Pittsburgh, February-April 2007.