Nadia Kanagawa
金川ナディア
Assistant Adjunct Professor, UCLA
classical Japan, immigration, legal history, ethnicity, race, digital humanities
Japanese, French, German
Los Angeles , United States
I am a historian of premodern Japan and currently Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. Previously, I was James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and History at Furman University in Greenville, SC. In my research, I examine how seventh- through ninth-century Japanese rulers approached the incorporation, assimilation and configuration of immigrants and their descendants. I consider the process by which outsiders became subjects as a way of understanding what it meant to be a subject of the classical Japanese realm. I am particularly interested in comparative legal histories of East Asia, and in exploring how digital methods and tools can enrich our analyses of premodern sources. I am working on a manuscript tentatively titled, “Becoming Foreign Subjects: Immigrants and their Descendants in Seventh- Through Ninth-Century Japan.”
PhD, History, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2019
MA, History, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2013
Certificate, Japanese language, Inter-University Center, Yokohama Japan, 2007
BA, History, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2006
- Assistant Adjunct Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, 2024~
- Premodern Collaborative Manager, Japan Past & Present, Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities, 2021~
- James B. Duke Assistant Professor, Furman University, 2022-2024
- Assistant Professor, Furman University, 2019-2021
- Lecturer, Furman University, 2018-2019
“East Asia’s First World War, 643-668,” East Asia in the World: Twelve Events That Shaped the Modern International Order, edited by David Kang and Stephan Haggard (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
“Approach and Be Transformed: Immigrants in the Nara and Heian State” in Hapa Japan: Constructing Global Mixed Race and Mixed Roots Japanese Identities and Representations, ed. Duncan Ryuken Williams (Ito Center Editions, an imprint of Kaya Press, January 2017).
Translator: “Japanese International Marriages (Kokusai Kekkon): A Longue Durée History, from Early Modern Japan to Imperial Japan,” by Itsuko Kamoto in Hapa Japan: Constructing Global Mixed Race and Mixed Roots Japanese Identities and Representations, ed. Duncan Ryuken Williams (Ito Center Editions, an imprint of Kaya Press, January 2017).
- AST 470& HST 475: Microhistory & Biography, Furman University, 2023
- HST 501: Microhistories of Asia (independent study), Furman University, 2021
- AST 200: Introduction to Asian Studies, Furman University, 2020, 2022
- FYW 1249: Samurai: Real and Imagined, Furman University, 2020, 2022
- HST 162: Japan in the Modern World, Furman University, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
- HST 161: Japan in the Ancient & Early Modern World, Furman University, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022
- Tokyo University Historiographical Institute Collaborative Research Award, “Toward a Reconstruction of the Online Glossary of Japanese Historical Terms”, 2022 & 2023
- Furman Humanities Center Collaborative Fellowship 2020-2021 “An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Immigration in Early Japan and Korea" with Alex Francis-Ratte and Eiho Baba, 2020-2021
- Harvard Reischauer Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined), 2018-2019
- Harold Hastings McVicar Scholarship 2017-2018 CJRC Graduate Student Research Support Award, 2017-2018
- CJRC Graduate Student Research Support Award, 2011-2017
- Roberta Persinger Foulke Endowment Fellowship, 2013, 2015, 2017
- ACE/Nikaido Japanese Studies Fellowship, 2011-2013, 2015, 2017
- University of Southern California Provost’s Ph.D. Fellowship, 2010-2016
- Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, 2014-2015
- Cressant Foundation Award, 2011
- American Historical Association, 2010~
- Association for Asian Studies, 2010~
- Ritsuryō Research Group, University of Tokyo, 2014~
- The Project for Premodern Japan Studies, Ritsuryō Translation Project, 2013~
- Graduate Affiliate, USC Korean Studies Institute, 2017~2018
- Graduate Affiliate, Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religion and Culture, 2011~2018
3/15/2025