Research Category

Comparative historical sociology

Area of Interest

Theories of social change, sociology of culture, network theory

Recent Thoughts

People communicate in different types of situations, and as they go from one situation to another, certain marks are left on their identities. I am always drawn to the question of how these micro social processes are related to networks and the structure of larger social, cultural, and political systems. In the past I conducted a sociological analysis of the history of the samurai sense of honor in relation to changes in Japan’s national system. Recently I have been thinking about what it means that one can narrate a macro history of emotion, something that, by its very nature is supposed to be fluid and discrete.

Publications

• The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan (1995: Harvard University Press）

Recent/Ongoing Works

• "Emotion and History" (a commissioned chapter under preparation for Cambridge Concise Companion of History, forthcoming)
• "Network of Civility: Publics, Aesthetic Sociability and Weak-Ties Social Interactions" A paper prepared for the conference, "Cultural Analysis: The Legacy of Bourdieu" UK. 2007
• "Amino Yoshihiko and the New Medieval History of Japan", a commissioned review paper for American Historical Review, under preparation

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