Dr. Morgan Pitelka

Office Hours: On leave
Zoom Link

Professional Biography

Morgan Pitelka received his B.A. in East Asian Studies with honors from Oberlin College and his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University. Before joining the UNC faculty, he taught at Occidental College (2002-2010). His scholarship focuses on the history of late medieval and early modern Japan, with a focus on material culture, environmental history, and urban history.

Graduate Students

Jason Castro, M.A.-Ph.D. student, Department of History, UNC, coadvisor with Cemil Aydin
Megan McClory, M.A.-Ph.D. student, Department of History, UNC, advisor.
Dalvin Tsay, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, UNC, committee member.
Morgan Wilson, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, UNC, coadvisor with Susan Pennybacker.

Publications

Books

Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Letters from Japan’s Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Correspondence of Warlords, Tea, Masters, Zen Priests, and Aristocrats, with Reiko Tanimura and Masuda Takashi. University of California, Berkeley, IEAS Publications, 2021.

Japanese Art: Critical and Primary Sources. Editor. 4 vols. Material Cultures; Visual Cultures; Printed Matter; and Sites and Patrons, Knowledge and Power. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.

Spectacular Accumulation: Material Culture, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Samurai Sociability. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016. Winner, 2016 Book Prize, Southeastern Conference of the Association of Asian Studies.

Kyoto Visual Culture in the Early Edo and Meiji Periods: The Arts of Reinvention. Coeditor with Alice Tseng. New York: Routledge, 2016.

What's the Use of Art? Asian Visual and Material Culture in Context. Coeditor with Jan Mrazek. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007.

Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005.

Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History, and Practice. Editor. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Selected essays

“Beyond the Momoyama Mythohistory: Situating Japan in Social and Global Contexts.” In Anton Schweizer and Mimi Yeungpraksawan, eds. Beyond the Southern Barbarians. Brill, under review.

“The Environmental and Material Foundations of Kyoto.” In Joshua Schlachet and William Hedberg, eds. Interdisciplinary Edo: New Perspectives on Early Modern Japan. Routledge, 2024.

“The End of Civil War and the Formation of the Early Modern State in Japan.” In David L. Howell, ed., Early Modern Japan in Asia and the World. Volume 2 of The New Cambridge History of Japan. Cambridge University Press, 2024.

“The Life and Afterlife of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616),” in Gary P. Leupp and De-min Tao, eds., The Tokugawa World (Routledge, 2021).

“Name and Fame: Material Objects as Authority, Security, and Legacy” in Mary Elizabeth Berry and Marcia Yonemoto, ed., What is a Family? Answers from Early Modern Japan (University of California Press, 2019)

“The Return of Seduction,” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 77.2 (2017): 153-163.

“Chinese Ceramics and Warrior Sociability in Sixteenth-Century Japan,” in Dora Ching, Louise Cort, and Andrew Watsky, ed. Around Chigusa: Tea and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton University Press, 2017.

“Form and Function: Tea Bowls and the Problem of Zen in Chanoyu,” in Pamela D. Winfield and Steven Heine, ed., Zen and Material Culture. Oxford University Press, 2017.

"Warriors, Tea, and Art in Premodern Japan." Samurai: Beyond the Sword. Ed. Birgitta Augustin. Detroit Institute of Arts, 2014.

"The Tokugawa Storehouse: Ieyasu's Encounters with Things." Early Modern Things: Objects and their Histories, 1500-1800. Ed. Paula Findlen. London and New York: Routledge, 2013.

“Art, Agency, and Networks in the Career of Tokugawa Ieyasu.” Blackwell Companion to Asian Art. Ed. Deborah Hutton and Rebecca Brown. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

“The Empire of Things: Tokugawa Ieyasu's Material Legacy and Cultural Profile.” Japanese Studies (May, 2009).

“A Raku Wastewater Container and the Problem of Monolithic Sincerity.” Impressions 30 (2008). In Japanese translation: “Raku no kensui to ichimaiwateki seijitsusei no mondaiten.” Bijutsu Forum 21 (2010).

“Introduction to the Early Modern Warrior Experience.” Early Modern Japan 16 (2008).

"Back to the Fundamentals: 'Reproducing' Rikyû and Chôjirô in Japanese Tea Culture." In Rupert Cox, ed. The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Slightly altered and in Japanese translation: "Chanoyu ni okeru 'utsushi': dentô bunka no eizokuka" [Reproduction in Japanese Tea Culture: The Perpetuation of Traditional Culture]. Wabi: Chanoyu Kenkyû 4 (2007).

"Tea Taste: Patronage and Collaboration among Tea Masters and Potters in Early Modern Japan." Early Modern Japan: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Fall-Winter, 2004.

"Kinsei ni okeru Rakuyaki dentô no keisei" [The Structure of Tradition in Early Modern Raku Ceramics]. Nomura Bijutsukan Kiyô (Spring, 2000).

Video

• 2023, Ackland Art Museum, "Communities of Practice: Social Relations and the Functions of Art in the Careers of Rengetsu and Nantenbō," for the symposium "Rengetsu and Nantenbō: Calligraphy and Context"
• 2022, Japan House Los Angeles, "The Ceramics of Mino: 500 Years of Beauty and Innovation” for the exhibition "The Art of the Ramen Bowl"
• 2022, "Japan’s Global Relevance in 2022” for the Carolina Public Humanities “Humanities in Action” series
• 2022, Autonomous University of Barcelona, "The Reception of Korean Ceramics in Japan (1537-1647)," a resource for the online exhibition "Stories of Clay: Discovering Choson Korean Potters in Tokugawa Japan"
• 2021, Alfred University, "The Social Life of Raku Teabowls," part of the conference "Path of the Teabowl"
• 2021, Ackland Art Museum, "Valuable Vessels I: An Oribe Dish from Japan"
• 2021, Joan B. Mirviss Japanese Fine Art, "Tea as Context: Treasuring Ceramics," I talk about Raku ceramics from 33:50-43:30 and 1:10:13-1:18:33.
• 2020, Carolina Public Humanities, Virtual Happy Hour, "Monasteries and Mountaintops: Religious Traditions of Solitude," I talk about eremitic traditions in China and Japan from 4:40-15:23
• 2020, University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, "Reading Medieval Ruins: A Material History of Urban Life in 16th-Century Japan"
• 2018, Durham Tech Global Distinction program, "Tokugawa Japan's Floating World"
• 2018, Durham Tech Global Distinction program, "Japan's Modern Revolution: The Meiji Restoration and Japanese Modernity"
• 2017, Ishibashi Foundation Keynote Lecture, Kyushu National Museum, "Individuals, Objects, and Networks in the History of Japanese Tea Culture"

Podcasts

• 2022, New Books Network, hosted by Jingyi Li, Letters from Japan's Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• 2020, Michigan Talks Japan hosted by Dr. Allison Alexy, Episode Five
• 2017, The Institute Podcast from UNC's Institute for Arts and Humanities, Episode 43
• 2016, New Books in East Asian Studies, hosted by Dr. Carla Nappi, Spectacular Accumulation