jschlachet

Image
jschlachet@arizona.edu
Phone
(520) 626-3476
Office
Learning Services Building 126
Office Hours
Spring 2023: Wednesday 3:15 pm - 5:15 pm
Schlachet, Joshua
Assistant Professor

Joshua Schlachet is a historian of early modern and modern Japan, specializing in the cultural history of food and nourishment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His current project, “Nourishing Life: Diet, Body, and Society in Early Modern Japan,” examines the emergence of a dietary “common knowledge” as new practical guidebooks circulating among ordinary readers expanded the concept of a well-nourished body to encompass economic productivity, status hierarchy, and moral cultivation. His research interests include global and comparative food studies, histories of science and health, book history and popular publishing, material culture and artisanship, and Dutch-Japanese exchange.

Schlachet teaches courses on Japanese and East Asian history, dietary cultures, and everyday life. He received his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and holds an M.A. (Japanese Studies) from the University of Michigan and B.A. (History) from Cornell University.

Currently Teaching

EAS 391 – Preceptorship

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of instruction and practice in actual service in a department, program, or discipline. Teaching formats may include seminars, in-depth studies, laboratory work and patient study.

JPN 362A – The Culture of Food and Health in Japan

How do we know what is good for us, who gets to decide, and how does "healthy" change over time? This seminar explores these basic questions through the lens of Japanese food culture: the dietary trends, choices, and ideas of proper consumption that help shape the relationship between people's bodies and the world around them. We will discuss how and why "eating right" became such an important issue in Japan from the seventeenth century to the present and ask what the everyday experience of eating can tell us about the core themes, concepts, and events in Japanese and East Asian history. By putting Japanese foodways in conversation with global gastronomy, we will investigate what makes food cultural and what makes it historical. This course welcomes undergraduates of all interests and majors, and no prior knowledge of Japanese language or history is required. Additional materials in East Asian languages will be made available upon request.

JPN 462C – The History of Modern Japan, Meiji to the Present

This course offers students an in-depth look at the history and historiography of Modern Japan (1868-Present), with a special emphasis on the relationship between empire and everyday life in Japan's modern experience. The course is divided into four chronological units spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and students will have the opportunity to crowdsource their reading materials from a list of recommended and representative books within each unit. Class discussions will provide an overview of the latest English-language scholarship on Japan's modernity to familiarize advanced undergraduates and graduate students with the styles of research and interpretation that inform our understanding of history today.

JPN 562C – The History of Modern Japan, Meiji to the Present

This course offers students an in-depth look at the history and historiography of Modern Japan (1868-Present), with a special emphasis on the relationship between empire and everyday life in Japan's modern experience. The course is divided into four chronological units spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and students will have the opportunity to crowdsource their reading materials from a list of recommended and representative books within each unit. Class discussions will provide an overview of the latest English-language scholarship on Japan's modernity to familiarize advanced undergraduates and graduate students with the styles of research and interpretation that inform our understanding of history today.