Morgan Pitelka Research Group

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

How did material culture and objects shape political authority and social life in early modern Japan? The research analyzes tea culture, ceramics, and warrior sociability to trace social networks and material practices in sixteenth–seventeenth-century Japan. Scholars in the group study printed matter, visual cultures and objects through archival research and comparative history to reconstruct urban life and destruction in medieval Kyoto. They curate and edit primary sources and translations to make early modern correspondence and art accessible for historical analysis. The team produces monographs and edited volumes on Japanese visual and material culture.