Contact details
Room 2S1, Arts 1 (Burns) Building
Tel +64 3 479 4164
Email takashi.shogimen@otago.ac.nz
Academic qualifications
2020: MAE
2006: FRHistS
1998: PhD University of Sheffield
1991: LL.B. Keio University
Research interests
Takashi Shogimen is a historian of political thought. His main areas of research interests are medieval European political thought, modern Japanese political thought, and patriotism and nationalism.
His 2007 book in English offered a comprehensive reappraisal of the political thought of William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347), a Franciscan theologian and philosopher. His 2013 book in Japanese, which demonstrated the emergence of distinctively European political thinking at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, won the 2013 Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities, one of the most prestigious prizes for humanities researchers and social scientists in Japan. His 2019 books in Japanese explored the history and theory of patriotism in Western Europe and Japan. He has also published approximately 50 articles in English and Japanese on medieval European political thought, comparative political thought, and modern Japanese political thought, while actively contributing to national media in Japan commenting on current affairs, especially nationalism. He is currently working on books in English on patriotism.
Before coming to Otago, Takashi was Research Fellow at Clare Hall in the University of Cambridge and the Research Assistant for the British Academy’s Medieval Texts Editorial Committee. In May 2005, he was Visiting Professor at the Department of History in the University of Helsinki, Finland and, in late 2009, he was Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science in Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. Takashi was awarded the Marsden Grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand twice in 2006–2007 and 2008–2010. He is currently a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea.
View Takashi's Inaugural Professorial Lecture
Areas of research supervision
Political thought in Europe, 1150–1650; medieval European history; Modern Japanese intellectual history.
Courses taught
- HIST108 From Medieval to Modern Europe
- HIST123 Revolutions
- HIST215 Heretics, Witches, and Inquisitors
- HIST242 Histories of Crime and Punishment
- HIST341 Patriotism: From Joan of Arc to Kamikaze
- HIST452 Rethinking History
- HIST481 Special Study
- HIST490 Dissertation
Editorial responsibilities
Takashi is currently on the editorial board/committee of the Journal of Religious History and on the editorial advisory board of Nihon Kenkyu, a journal of Japanese Studies published by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto.
Links
Publications
Shogimen, T. (2022). Aikoku no Kigen: patoriotizumu wa naze hoshushisō to nattanoka [Origins of Aikoku: Why did patriotism become conservative thought?]. Tokyo, Japan: Chikuma Shobō, 240p.
Shogimen, T. (2021). Democracy and representation. In R. Cross & J. T. Paasch (Eds.), Routledge companion to medieval philosophy. (pp. 403-412). New York, NY: Routledge.
Shogimen, T. (2020). Rethinking heresy as a category of analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 88(3), 726-748. doi: 10.1093/jaarel/lfaa039
Shogimen, T. (2016). On the elusiveness of context. History & Theory, 55, 233-252. doi: 10.1111/hith.10798
Shogimen, T. (2007). Ockham and political discourse in the late Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 301p.
Shogimen, T. (2022). Aikoku no Kigen: patoriotizumu wa naze hoshushisō to nattanoka [Origins of Aikoku: Why did patriotism become conservative thought?]. Tokyo, Japan: Chikuma Shobō, 240p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2021). Democracy and representation. In R. Cross & J. T. Paasch (Eds.), Routledge companion to medieval philosophy. (pp. 403-412). New York, NY: Routledge.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2020). Rethinking heresy as a category of analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 88(3), 726-748. doi: 10.1093/jaarel/lfaa039
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2016). On the elusiveness of context. History & Theory, 55, 233-252. doi: 10.1111/hith.10798
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2007). Ockham and political discourse in the late Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 301p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2021). Jūjunsa no doko ga ikenainoka [What’s wrong with obedience]. Tokyo, Japan: Chikuma Shobō, 223p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2019). Aikoku no Kōzō [The structure of patriotism]. Tokyo, Japan: Iwanami Shoten, 352p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2019). Nihon Kokumin notameno Aikoku no Kyōkasho [Patriotism: The textbook for the Japanese nation]. Tokyo, Japan: Hyakuman’nen Shobō, 199p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2014). Genron Yokuatsu: Yanaihara Jiken no Kozu (The suppression of speech: Mapping the Yanaihara Incident). Tokyo, Japan: Chuo Koron Shinsha, 250p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2013). Yoroppa Seiji Shiso no Tanjo [The birth of European political thought]. Nagoya, Japan: University of Nagoya Press, 324p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2006). Seiji shindangaku eno shotai [Political diagnostics: An introduction]. Tokyo: Kodansha Publishers, 218p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2002). Han Bōkun no Shinosōshi [Against the tyrant: An intellectual history]. Tokyo, Japan: Heibonsha, 240p.
Authored Book - Research
Shogimen, T., & Spencer, V. A. (Eds.). (2014). Visions of peace: Asia and the West. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 195p.
Edited Book - Research
Shogimen, T., & Nederman, C. J. (Eds.). (2009). Western political thought in dialogue with Asia. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 330p.
Edited Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2016). Dialogue, Eurocentrism, and comparative political theory: A view from cross-cultural intellectual history. Journal of the History of Ideas, 77(2), 323-345.
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2016). The pressure of coherence and the diachronic reconfigurations of metaphorical discourse: The case of the body politic metaphor in medieval political texts. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 3(1), 50-69. doi: 10.1075/cogls.3.1.03sho
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2014). Censorship, academic factionalism, and university autonomy in wartime Japan: The Yanaihara Incident reconsidered. Journal of Japanese Studies, 40(1), 57-85. doi: 10.1353/jjs.2014.0011
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2013). The «armed hand» of the body politic: Vegetius and a military dimension of medieval political thought. Storia Del Pensiero Politico, 3, 407-424. doi: 10.4479/75154
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T., & Nederman, C. J. (2011). The best medicine? Medical education, practice, and metaphor in John of Salisbury's Policraticus and Metalogicon. Viator, 42(1), 55-73. doi: 10.1484/j.viator.1.102004
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2010). ″Another″ patriotism in early Shōwa Japan (1930-1945). Journal of the History of Ideas, 71(1), 139-160.
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2010). European ideas of peace in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. European Legacy, 15(7), 871-885. doi: 10.1080/10848770.2010.528904
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2008). Treating the body politic: The medical metaphor of political rule in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan. Review of Politics, 70, 77-104. doi: 10.1017/S00346705080001811
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2007). 'Head or heart?' revisited: Physiology and political thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. History of Political Thought, XXVIII(2), 208-229.
Journal - Research Article
Shogimen, T. (2018). Consent and popular sovereignty in medieval political thought: Marsilius of Padua's Defensor pacis. In X. Márquez (Ed.), Democratic moments: Reading democratic texts. (pp. 49-56). London, UK: Bloomsbury.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2018). William of Ockham and medieval discourses on toleration. In V. A. Spencer (Ed.), Toleration in comparative perspective. (pp. 3-21). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2017). William of Ockham's ecclesiology and political thought. In M. J. P. Robson (Ed.), The English province of the Franciscans (1224-c.1350). (pp. 335-353). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi: 10.1163/9789004331624_017
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2015). John of Paris and the idea of peace in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. In C. Jones (Ed.), John of Paris: Beyond royal and papal power. (pp. 239-261). Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2015). William of Ockham on ecclesiastical censorship. In G. Kemp (Ed.), Censorship moments: Reading texts in the history of censorship and freedom of expression. (pp. 39-46). London: Bloomsbury.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2015). Patriotism and republicanism in Japan: A century ago and today. In J.-H. Kwak & L. Jenco (Eds.), Republicanism in Northeast Asia. (pp. 158-174). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2014). Ockham, Almain, and the idea of heresy. In K. Bollermann, T. M. Izbicki & C. J. Nederman (Eds.), Religion, power and resistance from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries: Playing the heresy card. (pp. 153-168). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2014). Visions of peace in medieval European political thought. In T. Shogimen & V. A. Spencer (Eds.), Visions of peace: Asia and the West. (pp. 103-118). Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2013). The legacy of Uchimura Kanzō's patriotism: Tsukamoto Toraji and Yanaihara Tadao. In H. Shibuya & S. Chiba (Eds.), Living for Jesus and Japan: The social and theological thought of Uchimura Kanzō. (pp. 93-112). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2012). Medicine and the body politic in Marsilius of Padua's Defensor pacis. In G. Moreno-Riaño & C. J. Nederman (Eds.), A Companion to Marsilius of Padua. (pp. 71-116). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2012). Ockham's political philosophy. In M. Takeshita & S. Yamauchi (Eds.), Isurāmu Tetsugaku to Kirisutokyō Chūsei [Islamic philosophy and the Christian middle ages] (Vol. II: Practical philosophy). (pp. 91-113). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2009). Imagining the body politic: Metaphor and political language in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan. In T. Shogimen & C. J. Nederman (Eds.), Western political thought in dialogue with Asia. (pp. 279-300). Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (2006). Wyclif's ecclesiology and political thought. In I. C. Levy (Ed.), A companion to John Wyclif: Late medieval theologian. (pp. 199-240). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill.
Chapter in Book - Research
Shogimen, T. (Ed.). (2012). American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 86(3) [Special issue: William of Ockham]. [Guest Editor].
Other - Edited Journal
Gabriel, M., Mimaki, S, & Shogimen, T. (2020, April). Studio 202X: Lock down globalisation? Invited discussion with Daisuke Tsuda, Goethe-Institut, Tokyo, Japan. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/goethe.institut.tokyo/videos/1106109749764261/
Other Research Output
Stenhouse, J., & Shogimen, T. (2020). Why Kiwis embraced lockdown so willingly. Newsroom: Ideasroom, (4 May). Retrieved from https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/2020/05/04/1155032/why-did-kiwis-embrace-lockdown-so-willingly
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Shogimen, T. (2020). Arise from your slumber: Coronavirus and the modern state. Newsroom: Ideasroom, (8 October). Retrieved from https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/2020/05/07/1158552/coronavirus-and-the-modern-state
Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Shogimen, T. (2020). Jiyū eno shingai wa tobihi suru: senzen no daigaku dan'atsu jiken kara kangaeru gakumon no yukue [The oppression of freedom spreads like wildfire: The future of academia in view of the history of attacks on the university before the War] [Interview]. Mainichi Shimbun, (6 October). Retrieved from https://mainichi.jp/articles/20201006/k00/00m/040/118000c
Journal - Research Other
Shogimen, T. (2021). Derutakabu mo osaekomu nyūjīrando: kyōryokuna rokkudaun ni kokumin ga sandō suru riyū [New Zealand suppresses delta variant: The reason New Zealanders embrace rigorous lockdown]. Gendai Bijinesu, (9 September). Retrieved from https://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/-/87084
Journal - Research Other
Shogimen, T. (2020). Korona in Nyūjīrando: Jiyū yori kōsei wo jūshisuru hitobito [Coronavirus in New Zealand: Prioritizing fairness over freedom]. Asahi Shimbun, (12 September), 15. [Commentary].
Journal - Research Other
Shogimen, T. (2020). Honkon demo kakushin ni aikokushugi [Patriotism is at the heart of the democratic protest in Hong Kong]. Yomiuri Shimbun, (20 January). Retrieved from https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/culture/20200119-OYT8T50021/
Journal - Research Other
Shogimen, T. (2020). Nihon daisuki no sokoniaru aikoku shizen no ayausa [The danger of ’natural’ patriotic sentiments in Japan]. Monthly Journalism, (10 January), 40-47. [Commentary].
Journal - Research Other
Shogimen, T. (2020). Orinpikku to aikoku [Olympics and patriotism]. Chūō Kōron, (May), 150-165. [Commentary].
Journal - Research Other
Shogimen, T. (2020). Shin no aikoku – Nan no tameni ikirunoka [True Patriotism: What do we live for?] [Interview]. Weekly Dokushojin, (10 January).
Journal - Research Other
