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Shogimen_Takashi 186Contact 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.

His 2021 book, What’s Wrong With Obedience, has demonstrated wide impact on a general readership in Japan. The book is widely used for courses and entrance examinations at high schools and universities. He is currently working on books in English on patriotism and a book in Japanese on treason.

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.; patriotism and nationalism.


Courses taught

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.

Publications

Jones, C., & Shogimen, T. (Eds.). (2023). Rethinking medieval and renaissance political thought: Historiographical problems, fresh interpretations, new debates. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 279p.

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. (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.

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