Professor Mickey Adolphson
- Keidanren Professor of Japanese Studies
- Head of Japanese Studies
Contact
Location
- Sidgwick Avenue, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, CB39DA
About
Brought up in Kalmar, Sweden, where he used a thirteenth century castle as his playground, Mickey Adolphson has been a historian as long as he can remember. After graduating from high school in the late (and joyful) 1970s, he went to Lund's University, where he graduated with a B.A. in History, Museum and Cultural Studies in 1984. A premodernist, he was inspired by the similarities between medieval Europe and Japan to focus his attention on pre-1600 Japan. He spent two years studying Japanese at Stockholm University before receiving a scholarship from the Japanese Education Ministry in 1986. During the next two and a half years he lived in Kyoto and Osaka while studying at Kyoto University under the guidance of Professor Oyama Kyohei. In 1989, he entered Stanford University's Ph.D. program with Professor Jeffrey P. Mass as his mentor. Returning to Kyoto University in the spring of 1992 for dissertation research, he also worked for the Japan Volleyball Association as an interpreter. He resumed at Stanford in the fall of 1993 and finished his dissertation two years later. Adolphson’s first academic appointment was at the University of Oklahoma from 1995 to 1999, after which he moved to Harvard University, where he was assistant and associate professor of Japanese History. In 2008 he joined the faculty at the University of Alberta as Professor of Japanese Cultural Studies, where he served as chair and associate dean. Professor Adolphson is currently Keidanren Professor of Japanese Studies at Cambridge.
Research
Research interests
- Premodern Japanese History
- Medieval History
- Historical narratives of Japan
- Social history
- Religious and political history of premodern Japan
Professor Adolphson is a broadly trained historian with a strong interest in medieval societies. In fact, he studied medieval societies and religions in southern France at the University of Lund before suddenly being inspired to switch to medieval Japan. Nevertheless, he took with him an interest in Annales history to the Japan field, and so he focuses on a wide variety of topics, ranging from social structures, ideologies, mentalité, religious institutions, legal history, historical documents and international trade. In addition, he has a strong interest in how historical narratives have been and are constructed both in the past and the present. Professor Adolphson’s current project focuses on Sino-Japanese trade in the twelfth century, with a special focus on the import of Chinese copper coins, which eventually led to a monetized economy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The Disease of Money: Japan's Monetization in the Early Middle Ages. Forthcoming 2026 from the University of Hawai'i Press.
Lovable Losers: The Heike in Action and Memory University of Hawaii Press (2015)
The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha: Monastic Warriors and Sohei in Japanese History University of Hawai'i Press (2007)
Heian Japan, Centers and Peripheries University of Hawaii Press (2006)
The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers and Warriors in Premodern Japan University of Hawaii Press (2000)
Teaching and supervision
Professor Adolphson teaches a range of courses from a first-year introduction of East Asian Studies and occasionally Japanese text classes to advanced seminars on hentai kanbun and Japanese history.
Having supervised graduate students in a range of fields, including premodern and modern Japanese history, premodern literature as well as Buddhism, Professor Adolphson would welcome enquiries from motivated graduate students and young scholars from across the world.