Amy Stanley is an American historian of early modern Japan. In 2007, Stanley began teaching in the Department of History at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...

, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Japanese history, global history, and women's/gender history. She is best known for her most recent book '' Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World'', which received the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award The PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award is awarded by the PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to honor a "distinguished biography possessing notable literary merit which has been published in the United States during the previous calendar year." ...

for biography, and was a finalist for both the

Baillie Gifford Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its ...

and

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author." Award winners receive ...

Academic career

Stanley received her BA from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in East Asian Studies in 1999 and her PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard in 2007. In 2007, she became the Wayne V. Jones II Research Professor in History at Northwestern University.

Harassment and controversy

She has received harassment from Japanese internet right-wing communities (commonly known as ''netto uyoku ネット右翼'', or ''neto uyo'' ネトウヨ for short) and Japanese and Korean right-wing scholars due to her criticism on how the controversial issue of Korean comfort women of WWII has been written about by academics. Alongside Hannah Shepherd of

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, Sayaka Chatani of

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

, David Ambaras of

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

, and Chelsea Szendi Schieder of

Aoyama Gakuin University is a private Christian university in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Originally established in 1874 by missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church, it was reconfigured in its current form in 1949 as tertiary component of the Aoyama Gakuin. The u ...

, Stanley was one of five Japanese Studies scholars who posted a critical rebuttal against

J. Mark Ramseyer John Mark Ramseyer (born 1954) is an American legal scholar who is the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is the author of over 10 books and 50 articles in scholarly journals. He is co-author of one of the lea ...

’s claims in ''The Asia Pacific Journal'' entitled “'Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War': The Case for Retraction on Grounds of Academic Misconduct." As a result Stanley has also stated that she was the subject of “oblique threats.”

Personal life

Stanley’s interest in Japan was first sparked when she interacted with Japanese post-doctoral students who worked alongside her father at the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

in Bethesda, Maryland. Stanley did not start learning Japanese until she began her post-secondary education at Harvard University. Under the guidance of her advisor

Harold Bolitho Harold Bolitho (3 January 1939 – 23 October 2010) was an Australian academic, historian, author and professor emeritus in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. The name Bolitho is of Cornish origin. ...

she was encouraged to pursue her research in early modern Japan. Stanley currently lives in

with her husband, two sons, and dog. Her hobbies include pottery, reading, and learning about historical figures from the nineteenth-century.

Publications

All publication can be accessed through Stanley's CV on the Northwestern University websit
here

Books

* *

Journal articles

* “‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’: The Case for Retraction on the Grounds of Academic Misconduct,” with Hannah Shepherd, Sayaka Chatani, David Ambaras, and Chelsea Szendi Scheider. ''The Asia-Pacific Journal'' (March 2021). * “Maidservants’ Tales: Narrating Domestic and Global History, 1600-1900.” ''The American Historical Review'' Vol. 121, No. 2 (April 2016): 437-460. * “Enlightenment Geisha: The Sex Trade, Education, and Feminine Ideals in Early Meiji Japan.” ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' Vol. 72, No. 3 (2013): 539-562. * “Adultery, Punishment, and Reconciliation in Tokugawa Japan,” ''The Journal of Japanese Studies'' Vol. 3, No. 2 (2007): 309-335.

Periodicals

* “Writing the History of Sexual Assault in the #MeToo Era,” ''Perspectives on History: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association'' (November 2018): 18-20. ** *Republished in Slate 10/1/1

Podcasts and interviews

* Baillie Gifford Podcast
Episode 5

Asian Review of Books Podcast

Meiji at 150 Podcast

New Books in East Asian Studies Podcast

Awards and accolades

* NEH Faculty Fellowship, 2015-16. * WCAS Distinguished Teaching Award. 2012. * For ''Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World'': ** Winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in Biography, 2021 ** Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, 2021 ** Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography, 2021 ** Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanley, Amy Living people 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American women writers Historians of Japan American Japanologists American women historians American women non-fiction writers Harvard University alumni Northwestern University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) National Book Critics Circle Award winners