History Department Faculty
M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J.
Associate Professor
M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J.
D.Phil.
Contact
Ricci Institute
Telephone: 617-552-3622
Email: antoni.ucerler@bc.edu
Education
- D.Phil., University of Oxford
Research Interests
Japanese history; history of Christianity in premodern and Meiji Japan; early modern European expansion in East Asia; history of the book and material culture; intercultural translation
Department
Biography
Professor Ucerler is a Jesuit priest, an historian of premodern Japan, and Director of the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at Boston College. He is also co-editor of the Brill monograph series, Studies in the History of Christianity in East Asia. His research focuses primarily on the intellectual history of Christianity in Japan and the connected histories that marked the arrival of Europeans in other East Asian countries. His interests include the study of the manuscript and printed sources that were produced through these intercultural and inter-religious encounters as well as other examples of material and visual culture, including engravings, maps, and artwork. His most recent study, The Samurai and the Cross: The Jesuit Enterprise in Early Modern Japan (2022) explores three interconnected themes from the perspective of global intellectual history: European philosophy and theology in Classical Japanese translation; the question of persecution and 16th-/17th-century debates over just war theory; and how “reason of state” informed both European and Japanese responses to other cultures in the early Edo period. He has previously taught at Sophia University (Tokyo), the University of Oxford, Georgetown University, and the University of San Francisco.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
- The Samurai and the Cross. The Jesuit Enterprise in Early Modern Europe (2022).
- 日本語訳におけるアリストテレスとトマスアクイナス－ペドロゴメスの『イエズス会日本コレジヨの講義要綱』(1593–95)」[Trans. “Aristotle and Aquinas in Japanese Translation. Pedro Gómez’s Compendium for the Jesuit College in Japan”]. In「イエズス会教育の歴史と対話: キリシタン時代から現代に至る挑戦」[The History of Jesuit Education and Dialogue: Challenges from the Christian Period to the Present]. Ed. Kuwabara Naoki and Shimamura Eriko (2020).
- “The Last Attempted Suppression of Christianity in Japan”. In Japan: Past & Present. Ed. Kurt Almqvist (2020).
- “Japan.” In Brill Companion to Early Modern Catholic Global Missions. Ed. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (2017).
- “Missionaries, Mandarins, and Maps: Reimagining the Known World.” In China at the Center. Ricci & Verbiest World Maps. Ed. Natasha Reichle (2016).
- “The Jesuits in East Asia in the Early Modern Age: A New ‘Areopagus’ & The ‘Re-invention’ of Christianity.” In The Jesuits and Globalization. Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges. Ed. José Casanova and Thomas Banchoff (2016).
- 「大航海時代のアジアとアメリカ大陸における宣教師の印刷事業」[Trans.: “Missionary Printing in Asia and the Americas during the Age of European Maritime Explorations”]. In「近世印刷史とイエズス会系「絵入り本」[The History of Early Modern Printing and Jesuit Illustrated Books]. Ed. Asami Masakazu (2014).
- Christianity and Cultures. China and Japan in Comparison (1543–1644) (Ed. 2009).
- Il Gesuita, Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606): Un ponte tra Oriente e Occidente (Co-ed. 2009).
- “Alessandro Valignano: Man, Missionary, and Writer”. In Renaissance Studies (2003).
- The Compendia compiled by Pedro Gómez for the Jesuits College of Japan (Co-ed. 1997).