Dr Matthew Stavros

BA, Michigan State University; MA, PhD, Princeton University
528 Brennan MacCallum Building A18

+61 2 9351 4805

Matthew Stavros is an urban historian specializing in architecture and space as elements of authority during the premodern era. Through the synthesis of textual, pictorial, and archaeological sources, his research attempts to reconstruct and analyse key urban landscapes and architectural monuments with the objective of drawing conclusions about warrior authority, political and economic relations, and religious legitimacy. Dr Stavros was trained in architectural and urban history at Kyoto University and he studied Japanese history at Princeton University. He is, annually, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo’s Historiographical Institute.

Dr Stavros is currently working on a book-length urban history of Japan’s premodern capital of Kyoto. This study examines space and architecture across time and in so doing seeks to draw new conclusions about the balance of power that existed between the capital’s several influential institutions including the emperor, the temple establishment, and military government. Research related to this project is funded, in part, by a generous grant from the Japan Foundation, which supports an extended period of residency at the University of Tokyo during 2009.

Dr Stavros is guest editing a special issue of the journal Japanese Studies that highlights the work of Australian and foreign historians who attended a workshop at the University of Sydney in December 2007. Publication is planned for May 2009.

Dr Stavros is the author of “Where a Shogun Lives: Locational Pedigree and Warrior Status in Medieval Kyoto” (Japanese Studies, May 2009), an investigation into the motivations behind Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s decisions about where to live in Kyoto. “Building Warrior Legitimacy in Medieval Kyoto” (East Asian History, no. 31, 2007), considers how warriors used classical-era elite architectural styles as a means of gaining legitimacy in medieval Kyoto. For the Proceedings of the International Conference on East Asian Architectural Culture, 2006, Dr. Stavros authored “Space, Place, and Limits on Warrior Authority in Medieval Kyoto” and co-authored with Takahashi Yasuo, “Capitals in Medieval East Asia.” The former demonstrates that warriors associated with the Ashikaga shogunate were relegated to the margins of Kyoto’s urban landscape throughout the period most commonly associated with their domination of that city. The latter explores urban patterns that defined “capital” cities in premodern China, Japan, and Korea.

Dr Stavros’ doctoral dissertation is entitled Reading Ashikaga History in the Urban Landscape: Kyoto in the Early Muromachi Period, 1336-1467 (Princeton, 2005). It is available from UMI/Proquest http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations.

Teaching

• The Origins of Japanese Tradition (ASNS2631)
• Japan in the Western Imagination (postgraduate) (JPNS6901)
• Introduction to Japan (JPNS2660)
• Approaches to Research in Asian Studies (ASNS3690)
• Japanese 5 reading (team taught) (JPNS2621)
• Colonialism in Asia (taught in History Department)

Supervision

Dr Stavros supervises honours and postgraduate research students in both Japanese Studies and Asian Studies. In addition to topics related to his own area of specialization, he also enjoys advising students on historical research related to modernity, nationalism, and Japanese interactions with the West.

• Honours Coordinator for Japanese Studies
• Visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo Historiographical Institute, December to March annually.
• Editor and Administrator of PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies