Haruko Wakabayashi is a cultural historian of premodern Japan. Her interest lies in the social, cultural, and intellectual development with a focus on twelfth to sixteenth centuries and the use of visual sources in the study of history. She wrote her first book on the mythical creature tengu as representations of evil in Japanese Buddhism and has published several articles on medieval Japanese perceptions and interpretations of natural disasters. Her publications include The Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (2012), “Visualizing Hungry Ghosts in Heian Japan: Gakizōshi Scrolls as ‘Translation’” (2020), and “Disaster in the Making: Taira no Kiyomori’s Move of the Capital to Fukuhara” (2015). Meanwhile, as a historian with a bicultural and bilingual background, she has been intrigued by the historical encounters between Rutgers and Japan. She teaches seminars and is leading a research project on the transpacific network that connected Rutgers and Japan in the late nineteenth century, supported by grants from the Toshiba International Foundation, Rutgers Global, and the New Jersey Historical Commission. Most recently, she published an article on the Iwakura Mission and the network of Japanese students in the U.S. (2024).
She serves as the co-director of the SAS Global Asias Initiative and a board member of the Japan History Council of New York/Digital Museum of the History of Japanese in New York. Outside of the classroom, she serves as an instructor of the Rutgers Aikido Club and a faculty mentor for the Rutgers Japanese Student Association.
Education
- Ph.D. Princeton University, 1995
- B.A. Sophia Universty, 1989
Books
- The Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012.
- Tools of Culture: Japan’s Technological, Medical, and Intellectual Contacts in East Asia, 1100-1600. AAS Book Series, “Asia Past and Present.” Co-edited with Andrew Goble and Kenneth Robinson. Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, 2009.
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Selected Articles and Book Chapters
- “Iwakura Mission and the Network of Japanese Students in the United States.” The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 31 (2024): 278-307.
- “Visualizing Hungry Ghosts in Heian Japan: Gakizōshi Scrolls as “Translation”.” Monumenta Nipponica, 75:2 (2021): 205-240.
- “Disaster in the Making: Taira no Kiyomori’s Move of the Capital to Fukuhara,” Monumenta Nipponica, 70.1 (2015):. 1-38.
- “Monks, Sovereigns, and Malign Spirits: Profiles of Tengu in Medieval Japan,” in Religion Compass, 7.7 (2013): 234-242.
- “The Shikaumi jinja engi and the Making of the Iconography of Empress Jingū’s Legendary Conquest of Korea.” In Tools of Culture: Japan’s Cultural, Intellectual, Medical, and Technological Contacts in East Asia, 1000’s – 1500’s. Edited by Andrew E. Goble, K. Robinson, and H. Wakabayashi, 105-133. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies Press, 2009.
- “Officials of the Afterworld: Ono no Takamura and the Ten Kings of Hell in the Chikurinji engi Illustrated Scrolls,” in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 36.2 (2009): 319-349.
- “Hell Illustrated: A Visual Image of Ikai that Came from Ikoku.” In Practicing the Afterlife: Perspectives from Japan. Edited by Susanne Formanek and William R. LaFleur,, 285-318. Wien: Verlag der Ősterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004.
Courses Taught
- Introduction to Japanese Culture (01:565:210)
- The Samurai Tradition in Japanese Literature and Film (01:565:320)
- The Samurai Tradition in Japanese (01:991:105)
- Asia-Pacific in Cross-Cultural Perspective (01:098:345)
- Asia-Pacific Relations in Multi-Dimensions (Rutgers-Ritsumeikan Summer Study-Abroad)
- Rutgers Meets Japan: Revisiting Early U.S.-Japan Relations (01:565:425)
- Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar: Rutgers Meets Japan (01:090:295)
- From Text to Image in Japanese Art (01:565:483/16:217:583)
- A-Bomb Literature and Film in Japan (01:565:215)
- Premodern Japanese Literature in Translation (01:565:241)
- Advanced Readings in Japanese I & II (01:565:401/402)
- Advanced Japanese (01:565:302)
Selected Awards and Distinctions
- New Jersey Historical Commission Project Grant (2024-2025)
- Toshiba International Foundation Research Grant (2021-2024)
- Rutgers Global International Collaborative Research Grant (2023-2024)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship
- Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship