Dr. Daniel Botsman

Biography

Daniel Botsman teaches courses on the history of Japan from 1500 to the present. He was born in Lae, Papua New Guinea, where he witnessed the brutal battles fought between Allied and Japanese forces during World War II. He spent his formative years in Brisbane, Australia, where he was introduced to the Japanese language at a young age. After an extended visit to Osaka as a high school student, his study of Japanese history and society quickly became his guiding intellectual passion. Botsman completed a B.A. in Asian Studies (Hons.) from the Australian National University in Canberra, awarded the Rhodes Scholarship for his home state of Queensland. He spent years at Merton College, Oxford, where he received an M.Phil. in Economic and Social History and completed his graduate studies at Princeton University, earning a Ph.D. in History in 1999. After an academic appointment at the Faculty of Law at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, he taught for a year before returning to the United States to take a position in the history department at Harvard. In 2006, he moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a recipient of the James M. Johnston Award for Excellence in Teaching. Botsman's publications include a translation of the memoirs of prominent post-war foreign minister Okita Saburo, titled 'Life Economic Diplomacy,' and a study on the history of punishment from the 16th to the 20th centuries titled 'Punishment Power Making Modern Japan.' His current research examines the impact of Western ideas on slavery and emancipation in Japanese society during the latter half of the nineteenth century, particularly focusing on the experiences of Japan's outcaste communities.

Research Interests