Junko Takeda

Junko Takeda’s current research and teaching interests include the histories of early modern globalization, state-building and revolutions, migration, medicine and disease. Her first book, "Between Crown and Commerce: Marseille and the Early Modern Mediterranean" (Johns Hopkins, 2011), explored the political tradition of civic republicanism in the context of French trade with the Ottoman Empire. Her second monograph, "The Other Persian Letters: Iran and a French Empire of Trade, 1700-1808" (Liverpool University Press, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2020), examined commercial, industrial and diplomatic exchanges between France and Iran in the long 18th century, and highlights the importance of Asia in the Age of Revolutions. 

She is working on two book projects. "Avedik: Louis XIV's Armenian Prisoner," is a global micro-history. It tells the story of an Armenian patriarch and his valet incarcerated at French island prisons in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Caribbean in the early eighteenth century. "The Half-Japanese Indo-Portuguese Kitchen Slave who Sued the Compagnie des Indes: The Story of Madame Constance, Maria Guyomar de Pinha" relates the history of French engagement in Siam in the reign of Louis XIV.

Beyond French global and connected histories, Takeda's additional research and teaching interests include Asian immigration to the US and Zainichi Korean history in Japan. She is currently completing a multi-generational family memoir, "The Secret Life of Ken: A Father-Daughter Story of Healing from Immigration Traumas." It relates the history of Zainichi-Koreans in Japan, and Takeda's experiences as a bi-ethnic, formerly undocumented immigrant in the United States. Her course HST / AAA 300 Asian American Memoirs (Spring 2023) is the first course in Asian American history offered by the History Department.

Takeda is the recipient of the Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, the Georges Lurcy Fellowship, Society for French Historical Studies Research Award and a visiting research fellowship at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. At Syracuse University, she has received the O'Hanley Faculty Scholar Award, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Research and Teaching and the Junior Meredith Teaching Recognition Award. She is currently the Maxwell School's inaugural Daicoff Faculty Scholar.

Early modern European history, France, Mediterranean, economic globalization, immigration, history of medicine

Early Modern French empire, connected histories of early modernity, history of medicine; race-craft in early modern Europe, Asian-American history.

Daicoff Faculty Scholar, Daicoff Faculty Endowment, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 2019 - present

O’Hanley Faculty Scholar, O’Hanley Faculty Endowment for Faculty Excellence, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 2014-2017

Visiting Research Fellow, The French Centre, The University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland, Spring/Summer 2014

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Research and Teaching, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 2012

Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Teaching Recognition Award, Meredith Professorship Program, Syracuse University, March 2009

Appleby-Moser Faculty Research Grant for manuscript preparation, Maxwell School of Citizenship, Syracuse University, Summers 2007—2011

Pigott Faculty Research Fund, Syracuse University, Summer 2009, Summer 2008

Society for French Historical Studies (SFHS) and Western Society for French Historical Studies (WSFHS) Research Travel Award for manuscript preparation, Summer 2007

Mellon Dissertation Writing Fellowship, 2005 – 2006

Georges Lurcy Fellowship, 2003 – 2004

Books

Between Crown and Commerce: Marseille and the Early Modern Mediterranean (Johns Hopkins University Press, March 2011).

Iran and a French Empire of Trade, 1700-1808: The Other Persian Letters (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool University Press, 2020).

Avedik: Louis XIV's Armenian Prisoner (monograph in progress, estimated draft completion 2024).

The Half-Japanese Indo-Portuguese Kitchen Slave who Sued the Compagnie des Indes: The Story of Madame Constance, Maria Guyomar de Pinha (research in progress).

The Secret Life of Ken: A Father-Daughter Story of Healing from Immigration Traumas (memoir in progress, estimated draft completion Fall 2023).

Articles and Book chapters

“Epidemics, Disinformation, and Financial Meltdown: Lessons from the Great Plague of Marseille of 1720,” in Kathryn Kleppinger and Mark Ingram, eds., The Marseille Mosaic (Berghahn Books, 2022).

Takeda, ed. and Introduction, “Plagues, Pandemics and Pathologies in French History,” French History (Oxford: June 2021).

“Early Modern Trade,” in Ian Coller, ed., Cultural History of Western Empires: The Enlightenment, 1650-1800, Volume 4 (Bloomsbury, 2018). 

“‘The Princesses’ Representative’ or Renegade Entrepreneur?: Marie Petit, the Silk Trade and Franco-Persian Diplomacy,” in Queenship and Power: Colonization, Piracy and Trade in Early Modern Europe, eds. Estelle Paranque, Nate Pobrasco, Claire Jowitt (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

“Vincent de Stochove,” “Voyage en Egypt (1631)” and “L’Othoman, ou abregé des vies des empereurs turcs,” in John Chesworth, David Thomas, eds., Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500-1900 (Brill, 2017).

“French Mercantilism and the Early Modern Mediterranean: A Case Study of Marseille's Silk Industry,” Special Issue: France and the Mediterranean, French History (March 2015).

“Global Insects: Silkworms, Sericulture, and Statecraft in Napoleonic France and Tokugawa Japan,” Special Issue: Animals and French History, French History 28:2 (March 2014), 207-225.

"Silk, Calico and Immigration in Marseille," Special Issue: Merkantilismus. Wiederaufnahme einer Debatte, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Stuttgart, March 2014), 241-63.

"Danton," "Marat," "Mirabeau," and "Sieyes" for International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (Blackwell Publishing, March 2009).

"Levantines in Marseille: The Politics of Naturalization and Neutralization in Old Regime France, 1660 – 1720," peer-reviewed journal, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 30 No. 2 (London: Maney Publishing, 2008), 170-181.

"French Absolutism, Marseillais Civic Humanism, and the Languages of Public Good," peer-reviewed journal, The Historical Journal, Vol. 49. No. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 707-734.

Recent Papers, Presentations, Blog-posts (2015 to present)

“Jean-François Rousseau and a French Revolution in India,” invited lecture for the Lichtenberg-Kolleg Gottingen Institute for Advanced Study Enlightenment Reading Group (July 1, 2021).

“The French Republic of Letters, Persia, and the Global Age of Revolutions,” blog-post for Age of Revolutions (April 12, 2021). https://ageofrevolutions.com/2021/04/12/the-french-republic-of-letters-persia-and-the-global-age-of-revolutions/

“Montesquieu, the Persian Rousseau, and Napoleon’s French Revolution in India,” blog-post for Liverpool University Press Blog (December 16, 2020) and the Voltaire Foundation (January 28, 2021). https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2020/12/16/montesquieu-persian-rousseau-napoleon-french-revolution-india/ and https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/tag/junko-takeda/

“Montesquieu, the Persian Rousseau, and Napoleon’s French Revolution in India,” blog-post for Liverpool University Press Blog (December 16, 2020).

“Epidemics, Disinformation, and Financial Meltdown: Lessons from the Great Plague of Marseille of 1720,” Zoom-talk for the Center for Early Modern History, University of Minnesota (November 6, 2020).

“Jean-François, the Other Rousseau: The Consul of Baghdad and French Expansion in the Persian Gulf, 1756-1808,” French Colonial History Conference, Montreal, CA (June 12-14, 2019).

“Persian Civil Wars and the Asian Origins of the French Revolution,” Stanford Humanities Center French Culture Workshop, Stanford, CA (February 13-14, 2019).

“The Other Persian Letters: Marie Petit and Franco-Iranian Diplomacy,” American Historical Association Conference, Washington DC (January 4-7, 2018) .

“Marie Petit, Vakhtang VI and Franco-Georgian Diplomacy on the Persian Frontier, 1704-1715,” at French Historical Society Conference (April 22-25, 2017)

“The Other Persian Letters: Early Modern France, the Gunpowder Empires, and Mercantilist Entrepreneurialism,” Festschrift for Keith Michael Baker (Feb 3-5, 2017)

“French Entrepreneurs and the Silk Corridors to Safavid Persia, 1700-1715,” for “Versailles in the World, 1660-1789,” Symposium at NYU (January 29, 2016)  

“The Fabre Brothers and the Quest for Persian Silk: Mercantilism, Entrepreneurs, and Royal Companies in the French Asia Trade,” Western Society of French History Annual Conference, Chicago IL (November 7-8, 2015)  

“Foreign Expertise and Enterprising Frenchmen: Case Studies of the French East India and Mediterranean Companies,” Panel: Networks and Connectivity in the Irano-Mediterranean Zone: Commerce and Diplomacy, Conference: Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Berlin, Germany (March 26-27, 2015)  

“A Local Perspective on the Global: Marseille’s Silk Industry and the Compagnie de la Méditerranée,” 2-Day Conference: France and its Global Histories: State of the Field, Institut Français du Royaume- Uni; Centre for French History and Culture, and the School of History, University of St Andrews (August 26-27, 2014)  

“Silk and Statecraft: French Mercantilism and the Early Modern Mediterranean,” Conference: France and the Mediterranean World in the Reign of Louis XIV, Centre for French History and Culture, University of St. Andrews, UK (May 10, 2014)

“Savage Worms and Modern Machines: French Sericulture, Napoleonic State-building, and Tokugawa Japan,” Late-Modern Workshop, Centre for French History and Culture, University of St. Andrews, UK (April 23, 2014)