Junko Takeda

Associate Professor, History

Degree

Ph.D., Stanford University, 2006

Specialties

Early modern European history, modern European history, France, Mediterranean, economic globalization, history of science and medicine

Biography

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, which examines commercial, industrial, and diplomatic exchanges between France and Iran in the long eighteenth century, appears in December 2020 on the third centenary of Montesquieu's Persian Letters with Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment Series/Liverpool University Press. She is writing a third book, Avedik: Louis XIV's Armenian Prisoner, a global micro-history about an Armenian patriarch and his valet, who were incarcerated on three French island prisons--in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Caribbean--in the early eighteenth century. She has also begun research on another book project, Global Insects: Silkworms, Statecraft and Franco-Japanese Trade, 1750-1914. 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.

Publications

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

Avedik: Louis XIV's Armenian Prisoner (monograph in progress)

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

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

"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 and Presentations

“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)

"Savage Worms and Modern Machines: Lyon's Silk Industry, Napoleonic State-Building, and the Tokugawa Bakufu," French Historical Studies Conference, Boston MA April 2013.

"Marseille, the Mediterranean, and Mercantilism: New American Approaches in the History of Ideas," workshop/seminar presentation, invitation by Professor Jean Boutier and Jean-Baptiste Xambo, École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) Marseille, France (November 10, 2010).

"Politique et altérité : le poids de l'idéologie dans les representations," keynote talk for Marseille la Mediterranéenne: Echanges, Mobilites et Frontieres Conference Series, Archives départementales de Bouches-du-Rhône, in association with Approches Cultures et Territoires, Marseille, France (November 9, 2010).

"Marseille, Colbertisme, and the Mediterranean: Debating Citizenship in Early Modern France," panel with Robert Kruckeberg, Markus Prutsch, New York State Association of European Historians Conference, Loudonville, NY (September 24-25, 2010).

 

Teaching Appointments

Syracuse University 2006-Present

Research Interests

Early Modern France, intellectual and political history; Modern France and the World; history of medicine; race and gender in early modern Europe.

Research Grants and Awards

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

 

Selected Professional Activities

American Historical Association (AHA), 2005 - present
Society for French Historical Studies (SFHS), 2004 - present
American Society for 18th-Century Studies (ASECS), 2005 - present

SU Affiliations

Maxwell Program in Citizenship and Civic Engagement