Please note: Catherine has left the "History" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.
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| MA | Duke University | 1998 |
| BA | Carleton College | 1990 |
My dissertation, "Imperial Geographies: Remapping Japan’s Ports, Coal, and Empire in Northeast Asia, 1853-1899," examines how the Japanese port city of Moji became a crucial economic, military and informational link in Japanese, inter-Asian and inter-imperial networks during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. I deliberately reframe Japanese imperialism in two ways: by moving the focus away from Tokyo and by concentrating on sea-based rather than land-based interactions. Each reframing decenters the nation as the main unit of analysis. In doing so, I formulate a new approach to the geography of imperialism and contribute to an overall reassessment of the beginnings of Japan’s modern empire.