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Dr Ian Rapley
Senior Lecturer in East Asian History
School of History, Archaeology and Religion
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I am a historian of modern Japan, focusing on the early twentieth century and a blend of social, cultural, and intellectual history. My first book, Green Star Japan, a history of Japanese engagement with the planned language Esperanto, is due out in trhe second half of 2024. It examines various figures who were excited about the possibilities of an easy to learn, global language, featuring early Meiji period intellectuals, left wing radicals, diplomats at the League of Nations, villagers across the country, and more besides. I am currently developing new research projects.
I am an enthusiastic teacher, interested in exploring the ways that we can use new and creative methods to explore historical topics in the classroom and beyond. Please see my website (https://fireflies2or3.wordpress.com/teaching/) for some examples.
I am also a participant in the activities that go into sustaining our academic community: I was the honourary treasurer of the British Association of Japanese Studies from 2019-2023, and I am the current chief editor of the journal Asian Literature and Translation (https://alt.cardiffuniversitypress.org/ - if you have an article, translation or some other piece of work on a broadly Asian theme, please consider submitting it to us. We're particularly interested in work which might lie outside of the formats of conventional academic journals).
Publication
2024
- Rapley, I. 2024. Green star Japan: Esperanto and the international language question, 1880–1945. Honololu, USA: University of Hawai'i Press.
2020
- Rapley, I. 2020. Fermita vivo pro epidemio. La Movado 836
- Rapley, I. 2020. Sekaigo: Esperanto, international language, and the transnational dimension to Japan’s linguistic modernity. Japan Forum 32(4), pp. 511-530. (10.1080/09555803.2019.1594342)
2019
- Rapley, I. 2019. A friendly disposition and orderly demeanour: Sources and resources on the Japanese Treaty Ports (Review). [Online]. Leiden: IIAS. Available at: https://newbooks.asia/review/apanese-treaty-ports
2018
- Rapley, I. 2018. The fractured transnational lens: motives, representations and historiographies in Deguchi Onisaburō’s 1924 Mongolian expedition. Journal of Northeast Asian History 15(1)
2016
- Rapley, I. 2016. Talking to the world: Esperanto and popular internationalism in Prewar Japan. Japan Society Proceedings 152, pp. 76-89.
2015
- Rapley, I. 2015. A language for Asia? Transnational encounters in the Japanese Esperanto movement, 1906-1928. In: Iacobelli, P., Leary, D. and Shinnosuke, T. eds. Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration, and Social Movements. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
2013
- Rapley, I. 2013. When global and local culture meet: Esperanto in 1920s rural Japan. Language Problems and Language Planning 37(2), pp. 179-196. (10.1075/lplp.37.2.04rap)
Articles
- Rapley, I. 2020. Fermita vivo pro epidemio. La Movado 836
- Rapley, I. 2020. Sekaigo: Esperanto, international language, and the transnational dimension to Japan’s linguistic modernity. Japan Forum 32(4), pp. 511-530. (10.1080/09555803.2019.1594342)
- Rapley, I. 2018. The fractured transnational lens: motives, representations and historiographies in Deguchi Onisaburō’s 1924 Mongolian expedition. Journal of Northeast Asian History 15(1)
- Rapley, I. 2016. Talking to the world: Esperanto and popular internationalism in Prewar Japan. Japan Society Proceedings 152, pp. 76-89.
- Rapley, I. 2013. When global and local culture meet: Esperanto in 1920s rural Japan. Language Problems and Language Planning 37(2), pp. 179-196. (10.1075/lplp.37.2.04rap)
Book sections
- Rapley, I. 2015. A language for Asia? Transnational encounters in the Japanese Esperanto movement, 1906-1928. In: Iacobelli, P., Leary, D. and Shinnosuke, T. eds. Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration, and Social Movements. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Books
- Rapley, I. 2024. Green star Japan: Esperanto and the international language question, 1880–1945. Honololu, USA: University of Hawai'i Press.
Websites
- Rapley, I. 2019. A friendly disposition and orderly demeanour: Sources and resources on the Japanese Treaty Ports (Review). [Online]. Leiden: IIAS. Available at: https://newbooks.asia/review/apanese-treaty-ports
- Rapley, I. 2020. Sekaigo: Esperanto, international language, and the transnational dimension to Japan’s linguistic modernity. Japan Forum 32(4), pp. 511-530. (10.1080/09555803.2019.1594342)
- Rapley, I. 2018. The fractured transnational lens: motives, representations and historiographies in Deguchi Onisaburō’s 1924 Mongolian expedition. Journal of Northeast Asian History 15(1)
- Rapley, I. 2016. Talking to the world: Esperanto and popular internationalism in Prewar Japan. Japan Society Proceedings 152, pp. 76-89.
- Rapley, I. 2015. A language for Asia? Transnational encounters in the Japanese Esperanto movement, 1906-1928. In: Iacobelli, P., Leary, D. and Shinnosuke, T. eds. Transnational Japan as History: Empire, Migration, and Social Movements. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Teaching
I currently teach on a range of modules across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, with a focus on East Asian and transnational themes. I also supervise dissertations and other independent study modules. My main undergraduate module is the co-taught East Asian history course, Close Neighbours Dangerous Enemies: China, Japan and East Asian History and I am developing a final year module on the 1930s/40s in Japan titled The Dark Valley of Fascist Japan, expected to launch next year. I have previously taught a range of modules focusing on Japan and East Asia. In particular, I developed a final year undergraduate module which was an intensive look at the experiences of (chiefly Western) travellers in Japan: Glimpses of the Unfamiliar: Travellers to Japan, and which I hope to be able to turn into a research project when time allows.
Biography
I first lived in Japan between 1999 and 2001 on a Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation scholarship. Since then I have been a regular visitor. My research and before that work has taken me across the country, from Hokkaido and Aomori in the north, to Kumamoto and Oita in the south (but never to Okinawa, yet). I've spend extended periods in both Tokyo and Kyoto.
1995-1999 - Undergraduate/masters degree in Mathematics, Lincoln College, Oxford University
1999-2001 - Daiwa Anglo Japanese Scholarship, Tokyo
2007-2009 - MPhil, Modern Japanese Studies, Nissan Institute, Oxford University
2009-2013 - DPhil, Mopdern Japanese History, Nissan Institute, Oxford University
2014-2015 - Postdoctoral Teaching Associate, Nissan Institute, Oxford University
2014 - present - Cardiff University
Supervisions
I currently have two research students:
- Michael Trull - a 'new diplomatic history' of Anglo-Japanese Relations (PhD)
- Alec Batty - Chaplains in the Far East during the Second World War (Mphil)
Contact Details
+44 29208 74260
John Percival Building, Room 4.31, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
Research themes
Specialisms
- 20th Century
- Asian history
- japanese history
- East Asian History
- Japanese studies
