Ian Jared Miller is a historian of modern Japan. His research is primarily concerned with imperialism and the cultural dimensions of scientific, medical, and environmental change. He earned his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in 2005, arriving at Harvard in 2007. He has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Expanding East Asian Studies Program (ExEAS) at Columbia's Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University. Professor Miller's current book project, The Nature of the Beast, introduces readers to the cultural and environmental history of Tokyo's Imperial Zoological Gardens, Japan's first zoo, opened in 1882. The zoo was a microcosm of changing attitudes towards empire and the natural world in modern Japan. He is also investigating the global history of tsunami and co-editing the first collection of essays on Japan's environmental history in English with Professors Brett L. Walker and Julia Adeney Thomas. Research and teaching interests range from comparative imperialism and the global history of exhibition to the history of natural history and the interdisciplinary study of embodiment, disease, and especially public health.

Selected Publications

• "Didactic Nature: Exhibiting Nation and Empire at the Ueno Zoological Gardens" in JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan (2005)

Contact Info

Center for Government and International Studies-South Building

Room S421

1730 Cambridge Street

Cambridge, MA 02138

ian _miller@harvard.edu

617.384.7494

Office Hours:

Course(s):

Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies