Garrett L. Washington

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Professor Garrett L. Washington examines the impact of imported Western forms of space, knowledge, and discourse on late 19th and early 20th century Japanese society. He holds a B.A. from Rice University, a Diplome des Etudes Approfondies from the Universite de Paris VIII Saint Denis/Vincennes, and a Ph.D from Purdue University. He has published articles on the social and discursive space of Japanese Protestant churches in Tokyo, Buddhism’s response to Protestant church space in Tokyo, and the role of St. Luke’s Hospital in the rise of public health in Tokyo in Japanese Studies, Crosscurrents: East Asian History and Culture Review E- Journal, and Health and History, respectively. In addition he has published a book chapter on the national imaginary in Japanese Protestant pastoral discourse in David Yoo and Albert Park, eds. Encountering Modernity: Christianity in East Asia and Asian America. His first book project analyzes the role of the physical, discursive and social spaces of Tokyo’s most popular Japanese Protestant churches in movements for social activism and change in the authoritarian context of imperial Japan (1868-1945). Building on this research, he has also begun new research on industrialist, women’s rights activist, and late-life Christian convert Madame Hirooka Asako (1849-1919).  His research has been made possible by the generous support of the Association for Asian Studies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and Purdue University, among other sources. Before coming to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Washington taught at Oberlin College. At UMass, he teaches courses on modern and traditional Japan, Japanese women’s history, Japanese imperialism, US-Japan relations, and the interplay of race, religion and nation in East Asia.

• Garrett L. Washington, Church Space and the Capital in Prewar Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2021).
• Garrett L. Washington, ‘’The Problem of Faith’ by Chikazumi Jōkan” in Orion Klautau and Hans Martin Krämer, eds. Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2021), 221-228.
• Garrett L. Washington, ed. Christianity and the Modern Woman in East Asia (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Including Garrett L. Washington, “Christianity and ‘True Education’: Yasui Tetsu’s Contribution to Women’s Education in Imperial Japan,” 134-162
• Camille Washington-Ottombre, Garrett L. Washington, and Julie Newman, “Campus sustainability in the US: Environmental management and social change since 1970.” Journal of Cleaner Production 196 (20 September 2018): 564-575
• Garrett L. Washington, “St. Luke’s Hospital and the Modernization of Japan” Health and History Vol. 15, no. 2 (Dec., 2013): 5-28. Republished in Yun-jae Park, ed., Dong Asia Yeoksa sok'ui Seon'gyo Byeongwon [Missionary Hospitals in East Asian History] (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2015) 
• Garrett L. Washington, “Preaching Modern Japan: National Imaginaries and Protestant Sermons in Meiji and Taishō Tokyo,” in David Yoo and Albert Park, eds. Encountering Modernity: Christianity in East Asia and Asian America (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014) 
• Garrett L. Washington, “Brick for Brick: Chikazumi Jōkan and Buddhism’s Response to the Christian Spatial Menace in Japan” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review E-Journal No. 6 (March 2013): 95-120. 
• Garrett L. Washington, “Pulpits as Lecterns: Discourses of Social Change inside Tokyo’s Protestant Churches, 1890–1920,”Japanese Studies Vol. 29, no 3 (December 2009): 381-399.