Professor Nam-lin Hur is co-director of the Centre for Korean Research at IAR. He teaches premodern Japanese history, Korean-Japanese relations, and Chosŏn Korea in the Department of Asian Studies and conducts research on foreign relations, religion, and society in premodern Japan and Korea. His current monograph projects involve “Japan’s Invasion of Korea in Premodern East Asia, 1592-98” and “Kaichō and Religious Culture in Early Modern Japan.”

Areas of his graduate supervision include: early modern Japanese history, Japanese Buddhism, international relations in premodern East Asia, Chosŏn Korea, Korean Buddhism, traditional Korean culture, and Korea-Japan relations.

• Chosŏn Korea – Ming/Qing China – Medieval/Tokugawa Japan relations
• War and peace in premodern East Asia
• Religions, politics, and society in Tokugawa/Meiji Japan
• Religion, taxation, military, and slavery in Chosŏn Korea
• Japan’s transition from medieval to early modern
• Ceramics, trade, tea, and transculturation in premodern East Asia

Current book projects in progress

• Momentum for Survival: Buddhism and War in Chosŏn Korea, 1592-1608
• Food, Diplomacy, and Governance: The East Asian War, 1592-1598
• The Age of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 1583-1598

Books

Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, Anti-Christianity, and the Danka System (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007).

Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan: Asakusa Sensōji and Edo Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000).

Recent Articles

“Political Tool of ‘Immoral Rituals’ and Resilience of Buddhism in Chosŏn Korea,” Religions (2025), Volume 16, Issue 1: 1-17.

“Atrocity and Genocide in Japan’s Invasion of Korea, 1592-1598,” in The Cambridge World History of Genocide, Volume II: Genocide in the Indigenous, Early Modern and Imperial Worlds, from c. 1535 to World War One, edited by Ned Blackhawk and Ben Kiernan. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023, pp. 118-138.

“Japan’s Invasion of Chosŏn Korea and Abduction of Koreans,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 81 (2022): 67-83.

“Japan’s Invasions of Korea in 1592-98 and the Hideyoshi Regime,” in The Tokugawa World, edited by Gary P. Leupp and De-min Tao. London and New York: Routledge, 2022), pp. 23-45.

“Anti-Christian Temple Certification (terauke) in Early Modern Japan: Establishment, Practice, and Challenges,” in Religion, Power, and the Rise of Shinto in Early Modern Japan, edited by Stefan Kock, Brigitte Pickl-Kolaczia, Bernhard Scheid. London and Oxford: Bloomsbury, 2021 (15 authors), pp. 21-32.

“Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Invasion of the Chosŏn Kingdom, 1592-1598” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Oxford University Press, February 2020): 27 pages (online publication).

“Veritable Records (Sillok) of the Chosŏn Dynasty,” Encyclopédie des historiographies Afriques, Amériques, Asies, Volume 1 – Tome 2 (December, 2020), pp. 1118-1931.

“Buddhist Culture in Early Modern Japan,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2019): 24 pages (online publication).

International relations in premodern East Asia in the 14th-19th centuries

Sengoku and Tokugawa Japan (16th-19th centuries)

Chosŏn/Colonial Korea (1392-1945)

Religions and society in premodern Japan and Korea

In particular, prospective students with interests in transborder, transnational, transdisciplinary research on premodern East Asia through critical frameworks are strongly encouraged to apply.