Dana Mirsalis, PhD

Areas of Research & Specialization

I teach modern Japanese history, with a special focus on religious history and gender.  My scholarship dwells at the intersection of history, ethnography, religious studies, and gender studies.  I am currently working on a monograph that uses archival and ethnographic research to examine how the entrance of women to the Shinto priesthood has impacted and intersected with conceptions of gender, labor, Shinto, and nationalism.

Academic Positions

2022-present: Assistant Professor of History, Pacific University

Education

Ph.D., East Asian Languages and Cultures, Harvard University, 2022

M.A., Regional Studies: East Asia, Harvard University, 2014

B.A., magna cum laude with honors in East Asian Studies, Brown University, 2011

Publications

Mirsalis, Dana.  “Gender.”  In The New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions, edited by Matthew McMullen and Jolyon Thomas.  Forthcoming.

Mirsalis, Dana.  “Transparent and Flexible Teaching for the Inclusive Classroom.”  In Teaching Gradually: Practical Pedagogy for Graduate Students, by Graduate Students, edited by Kacie L. Armstrong, Lauren A. Genova, John Wyatt Greenlee, and Derina S. Samuel.  Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2021.

Invited Lectures & Media Appearances

“Two Stories of the Gendered Shinto Priesthood,” Osaka University, June 8, 2022

“Gendering the Shinto Priesthood in Postwar Japan,” Georgia Southern University, March 30, 2022

Beyond Japan episode 24, “Modern Shinto"

"Women as Substitute, Women as Complement: Two Stories on the Gendered Shinto Priesthood in Postwar Japan," Kyushu University, January 22, 2021

Selected Conference Presentations

“Purified Ground, Polluted Bodies: Gender and Labor in the Shinto Ground Purification Ceremony” at Gendering Labor in Contemporary Asian Religions Workshop, Lund University, June 21, 2022

“Precarious Priesthood: What the ‘Part-Time’ Priest Tells Us About Contemporary Shinto” at American Academy of Religion, November 22, 2021

"Applying Patchwork Ethnography to Research in Contemporary Japan - A Roundtable on Positionality, Networks, and ‘Piecing Together’ One’s Field" at Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, January 17, 2021

“‘What’s the Value of Female Priests?’: Discourses on the Gendered Priesthood in Postwar Shinto” at American Academy of Religion, December 2, 2020

“Moving ‘Like Women’: Ritual Technique and the Gendering of the Shinto Priesthood” at American Academy of Religion, November 25, 2019

“‘Leveraging Our Special Skills’: Strategic Gender Essentialism in Female Priests’ Self-Evaluation” at Asian Studies Conference Japan, June 29, 2019

“「男女区別」と女性神職の現状” (“Gender Differentiation” and the Current Conditions of Female Priests) at Kokugakuin University, July 30, 2018

“女子神職と「普通の女性」—現代神道におけるジェンダー構造” (Female Priests and the “Normal Woman”: Gender Construction in Contemporary Shinto) at Shūkyō to Shakai Gakkai (Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society), June 9, 2018

“‘Can Female Priests Really Live as Normal Women?’: Gender, Relationality, and Female Shinto Priests” at Nanzan Seminar for the Study of Religion and Culture, January 8, 2018

“Myth, Spiritualism, and Psychology: Sources of Legitimacy During Ōmoto’s ‘Chinkon Kishin Boom,’ 1916-1921” at UCLA Japan Studies Graduate Student Conference, October 30, 2015

“‘I Am a Woman, But Have the Nature of a Male’: Moving Beyond the Gender Binary in Analyzing the Founders of Japanese New Religious Movements” at Columbia University Graduate Conference on East Asia at Columbia University, February 20, 2015

Awards

2022: Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (fall 2021), Harvard University
2019: ABLConnect Teaching Innovator Prize
2019: Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (spring 2019), Harvard University
2019: Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (fall 2018), Harvard University

2017-2018: Fulbright Graduate Research grant
2017: Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (spring 2017), Harvard University
2017: Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (fall 2016), Harvard University
2015: Satoh/Tsuchiya Merit Scholarship, Harvard University
2015: Reischauer Institute for Japan Studies Summer Research Grant for Graduate Students
2014: Noma-Reischauer Prize in Japanese Studies, graduate prize, Harvard University
2014: Joseph Fletcher Memorial Award, Harvard University
2013: Satoh/Tsuchiya Merit Scholarship, Harvard University
2011-2012: Fulbright Fellows grant
2011: S C Rosenberger Prize for Excellence in East Asian Studies, Brown University
2009: Outstanding Achievement in Japanese, Foothill College
2008: Outstanding Achievement in Japanese, Foothill College
2007: Outstanding Achievement in Japanese, Foothill College