Christopher Harding, FRHistS

Christopher Harding is Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh.

He was educated at the University of Oxford (BA, Masters, DPhil) and subsequently took up a postdoctoral Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Scholarship. While on the scholarship, he conducted research at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Christopher joined the University of Edinburgh in 2007, teaching and supervising graduate work in South Asian, Japanese and global history. He has served as course organiser on a range of team-taught courses, and took on the role of Deputy Director of Research (Impact), overseeing his School's impact case study submissions for the most recent REF cycle.

In 2013, Christopher was named as one of the AHRC and BBC's ten 'New Generation Thinkers' for that year, in recognition of innovative research and its potential for sharing with broader audiences. Since then, Christopher has written and presented radio documentaries on a range of topics, from the history of psychiatry to Zen Buddhism and westerners' views of Japan. He provides expert commentary on Japanese culture and current affairs to broadcasters including BBC Radio 4 and Sky television. He contributes features and opinion pieces to publications including The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The London Review of Books, The Spectator and The Guardian.

External academic affiliations and contributions include peer review for: History of Psychiatry; Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry; English Historical Review; Gender and History; Journal of Ecclesiastical History; Journal of Asian Studies. He has undertaken review work for funding bodies including the AHRC alongside academic publishers including Routledge. He is a member of the Advisory Board for History Today magazine.

Personal webpages (books, journalism & media)

Substack: Japan & the World

Cultural Encounters Between the West, India and Japan: Early Modern & Modern Eras

Interconnected Histories of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Religion and Spirituality

Undergraduate teaching

• In Search of Modern Selves: Psychiatry and Psychotherapies in India and Japan, 1880 - the Present  (4MA)
• Japan: Politics, Culture, and Social Change: 1868 – 1952
• Global Connections Since 1450
• South Asian Studies 2 (School of Social and Political Science)
• 4MA Dissertation supervision, on Indian, Japanese, and 'East-West' topics 
• Historical Skills and Methods I & II

Postgraduate teaching

• Seeking Japan in a Westernizing World: Revolution, Romance, and Imperialism, 1868 - 1945
• Historical Methodology
• Approaches to History
• Writing History