Special Interests
Tomomi Kinukawa 's Special Interests
I am currently engaged in two research projects.
My first project is on the social and cultural history of science in early modern Europe.
My manuscript, which is based on my dissertation, "Art Competes With Nature: Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) and the Culture of Natural History," attempts to deepen our understanding of one of the major transformations in early modern Europe, often called the "Scientific Revolution."
Using unpublished correspondence in four languages, it investigates the significant role played by burghers in nature studies in Germany, the Dutch Republic, and the Dutch colony of Surinam.
It proposes to revise our historical understanding of the early modern idea of amateurism and to investigate the burgher household as an important institution for producing knowledge of local and exotic naturalia.
My study focuses in particular on a group of entrepreneur naturalists, including Merian and other women, who invented new models of amateur nature studies at home through using their professional expertise in crafting and marketing interior designs.
My work adds new insight to our understanding of the role of gender, ideas and practice of the public and private, religion, art, new market economy, and colonial expansion in early modern science.
During my dissertation research, I became interested in making a closer analysis of the development of scientific ideas and practices in transnational economic and cultural exchanges and constructions and practices of gender and race in the process.
I became especially intrigued with the idea of expanding my study to the process of "Westernizing" and "modernizing" women's health in imperial Japan.
The topics of my current research include gender, race, and citizenship in health of Korean residents in twentieth-century Japan.