Taro Shirakawa

I am specializing in religious history in late medieval and early modern Italy, particularly that of central Italy (current Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, and Lazio regions). However, I would also like to pay attention to the intellectual and personal exchanges between the Italian peninsula, southern France, Aragon, and the eastern Mediterranean world.

For my doctoral dissertation to be submitted to Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) in 2023, I aim to analyze the activities of male and female prophets who lived around 1300, the veneration towards them, and the logic behind the inheritance and transformation of their memories and representations.
I studied in Italy (University for Foreigners of Siena, University of Florence SAGAS) for a total of 1 year and 8 months.

After submitting my doctoral dissertation, I plan to work on the following topics:

1. The inheritance, transformation, and utilization of the memories of prophets active in the Italian peninsula during the 13th-14th centuries - specifically hagiographic texts, imagery, and sermons from the 14th-17th centuries.
2. The activities of prophets and the functions of their representations in observant reform movements.
3. Intellectual exchanges between the eastern and western Mediterranean evidenced through hagiographic sources compiled and edited by late medieval and early modern mendicant orders.

Additionally, I have an interest in the historiographically-constructed category of "Middle Ages/Christianity (Religion)". Specifically, I am trying to decipher how 19th century Italian Protestant intellectuals reorganized and repurposed pre-modern confessional frameworks of knowledge in relation to their nation-building projects.

My contact information is set to "Visible to researchers only". I do not use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others.