Dr. Mishio Yamanaka
Historian, Educator & Digital History Practitioner
I am a historian of the American South, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era. I currently serve as an assistant professor at Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan.
Research
I have conducted a wide range of historical research about African American and Japanese experiences in the postbellum American South. My current book project, “‘Separation Is Not Equality’: The Racial Desegregation Movement of Creoles of Color in New Orleans, 1862-1900,” examines how Creoles of color of Louisiana advocated for equal access to public institutions as a fundamental tenet of civil rights after slavery.
Digital History
I also explore how digital techniques enhance and change our understanding of history. My primary interest is digital mapping, and I have written about the significances and challenges of doing digital history. In 2014, I launched “The Fillmore Boys School in 1877.” Using ArcGIS, this project visualizes the 1877 register of the Fillmore School, one of the desegregated schools in Reconstruction New Orleans.
Latest Work
Co-edited Volume,『欧米圏デジタル・ヒューマ二ティーズの基礎知識』[Topics in Western Digital Humanities](Tokyo: Bungaku Tsushin, 2021)
This Japanese edited volume examines the ways in which scholars based in the Western hemisphere have discussed digital humanities and deepened their research about Western history, literature, and linguistics. I co-edited this book with Naoki Kokaze, Jun Ogawa, Soki Oda, Soichi Nagano, So Miyagawa, Ikki Omukai, and Kiyonori Nagasaki.
The book comes with the “DH Map,” which visualizes the locations of various research institutions mentioned in the main text. The map data and other visualizations for the book is downloadable through the publisher’s website.