Alan Christy

Alan Christy is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he also serves as Director of East Asian Studies. His research focuses on the emergence of Japanese native ethnology (minzokugaku) during 1910-1945, examining how this discipline developed outside formal academic institutions through intellectual collaborations. Christy's seminal work, A Discipline on Foot, explores the intersection of anthropology, cultural history, and epistemology, analyzing how fieldwork practices and knowledge creation prefigured contemporary debates about representation and power dynamics in ethnographic research.

• Current academic position: Associate Professor of History
• Administrative role: Director of East Asian Studies
• Core research areas: Japanese ethnology, folklore studies, anthropological theory
• Major contributions: Situating minzokugaku within global intellectual history