Yoichi Isahaya

Education:

2015 Ph.D., Eurasian Studies, The University of Tokyo
2007 M.A., Asian History, Kobe University
2005 B.A., Asian History, Kobe University

Field of Study:

My research aims at calibrating the Mongol empire (1206–1368) on an Afro-Eurasian scale from multiple perspectives such as cross-cultural exchange and environmental history. Within this grand scheme, I plan to explore the following three projects:
1) “Astronomical Dialogue” in Mongol Eurasia: The project deals with a Chinese calendar described in a Persian astronomical handbook in Iran, which was produced as a result of cross-cultural “astronomical dialogue” between Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–74) and Fu Mengzhi 傅孟質 (fl. 1250s).
2) The Ilkhanid Translation Project: The project revolves around a Persian medical compilation, Tānksūqnāma-yi Īlkhān dar Funūn-i ʿUlūm-i Khiṭāʾī [The Treasure Book of the Ilkhan on the Chinese Arts and Sciences], compiled around 1313. The work is the most substantial production of the Chinese-into-Persian translation project initiated by Rashīd al-Dīn (1249–1318), a vizier of the Ilkhanid dynasty (c. 1256–1357) of Iran.
3) The “Crisis of the 14th Century”: I also manage an interdisciplinary project pertaining to the “Crisis of the 14th Century,” considered to be a collective crisis consisting of climate change, continental pandemic, and political disorder, which resulted in the collapse of the Mongol empire. The project approaches the crisis, through the combination of the “archives of society” (written sources) and the “archives of nature” (climate proxies), in collaboration with scholars in various fields such as history, paleoclimatology, astronomy and informatics.

Recent Publications (Selected):

Monographs:

(with Nathan Sidoli) Thābit ibn Qurra’s Restoration of Euclid’s Data: Text, Translation, Commentary. Cham:Springer, 2018.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters (Selected):

“Islamicate Astral Sciences in Eastern Eurasia during the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368),” In Routledge Handbook on Sciences in the Islamicate World: Practices from the 8th to the 19th Century, edited by S. Brentjes, 688–695. London: Routledge, 2022.
“Geometrizing Chinese Astronomy? The View from a Diagram in the  Kashf al-ḥaqāʾiq  by al-Nīsābūrī (d. ca. 1330),” In Overlapping Cosmologies in Asia: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Approaches , edited by B. Mak & E. Huntington, 139–169. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
“From Alamut to Dadu: Jamāl al-Dīn’s Armillary Sphere on the Mongol Silk Roads,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 74/1 (2021): 65–78.
“Fu Mengzhi: “The Sage of Cathay” in Mongol Iran and Astral Sciences along the Silk Roads,” In Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals, edited by M. Biran, J Brack & F. Fiaschetti, 238–254. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020.
“Sino-Iranica in Pax Mongolica: The Elusive Participation of Syriac-Rite Christians in the Ilkhanid Translation Project,” In Marco Polo and the Silk Road (10th–14th Centuries), edited by Rong X. & Dang B., 341–362. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2019.
(with Nathan Sidoli) “Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Comments on Euclid’s Data,” Historia Mathematica 47 (2019): 87–105.
(with Jyuh Fuh Lin) “Entangled Representation of Heaven: A Chinese Divination Text from a Tenth-Century Dunhuang Fragment (P. 4071),” Historia Scientiarum 26/3 (2017): 153–171.
(with Mitsuaki Endo) “Yuan Phonology as Reflected in Persian Transcription in the Zīj-i Īlkhānī,” The Economic Review 8 (2016): 1–38.
“The Tārīkh-i Qitā in the Zīj-i Īlkhānī: the Chinese Calendar in Persian,” SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences 14 (2013): 149–258.
“History and Provenance of the “Chinese” Calendar in the Zīj-i Īlkhānī,” Tarikh-e Elm: Iranian Journal for the History of Science 8 (2009): 19–44.

Academia:

https://hokudai.academia.edu/YoichiIsahaya

Invited Lectures (Selected):

“A Strange Parallel? Agrarian Crisis with Economic Efflorescence in 14th-Century Mongol Eurasia,” International Conference, “Great Chinggisid Crisis: History, Context, Aftermath.” Bonn: University of Bonn, 12th May 2023.
““Converting” Knowledge, Culture and Themselves: Mongols’ Imperial Rule in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Eurasia,” International Conference, “Nexus of Knowledge: Science, Medicine, and Technology on the Silk Roads,” Berkeley: Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, University of California, 28th April 2023.
“Did the Climate Change Shake the Empire? In the Case of the Mongols in 1270’s and 80’s,” 2023 Spring Conference of the Society of Ecological and Environmental History, “Environment and Diseases,” Busan (Online): Society of Ecological and Environmental History, 22nd April 2023.
“The Afro-Eurasian Crisis of the 14th Century in the Ilkhanid Context,” The Spring International Conference 2022, “Globalization and Localization of Mongolian Studies,” Seoul (Online): The Korean Association for Mongolian Studies, 25th March 2022.
“Knowledge-Integration vs. Knowledge-Conversion: Mongols’ Imperial Attitude toward Sciences,” The Mongol Empire’s Zoominar: “Knowledge and Empire,” Jerusalem (Online): Louis Frieberg Center for East Asia Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 17th December 2021.
“From Alamut to Dadu: Bīrūnī on the Mongol Silk Roads,” Symposium on Calendars Used in Asia (West-, South-, Southeast-, East-) and Oceania. Mitaka & Nagoya (Online): National Astronomical Observatory of Japan & Nanzan University, 16th March 2021.
“A Cross-Cultural “Astronomical Dialogue” between a Muslim Polymath and Chinese Sage in Thirteenth-Century Eurasia,” Seminar Series at the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds. Leeds (Online): University of Leeds, 9th February 2021.
“Maragha across the Euphrates: The Observatory in Mamluk Sources,” The Sixth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies. “Mamluks and Asia: Views from the East,” Tokyo: Waseda University, 16th June 2019.
“Sciences in Zomia: Nizārī Ismāʿīlī Movements (1090–1256) in the Iranian Plateau,” International Conference, “Medieval Zomias: Stateless Spaces in the Global Middle Ages,” Oxford: University of Oxford, 9th February 2019.
“Drawing Chinese Astronomy within Islamicate Astral Tradition: A Way of Representing Otherness in Case of 14th-Century Iran,” The Lecture Series of the Department of History at Fudan University. Shanghai: Fudan University, 18th December 2018.

Courses Taught:

- The Mongol Empire in the History of Eurasia
- Seminar in the History of West Asia 2020
- Global History
- Persianate World

Grants and Fellowships:

- Interdisciplinary Approach to the “Crisis of the 14th Century” (JSPS Grants-in-Aid Scientific Research B, 2021–2025)
- Ilkhanid Translation Project: Toward a Mesoscopic History of Mongol Eurasia (JSPS: Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows, 2018–2019)
- Sophistication of Timekeeping in the 13th and 14th Centuries Persianate Societies (JSPS: Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows, 2011–2014)
- Chinese Calendar in the Islamicate Astronomical Handbooks (Zījes) (JSPS: The Institutional Program for Young Researcher Overseas Visits at The University of Tokyo, 2012)
- Transmission of the Chinese Calendar into the Persianate World (JSPS: Excellent Young Researcher Overseas Visit Program, 2010–2011)
- Transmission of the Chinese Calendar into the Persianate World (JSPS: Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows, 2009–2011)

Professional Service: