ACADEMIC POSTS
8/2024–Present. Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
10/2023–6/2024. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science International Research Fellow, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
10/2019–9/2023. Okinaga Junior Research Fellow in Japanese Studies at Wadham College and the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, England.
EDUCATION
DPhil in Asian Studies, University of Oxford.
MSc in Modern Japanese Studies, with Distinction on dissertation, University of Oxford.
BA in English and a BA in Japanese with Departmental Honors, Vassar College.
PEER-REVIEWED BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Doan, N. Civil War Samurai: The 1860 Japanese Embassy and Tateishi Onojirō in Antebellum America. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2026.
Doan, N. “The Iwakura Mission: Knowledge, Networks, and National Identity.” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 31, no.3 (2024): 225–235.
Doan, N. and Sho Konishi, eds. Black Transnationalism and Japan. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2024.
Doan, N. and Sho Konishi. “Black Transnationalism and Japan: Concepts and Contours.” In Black Transnationalism and Japan, edited by Natalia Doan and Sho Konishi, 11–24. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2024.
Doan, N. “The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Opening of American Civilisation: Samurai, Interracial Romance, and Southern Print Culture.” In Reopening the Opening of Japan: New Approaches to Japan and the Wider World in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, edited by Lewis Bremner, Manimporok Dotulong, and Sho Konishi, 21–58. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
Doan, N. “Samurai and Southern Belles: Interracial Romance, Southern Morality, and the 1860 Japanese Embassy.” Journal of Social History 55, no. 1 (2021): 149–179.
Doan, N. “The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Antebellum African American Press.” The Historical Journal 62, no. 4 (2019): 997–1020.
PEER-REVIEWED ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
Doan, N. “African America and Japan.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, ed. David Ludden, 2022.
Doan, N. “The 1860 Japanese Embassy.” Oxford African American Studies Center, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2020.
AWARDS
6/2022. Shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society 2022 Alexander Prize for “Samurai and Southern Belles: Interracial Romance, Southern Morality, and the 1860 Japanese Embassy.”
4/2017. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Short-Term Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
2015. Winner of the British Association for Japanese Studies Ivan Morris Memorial Prize for MSc dissertation entitled “Samurai and Southern Belles: American Representations of the 1860 Japanese Embassy to the United States.”
PUBLIC INTEREST WRITING, TALKS, AND INTERVIEWS
10/2025. Public talk for LancasterHistory and President Buchanan’s Wheatland, “Samurai at the White House: Harriet Lane & The 1860 Japanese Embassy.” Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Coincides with the special exhibit, “Building Bridges” (see below), running 9/2025-12/2025.
9/2024. Consulting for “Building Bridges: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States Exhibit at LancasterHistory. Lancaster, Pennslvania.
*8/2025. Doan, N. “The 1860 Japanese Embassy to the United States and a Guide to the Japan-Related Collections at LancasterHistory and President Buchanan’s Wheatland,” The Journal of Lancaster County’s Historical Society (August 2025), 210–239.
1/2025. Doan, N. “Japan in Lancaster: A Finding Aid for the Japan-Related Collections at LancasterHistory and President Buchanan’s Wheatland.” Finding aid created for the museum’s collections and shared with local visitors.
1/2023. Interviewed for “Who Was Yasuke, Japan’s First Black Samurai?” Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-yasuke-japans-first-black-samurai-180981416/.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY & TV APPEARANCES
12/2025. “Samurai at the White House: Harriet Lane and the 1860 Japanese Embassy.” C-SPAN. First aired December 20, 2025. https://www.c-span.org/program/american-history-tv/samurai-at-the-white-house-1860/669037.
5/2024. Natalia ga oikakeru! Man’en gannen kenbei shisetsu no miryōku. Japanese documentary about Natalia Doan and her research on the 1860 Japanese Embassy to the United States, revealing never-before-aired artifacts from 1860 and interviews with the descendants of the samurai embassy members. Directed by Haruo Inoue. Produced by Hug Machine.
3/2024. “The Buddhist art of the Hanzomon Museum ~ Approaching the five-year anniversary of the museum’s opening” [Hanzomon myūjiamu no Bukkyō bijutsu ~ Kaikan 5 shūnen o mukaete ~] Japanese documentary about the first public display of the Nyoirin Kannon and Nidoji sculptures carved by the internationally renowned, 12th-c. sculptor Unkei. Directed by Haruo Inoue. Produced by Hug Machine.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
3/2026. “The Influence of Samurai on Antebellum America.” Presentation at the Society for Military History 2026 Annual Conference. Arlington, VA.
10/2025. “The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Transnational Influence of Tokugawa Japan.” Presentation at the conference “Samurai and Knights, Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, East and West in Texts and Films: Inter-Cultural Echoes and Historical, Mythological, and Aesthetic Perspectives.” University of Poitiers. Poitiers, France.
7/2023. “Bakumatsu ni sekai o mawatta bushi: Nihon hatsu no shisetsudan to karera ga Amerikajin ni ataeta eikyō” [The samurai who crossed the seas during the bakumatsu period: Japan’s first embassy and their impact on the American people]. Presentation in Japanese for Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan.
6/2023. “Reassessing Japan’s Iwakura Mission (1871–73) and the United States: Origins and Outcomes.” Panel chair and commentator. 2023 Conference of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Arlington, Virginia.
6/2023. “The Antebellum African American Press and Transnational Solidarity with Samurai” in panel entitled “A Genealogy of Afro-Asian Intimacy: From the Antebellum Era to the Present Day.” Berkshire Conference of Women, Genders and Sexualities, 2023. Santa Clara, CA.
6/2023. “New Perspectives on Race and Christianity in the United States and Japan.” Panel chair and commentator. 5th Tanaka Symposium: Reconfiguring the Concept of Religion in Modern Japan. Pembroke College, University of Oxford.
6/2022. “Transnational Solidarity and Hope for the Future: African American Newspapers and the 1860 Japanese Embassy.” Japanese Black Studies Association Annual Conference. Presentation in Japanese.
10/2021. “Antebellum African American Visions of Japanese Solidarity.” Black Transnationalism and Japan Conference. Digital conference co-convener and panelist. Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford.
5/2019. “Samurai, Seduction, and Slander: ‘Prince Tommy’ and Representations of the 1860 Japanese Embassy to the United States.” “Reopening the ‘Opening’ of Japan” Conference, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford.
3/2019. “Samurai and Southern Belles: The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Commodification of ‘Female Diplomacy.’” Association for Asian Studies Conference, Denver, Colorado.
1/2016. “American Representations of the 1860 Japanese Embassy.” Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
10/2015. “Samurai and Southern Belles: Southern Representations of the 1860 Japanese Diplomatic Mission to the United States.” Association for Asian Studies New York Conference on Asian Studies, Poughkeepsie, New York.
PUBLISHED BOOK REVIEWS
*Doan, N. Review of Rethinking Japan’s Modernity: Stories and Translations, by M. William Steele. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2024. The History Teacher 58 (no. 4: August 2025), 508–510.
(* designates invited publications)
TEACHING
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
(Spring 2027) HIST 110: Introduction to Cultural History: Warriors, Leaders, Rebels: Women in Japanese History.
HIST 262 – History of World Civilizations, 1500–present
HIAS 393 – History of Modern Japan
HIAS 490 – Samurai: Fact, Fiction, Fantasy
HIAS 493 – Independent Study: Translations and Transformations in Modern Japan
HIST 562 – Transnational History of Modern Japan (Graduate Course)
University of Oxford
Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Japanese Popular Culture, 1600–2022.
Development and teaching of original graduate course for the MSc and MPhil in Modern Japanese Studies, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies.
Internal doctoral viva chair for several Japanese history DPhil vivas.
“Analysing Historical and Contemporary Documents,” Research Methods graduate course.
Tutorial Organizer and Teaching Assistant for “Modern Japan, 1868–1972.” Undergraduate course, Faculty of History.
“Introduction to East Asian History and Culture: Modern Japanese History.” Teaching Assistant for undergraduate unit, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
FIELD SERVICE & PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
2025. Peer reviewer for the University of Hawai‘i Press and Japan Review (Nichibunken, International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan).
4/2021, 4/2022. Volunteer for the National Japan Bowl, hosted by the Japan-America Society of Washington, DC, a quiz bowl-style competition for high school students.
11/2017–3/2019. Volunteer at the Eastern Art Department, Ashmolean Museum. Updated the MuseumPlus database with information on Japanese inrō (ornamental containers used for carrying and storing small objects) and tsuba (decorated sword guards), as well as translating the Japanese kuzushiji (cursive Japanese script) inscriptions on the tsuba.
CERTIFICATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS
Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1 Certification.
Member of the American Historical Association, Association for Asian Studies, British Association of Japanese Studies, Modern Japanese Historical Association, Modern Language Association, Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, the Reacting Consortium, the Royal Historical Society, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations