Holly Stephens
Lecturer in Japanese and Korean Studies

Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 8984
- Email: holly.stephens@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Room 4.04
50 George Square - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9LH
Background
Holly Stephens received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. As a historian of Korea and Japan, her research interests range widely to include economic history, agriculture, empire, everyday life, village organizations, and the emergence of the modern state. Her current monograph project—Empire by Association: The Re-Organization of the Rural Economy in Modern Korea—examines the changes to Korean agriculture from the late nineteenth century through the colonial period amidst immense political upheaval. Using previously unexamined farmers’ diaries, the project traces the formation and operation of new agricultural organizations that linked Korean farmers to regional and global markets, as new ideas about the state’s role in the economy and the adoption of scientific farming methods combined to transform agricultural production.
Before joining the University of Edinburgh, Holly was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University.
Research summary
Holly's current researcch interests include:
- History of everyday life in Japan and Korea
- Economic history
- History of agriculture
- Capitalism and empire
- Cooperatives and economic cooperation
- Diaries
- Intellectual history of economic thought
-
Diaries in economic history: Comparative prospects for microhistorical narratives of everyday life and economic change
(18 pages)
Research output: › Conference contribution (Published) -
Diaries in Economic History: Toward a Comparative Study of Korea and Europe
(11 pages)
Research output: Contribution to Conference › Paper (Published) -
Rice cycles and price cycles: Local knowledge and global trade in Korea, 1870-1933
In:
Journal of the History of Economic Thought, vol. N/A, pp. 1-40
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/6hfqa
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Accepted/In press) -
Three reforming regimes?: Modernity and the fiscal state in modern Korean history
In:
Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 32, pp. 109-146
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/seo.2019.0005
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
From Miracle to Mirage: The Making and Unmaking of the Korean Middle Class, 1960—2015. By Myungji Yang.
In:
Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 19, pp. 131-132
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2019.3
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published)