Books by Stephanie Midori Komashin
Global Quakerism in a Postcolonial Context: 1938–2018, 2025
This chapter elevates the voices of Asian Evangelical Friends (who comprised 89% of the Asia-Paci... more This chapter elevates the voices of Asian Evangelical Friends (who comprised 89% of the Asia-Pacific region of the Religious Society of Friends [Quakers] by 2018) describing their beliefs and evaluating their ministry by focusing on Taiwan Yearly Meeting (30% of the region)’s Beauty Life Association, which has organized robust social support encompassing the lifespan, including Taipei’s largest affordable housing, a community garden, health services, a helpline, education, orphanage visitation, job skills training, single parent support, marriage/family enrichment, and senior citizen care. This chapter brings forward the view of life underpinning BLA’s holistic support, considers how this aid intersects with evangelism, and underscores women’s leadership. As critique of colonialist perspective, the chapter avoids comparisons of these Asian Friends to those elsewhere (including to the region’s Unprogrammed Quakers [5%] who have received a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention by the global north) but identifies points of connection to pastoral Quaker history in mainland China and India within the period and the similar nexus of humanitarian and evangelistic efforts in Nepal’s 2 Yearly Meetings (15%), India’s Bihar and Karnataka Friends networks (12%), and Taiwan Yearly Meeting’s Philippines mission network (0.9%).
Forthcoming in Volume V of Penn State University Press' The New History of Quakerism.
The Quakers, 1830-1937: The Creation of Modern Quaker Diversity, 2023
MP John Bright (1811–1889), the second Friend in the House of Commons; Japanese Imperial Diet par... more MP John Bright (1811–1889), the second Friend in the House of Commons; Japanese Imperial Diet parliamentarian Inazo Nitobe (1862–1933); and the first Quaker American president, Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) represented Friends at the highest level of political involvement in Britain, the U.S., and Japan; this chapter explores their efforts and other less high-profile Quaker politicians and the national and international impacts of their labors. In the nineteenth century, British Friends broke past England's 1673 Test Act (repealed in 1829) that required oath-swearing to serve in Parliament, Quaker women achieved local public office, and non-Western Friends took up office outside the radius of Western culture.
While representing constituents of differing nations and cultures, these three eminent Friends all prioritized aid to the poor and domestic concerns while engaged in Quaker-informed international diplomacy, and grappled with the challenges that peace principles posed to their political work. Komashin and Taylor also note in this chapter how Friends of this period concurred, cooperated, or clashed in their views of Quaker politicians and their undertakings.
Forthcoming in Volume IV of Penn State University Press' The New History of Quakerism.
The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism, 2018
Komashin offers an overview of the highly diverse nature of Quakerism in Southeast Asia and Austr... more Komashin offers an overview of the highly diverse nature of Quakerism in Southeast Asia and Australasia (Asia Pacific) with a case study on Friends in Japan. While not ignoring other sorts of Friends churches and meetings, Komashin provides an important window into the origins and growth of evangelical Friends churches in Bhutan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia and elsewhere in the region. Komashin draws a parallel between Asian Friends churches and those Friends churches in Latin America and Africa, in that Friends churches in each of these regions are primed for rapid growth. She also provides vivid detail about differences between all of these Friends churches, even those within the same branch. Mission is a central theme throughout all of these chapters as well as the continual development of new local groups of Quakerism, adapting to new contexts, new challenges and new opportunities.
Spanning from India in the west, up to China in the north, and down to New Zealand in the southeast, the Asia-Pacific region is home to approximately 35,000 Friends in about twenty countries. By the numbers, close to 90% are Evangelical, 6% are non-pastoral Programmed, and 5% are Unprogrammed. This chapter looks beyond these statistics by outlining the work of Quakers, and touches on Quaker-related organizations that operate in the region.
Quakers and Mysticism: Comparative and Syncretic Approaches to Spirituality, 2019
Komashin connects England’s Gerrard Winstanley and Japan’s Inazo Nitobe as fellow converts to Qua... more Komashin connects England’s Gerrard Winstanley and Japan’s Inazo Nitobe as fellow converts to Quakerism from their respective Christian indigenous movements, the Diggers and the Sapporo Band. She analyzes the roles of mystical experience, agricultural ecology, and economic justice in their religious thought by presenting evidence from Winstanley’s tracts, Nitobe’s essays and newspaper articles, and the Sapporo Band’s letters and journals that demonstrates their ecospirituality and theologically-motivated theory of equitable economics. Komashin also explores Winstanley’s relation to George Fox and his followers and the contours of Nitobe’s colonialism. Throughout the chapter, she explains how Winstanley and Nitobe contribute to the ethnographic and historical quilt of the Society of Friends through their advocacy for ecotheology, environmentalism, agroecology, and sustainability.
Feminist Encounters with Confucius, 2016
In this chapter Komasinski and Komashin look at selfhood in contemporary Confucianism and feminis... more In this chapter Komasinski and Komashin look at selfhood in contemporary Confucianism and feminism to argue that contemporary Confucians and feminists (and, with some caveats, Confucius and Mencius) have three important points in common when considering the self. This argument reflect on the debate about Chengyang Li’s suggestion that there are important similarities between 仁 (ren), a term that means roughly “humanity,” “human kindness,” or “humanity at its best”, and the care ethics advocated by feminists Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, and others. Our goal here is not to settle the debates between and among differing Confucians and feminists. Instead, we argue that the differences among the views of particular contemporary Confucians and feminists in understanding selfhood and relationality may in fact be smaller than the differences between the two looked at categorically.
新渡戸稲造に学ぶ ― 武士道・国際人・グローバル化, 2015
Nitobe Inazo Ryaku Nenpu [Abbreviated Chronological Record of Inazo Nitobe] in Nitobe Inazo Ni Ma... more Nitobe Inazo Ryaku Nenpu [Abbreviated Chronological Record of Inazo Nitobe] in Nitobe Inazo Ni Manabu - Bushidou, Kokusaijin, Guroobaruka [Studying Inazo Nitobe - Bushidou, Internationalist, Globalized]
Papers by Stephanie Midori Komashin
Quaker Studies, 2017
Gerrard Winstanley, the seventeenth-century English leader of the True Levellers, as they called ... more Gerrard Winstanley, the seventeenth-century English leader of the True Levellers, as they called themselves, a Dissenter group better known as the Diggers, and Inazo Nitobe, co-founder of the nineteenth-century Sapporo Band in Japan and Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, were both involved in founding indigenous Christian movements but ultimately joined the Religious Society of Friends. Their views about agricultural ecology, personal financial troubles and ethical commitments led them to Quakerism. Each believed there was no separation of the ethical, spiritual and secular within the experience of nature and ecological cultivation, and shared a commitment to earthcare, sustainable farming, non-violence and ethical living.
基督教學, 2016
In 『基督教學』 (Studium Christianitatis) 51 (July 22, 2016): 114–132 (refereed).
Revisions, 2010
In Revisions, 6, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 9–12 (refereed).
Conference Presentations by Stephanie Midori Komashin
Presented at the 2021 Rehumanize Conference, virtual [Hopin], 9/4/2021 (invited keynote). Moderat... more Presented at the 2021 Rehumanize Conference, virtual [Hopin], 9/4/2021 (invited keynote). Moderated by Maria Oswalt.
宗教研究, Mar 2020
Conference paper summary (Japanese language). In 『宗教研究』 (Religious Studies), no. 93 supplement “T... more Conference paper summary (Japanese language). In 『宗教研究』 (Religious Studies), no. 93 supplement “The Proceedings of the Seventy-Eighth Annual Convention of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies” (March 2020): 253–254.
Presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Hokkaido Society of Christian Studies, Sapporo: Fuji ... more Presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Hokkaido Society of Christian Studies, Sapporo: Fuji Women’s University, 7/15/2019 (invited).
Presented at the Hokudai–Ghent Joint Symposium “Connecting Japan and Belgium”, Ghent: Ghent Unive... more Presented at the Hokudai–Ghent Joint Symposium “Connecting Japan and Belgium”, Ghent: Ghent University, 2/29/2016 (invited).
Presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Christian Studies, Tokyo: J. F. Ober... more Presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Christian Studies, Tokyo: J. F. Oberlin University Tama Academy Hills, 9/1/2015 (refereed).
Presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Hokkaido Society of Christian Studies, Sapporo: Fuji ... more Presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Hokkaido Society of Christian Studies, Sapporo: Fuji Women’s University, 7/18/2015.
Presented at the American Academy of Religion 2014 Annual Meeting, San Diego: San Diego Conventio... more Presented at the American Academy of Religion 2014 Annual Meeting, San Diego: San Diego Convention Center, 11/24/2014 (refereed).
Presented at the Fourth International Conference on Applied Ethics, Sapporo: Center for Applied E... more Presented at the Fourth International Conference on Applied Ethics, Sapporo: Center for Applied Ethics and Philosophy, Hokkaido University, 11/13/2009 (refereed).
基督教学, Sep 1, 2015
Conference paper summary. In 『基督教学』 (Studium Christianitatis), no. 50 (September 1, 2015): 37–40.
基督教學, Oct 20, 2014
Conference paper summary. In 『基督教學』 (Studium Christianitatis) 49 (October 20, 2014): 20–23.
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Books by Stephanie Midori Komashin
Forthcoming in Volume V of Penn State University Press' The New History of Quakerism.
While representing constituents of differing nations and cultures, these three eminent Friends all prioritized aid to the poor and domestic concerns while engaged in Quaker-informed international diplomacy, and grappled with the challenges that peace principles posed to their political work. Komashin and Taylor also note in this chapter how Friends of this period concurred, cooperated, or clashed in their views of Quaker politicians and their undertakings.
Forthcoming in Volume IV of Penn State University Press' The New History of Quakerism.
Spanning from India in the west, up to China in the north, and down to New Zealand in the southeast, the Asia-Pacific region is home to approximately 35,000 Friends in about twenty countries. By the numbers, close to 90% are Evangelical, 6% are non-pastoral Programmed, and 5% are Unprogrammed. This chapter looks beyond these statistics by outlining the work of Quakers, and touches on Quaker-related organizations that operate in the region.
Papers by Stephanie Midori Komashin
Conference Presentations by Stephanie Midori Komashin
Forthcoming in Volume V of Penn State University Press' The New History of Quakerism.
While representing constituents of differing nations and cultures, these three eminent Friends all prioritized aid to the poor and domestic concerns while engaged in Quaker-informed international diplomacy, and grappled with the challenges that peace principles posed to their political work. Komashin and Taylor also note in this chapter how Friends of this period concurred, cooperated, or clashed in their views of Quaker politicians and their undertakings.
Forthcoming in Volume IV of Penn State University Press' The New History of Quakerism.
Spanning from India in the west, up to China in the north, and down to New Zealand in the southeast, the Asia-Pacific region is home to approximately 35,000 Friends in about twenty countries. By the numbers, close to 90% are Evangelical, 6% are non-pastoral Programmed, and 5% are Unprogrammed. This chapter looks beyond these statistics by outlining the work of Quakers, and touches on Quaker-related organizations that operate in the region.
Master’s thesis.
"Ms. Komasin. . . . showed great aptitude for high quality research for a thesis written under the direction of Professor Elsie Anne McKee, the Archibald Alexander Professor of Reformation Studies and the History of Worship. Entitled, 'Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Reform and Dissent: Tithes and Payment of Leaders among Swiss/German Anabaptists, Hutterites, Levellers, and Diggers,' the thesis was awarded the Senior Fellowship in History prize by the Department of History and Ecumenics. The work was a significant study in how voluntary religious associations, independently of the tax supported state churches of the early Modern Period, and therefore bereft of ecclesiastically designated state funds, nevertheless managed in differing ways to provide for their leadership and activities In this sense, the Swiss/German Anabaptists are harbingers of the kind of voluntary and self-supporting charitable and religious organizations that are such a feature of the contemporary world.
While working chiefly with English-language sources, Ms. Komasin's thesis made use of a number of primary sources from the English Levellers and Diggers who sojourned on the continent of Europe. In my judgment, Ms. Komasin's work indicates a high aptitude for scholarly research." - James F. Kay, Dean of Academic Affairs, Princeton Theological Seminary