Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Dr Lewis Bremner

Assistant Professor in the History of Modern Japan

The central focus of my research is the history of knowledge, technology, media, and culture in Japan. I am particularly interested in the transnational dimensions of these areas of Japanese history, and the ways in which connections with the wider world have played a role in societal changes at different scales. Looking at how specific technologies, practices, concepts, and ways of representing nature have moved between different communities and contexts, I am also interested in probing the categories that historians apply to understand such phenomena – and how those too have moved and changed over time. I am currently completing a book on the history of the magic lantern in Japan, and my published work takes in a wide range of historical themes that include translation, screen culture, activism, industry, and the study of anatomy.

Publications

Books

Reopening the Opening of Japan: Transnational Approaches to Modern Japan and the Wider World, ed. with Manimporok Dotulong and Sho Konishi (Brill, 2024).

Articles, Chapters, and Essays

‘The Living Machine: The Magic Lantern and Transnational Knowledge in Tokugawa Japan,’ in Peter J. Bloom, Dominique Jullien, and Sara Pankenier Weld (eds.), Magic Lantern: Machines, Toys, and Master Trope. (University of Edinburgh Press, forthcoming in 2027).
‘Undergraduate Teaching in the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge, Past and Present,’ co-authored with Mary Brazelton, Staffan Müller-Wille, and Charu Singh, Actes d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, Vol. 18 (forthcoming 2026)
‘The History of Science and the Global Turn of the Screw,’ British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 58, No. 1 (March 2025).
‘The Transformation of Magic Lantern Technology in Japan,’ in Lewis Bremner, Manimporok Dotulong, Sho Konishi (eds.), Reopening the Opening of Japan: Transnational Approaches to Modern Japan and the Wider World. (Brill, 2024).
‘Introduction,’ co-authored with Manimporok Dotulong, in Lewis Bremner, Manimporok Dotulong, Sho Konishi (eds.), Reopening the Opening of Japan: Transnational Approaches to Modern Japan and the Wider World, (Brill, 2024).
‘The Magic Lantern as a Lens for Observing the Eye in Tokugawa Japan: Technology, Translation, and the Rangaku Movement,’ Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 54, No. 3 (May 2020).