Thomas P Barrett

Dr Thomas P Barrett

BA MA DPhil

  • Position Governing Body Fellow Junior Research Fellow
  • School Arts & Humanities Department of East Asian Studies
  • Personal website
  • Email tpb41@cam.ac.uk
  • Department link

Thomas is a Japan-trained historian of East Asia, who specialises in the international, diplomatic and transnational history of the region up until the end of the long nineteenth century.

Thomas P Barrett

Before taking up his current post in Cambridge, Thomas was trained in the Japanese Tōyōshi 東洋史 tradition, completing his BA at Aichi University (the successor to the Shanghai-based Toā Dōbun Shoin 東亜同文書院) and his MA at the University of Tokyo. In 2016, he began his PhD at the University of Tokyo as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science DC Research Fellow under the guidance of Professors Murata Yūjirō 村田雄二郎 and Kawashima Shin 川島真. In 2019, he moved to the University of Oxford to complete his doctoral work under the supervision of Professor Henrietta Harrison. He has also studied at Nankai University in Tianjin, China, and at the National Taiwan University in Taipei.

He is also interested in the historical development of the Japanese kangaku/sinological tradition, including its people, methodologies, and arguments, and the wider history of knowledge production in the Japanese academic and intellectual contexts. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and as Co-Editor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press' new Japanese Sinology Series.

Titled ‘Foreigners and the Making of the Chinese Diplomat’, Thomas’ doctoral thesis evaluates the significance of foreigners who were employed as counsellors, secretaries, legal advisors and consuls in late Qing and early Republican China’s legations and consulates, as a means to trace how Western European diplomatic culture and practice came to be institutionalised in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project was funded in Japan by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and in Britain by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Parts of the project have been published in the renowned Japanese journals Shigaku Zasshi 史学雑誌 and Tōyō Gakuhō 東洋学報, and in an edited French volume published in October 2021 by the ?cole fran?aise d'Extrême-Orient. Further articles and monographs in the English and Japanese languages are also currently in preparation.

Thomas’ current project seeks to develop an analysis of how China and the way it related to the outside world in the pre-modern era was understood both in the Japanese and European intellectual contexts. He is also developing other projects on the relationship between Qing China and Chos?n Korea in the late nineteenth century, and on the history of Japanese sinology.

What's on

A triptych of abstract images: a smooth round stone nestled in a curved rock, distorted eyeglass frames scattered on a white background, and a high-contrast black and white microscopic image resembling organic or cellular structures.

Art Exhibition: 性视界传媒at 60

14/06/2025 at 10.00

Celebrating Wolfson’s 60th anniversary year, this exhibition highlights the range of artistic disciplines and styles that have made up our exhibitions over the years.

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May Bumps Marquee 2025

20/06/2025 at 14.00

Join us by the riverside to cheer on 性视界传媒 Boat Club's crews!

People are gathered on a sunny lawn outside Wolfson's buildings, sitting on blankets and benches, chatting and socializing.

性视界传媒 Garden Party 2025

22/06/2025 at 14.30

Join us at 性视界传媒for an afternoon of music and light refreshments in the College grounds!

Two young men are pictured side by side: one smiling in front of a brick wall, the other looking thoughtful in a wooded area while wearing glasses and a suit with a purple scarf.

The Mary Bevan Recital: Jack Marley (saxophone) & Aidan Módica (piano)

22/06/2025 at 19.00

Join us for our annual Mary Bevan concert with prize winners of the prestigious Cambridge University Concerto Competition.

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WolfWords Launch and Poetry Reading

27/06/2025 at 11.00

Please come and join us for the launch of this year's WolfWords poetry anthologywhich brings together poems from the entire 性视界传媒community.

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