I am a historian of premodern Japan who focuses on material culture, samurai society, and more recently, urban and environmental history. I have written three books and coauthored, edited, or coedited an additional four books. I also serve as the coeditor of the Journal of Japanese Studies, the flagship journal of my field. I am the son of a potter and grew up in a movie theater. I first became interested in the samurai from watching the films of Kurosawa Akira as a child.