Matthew Stavros

Matthew Stavros is a historian of early Japan at the University of Sydney and a translator of Classical Japanese literature. He is the author of Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan's Premodern Capital (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014) and the translator of Hōjōki: A Buddhist Reflection on Solitude, Imperfection and Transcendence (Tuttle, 2024) and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Tuttle, 2026). His research focuses primarily on the material culture of premodern Japan and eastern Asia, with particular interest in cities, buildings, and religious monuments. He trained in architectural and urban history at Kyoto University and read history at Princeton University where he earned a Ph.D. He teaches modern and classical Japanese language, Japanese history and historiography, and more broadly on the histories and cultures of East and Southeast Asia.