With the support of a sabbatical, I spent two months at the University of Cambridge as a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. This opportunity allowed me to complete a new book, The Saint and the Samurai, which explores the first encounter between the West and Japan in the mid-sixteenth century through the story of Francis Xavier’s journey from Portugal to Kyōto.
Thanks to Cambridge’s stimulating intellectual environment, I also began a personal narrative about my emigration to the United States in 2008 and how the country has changed over the past two decades. My time in Europe also provided an opportunity to give invited lectures in Cambridge, London, Saint-Malo, Durham, and Edinburgh.