Contact: dtaichi@live.unc.edu

David Takamura is a Germanist analyzing modes of self-assertion and self-limitation. His research centers upon intersections between Romantic philosophy and literature, with particular emphasis on German Idealism, moral philosophy, and Indology. His methodologies include postcolonial, deconstructionist, and new philological approaches.

David works primarily within a tradition of thinkers seeking to redefine Romanticism as a movement wary of subjectivism. His dissertation, Egoism in the Age of Romanticism, foregrounds Romantic commitments to self-abnegation as the concept evolved in the wake of German Idealism, Early Romantic literary theory, and German Orientalism. He is currently writing under Stefani Engelstein and Gabriel Trop within the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program.

David completed his BA in Liberal Arts at St. John’s College with credits equivalent to a double-major in Philosophy and the History of Math and Science and a double-minor in Classics and Comparative Literature. His MA in Comparative Literature was completed at the University of Washington and while on exchange at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.