Dr Tatsuma Padoan is currently Lecturer in East Asian Religions, in the Department of Study of Religions at the University College Cork, and a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is also 2nd/3rd year Coordinator for the BA programme in Religions and Global Diversity, Study of Religions Department Representative for the BA programme in Anthropology, and Coordinator of the core seminar on anthropological classics for the MA programme in Anthropology at UCC. Since November 2022 he has been co-founder and co-director, together with Prof Laura Rascaroli, of SENSA Lab (Laboratory of Semiotics, Ethnosemiotics, Nonfictional Studies and Audiovisuality) at UCC, a platform for research on semiotics with a strong focus on anthropology and media. 

In 2017-2018 and 2022-2023, he has been a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Osaka University. Dr Padoan obtained his PhD in Religions and Anthropology of Japan (Languages, Cultures and Societies) in March 2011 from Ca' Foscari University of Venice. He has been research student in Cultural Anthropology at Tokyo’s Keio University, carrying out research activities on mountain asceticism and pilgrimage in Japan. While in Venice, he trained in semiotics under the guidance of semiotician Paolo Fabbri, then becoming a member of LISaV (International Semiotics Laboratory of Venice). After his PhD, he taught Japanese Religions at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Cultural Anthropology at the Free University of Bolzano, where he conducted an ethnographic and semiotic study of learning processes in design. He has then been Newton Postdoctoral Fellow (British Academy) in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS, University of London, for two years in 2014 and 2015, and Lecturer in Japanese Religions in the same department in 2015-2016. In 2017-2018, he conducted further research on the relationship between learning, ritual and ethics, through 10 months of additional fieldwork among ascetics in Katsuragi, central Japan, thanks to a JSPS fellowship based at Osaka University, Anthropology Department.

Over the years, Dr Padoan has been invited to give lectures and seminars at the University of Oxford, Manchester, Bologna, Turin, Osaka, Maynooth, SOAS in London, Ca’ Foscari and IUAV in Venice, IULM in Milan, and presented his work at workshops and conferences at the University of Cambridge, the Centre International de Sciences Sémiotiques “Umberto Eco” (CiSS) in Urbino, the Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme in Aix-en-Provence, the University of Siena, Sussex, Tartu, Florence, ISEAS in Kyoto, Sainsbury Institute in Norwich, Technische Universität in Berlin, and others. His research has been funded by the British Academy, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Canon Foundation, Toshiba International Foundation, UCC CACSSS, and many others.

His current research project "Aesthetic Communication: The Role of Senses in Social Interaction, Across and Beyond the Human", is funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Gr. CONF-938), and the Future Humanities Institute at UCC. A second project entitled “Entextualization/Enunciation: Bridging Linguistic Anthropology and Paris School Semiotics” – conducted for over a year in collaboration with the Department of Anthropology of the University of Chicago – aims at creating a dialogue between Linguistic Anthropology in North America and Continental Semiotics in Europe and South America by exploring common themes and possible points of convergence, and has led to the publication of a special issue co-edited with Constantine V. Nakassis, for the journal Semiotic Review.

Dr Padoan's research areas cover the study of ritual – including asceticism, ritual apprenticeship, pilgrimage, religious materiality and spirit possession – as well as the study of design practices and the politics of urban space. In terms of methodology, he is particularly interested in the relationship between Paris School semiotics, linguistic anthropology and actor-network-theory, as a set of models for the practical analysis of local discourses in religion, material culture, and science and technology studies.

Anthropology of Buddhism

Paris School Semiotics

Actor-Network-Theory

Linguistic Anthropology

Anthropology of Pilgrimage

Japanese Religions

Japanese Mountain Asceticism, Katsuragi Shugen

Urban Pilgrimage and Tourism in Tokyo, Shichifukujin no meguri

Semiotics of Space and Aesthetic Communication

Spirit Possession, Subjectivity and Somatic Efficacy

Memory, Ritual Enunciation and Religious Materiality

Religious Syncretism and Combinatory Practices

Science and Technology Studies

Anthropology of Design and Material Culture

I am open to supervising doctoral students in anthropology and study of religions, working on any of the following research areas: semiotics of religions, linguistic anthropology, Paris School semiotics, Deleuzian semiotics, Actor-Network-Theory, ethnosemiotics, anthropology of Buddhism, Japanese religions, anthropology of Japan, pilgrimage, ritual practice, Japanese mountain asceticism, religious materiality, learning and apprenticeship, anthropology of memory, aesthetic communication, nonhuman agency, semiotics of perception, spatial semiotics, nonrepresentational views on meaning, ethnography as translation, discourse and narrativity in social interaction, travel and tourism, design practices, Science and Technology Studies, and enunciation theory.

Teaching Roles

2nd and 3rd year Co-ordinator for the BA Programme in Religions and Global Diversity, Department of Study of Religions

Study of Religions Departmental Representative for the BA Programme in Anthropology

Board Member of the MA and BA Programmes in Anthropology

CACSSS Teaching and Learning Committee, Member of the “Recruitment Sub Committee”, Study of Religions Department and School of Society, Politics and Ethics Representative

CACSSS Research Ethics Committee, Member, Representative for the MA Programme in Anthropology

Modules taught:

BA in Anthropology 

• AY3003 Semiotics and Anthropology (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY3003

BA in Religions and Global Diversity 

• RG2301 Buddhism in Practice (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&code=RG2301
• RG2315 Ethnographies of Pilgrimage: Semiotic and Comparative Perspectives (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2024&code=RG2315
• RG2304 Religions of East Asia (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2022&code=RG2304
• RG1001 Religions in the Contemporary World (co-taught module) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=RG1001
• RG3000 Dissertation in the Study of Religions (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=RG3000

MA in Anthropology 

• AY6016 Rereading the Anthropological Classics (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY6016
• AY6012 Anthropology Research Laboratory (module co-ordinator) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY6012
• RG6096 Religions and Memory (module co-ordinator)
• AY6013 Anthropology: Paradigms and Theories (co-taught module) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY6013
• AY6015 Ethnography, Practice and Writing (co-taught module) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY6015
• AY6003 Dissertation in Anthropology (co-taught module) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY6003
• AY6010 Fieldwork Placement (co-taught module) https://ucc-ie-public.courseleaf.com/modules/?details&srcdb=2025&code=AY6010