Christopher Lough

Biography

I am a scholar of intellectual history and religion in transnational perspective. My research is primary focused on modern France and its empire, with particular attention to colonial ventures in East and Southeast Asia. My dissertation examines the place of Christian missionaries — Catholic as well as Protestant — and other religious actors in French Indochina, especially under Vietnam’s shared Japanese-Vichyist occupation during the Second World War.

Alongside a B.A. from Gettysburg College and a recent M.A. here at Wisconsin, I have also been supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) program for Vietnamese, as well as the University of British Columbia through Fulbright Canada’s Globalink Research Internship program. My work can be found in Monumenta Nipponica, Christianity & Literature, and other publications.

Education

M.A., History, University of Wisconsin–Madison
B.A., History and French, Gettysburg College

Field

• European History
• Southeast Asian History

MA Title

• “The Many Lives of Pastor Lehnebach: Protestant Missions, Vichy, and Postwar Justice in the French Empire”

Selected Publications

• Christopher T. Lough, “Overcoming Modernity, Exonerating Empire: Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko and the Ironies of Early Shōwa Catholicism,” Monumenta Nipponica 79, no. 1 (2024): 33-84. https://doi.org/10.1353/mni.2024.a936516
• Christopher T. Lough, “Strangers in a Strange Land: Translating Catholicism in Early Modern Japan.” ASIANetwork Exchange 28, no. 2 (2023). https://www.asianetworkexchange.org/article/id/8141/
• Christopher T. Lough, “Ruskin in the Mountains: Sketches of a Sacramental Worldview,” Christianity & Literature 72, no. 1 (2023): 16-33. https://doi.org/10.1353/chy.2023.0001

Selected Awards

• Foreign Language and Area Studies Award, Vietnamese — U.S. Department of Education (2025-26)
• George L. Mosse Fellowship in Modern European Cultural History — UW–Madison (2024-25)
• French Cultural Counselor’s Award — Embassy of France in the United States (2022)

Courses Taught as TA

• History 101 – American History to the Civil War (Francis Russo)
• History 120 – Europe and the Modern World (Emma Kuby)