Academic Background

• Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of Washington, Seattle, December 2001.

Dissertation title: "Japanese Cultural History as Literary Landscape: Scholarship, Authorship and Language in Yanagita Kunio's Native Ethnology" abstract

• Research Fellow, Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, October 1997 to March 1999.

• Certificate, Stanford Inter-University Center, Yokohama, Japan, June 1995.

• Master of Arts, Comparative Literature (Japanese and German), University of Washington, Seattle, June 1994.

• Bachelor of Arts, Comparative Literature (Japanese and German), University of California, Berkeley, May 1992.
  

Teaching Experience

Publications

“Yanagita Kunio’s Bunshô sekai Essays.” Introduction and translation, in An Anthology of Meiji Literature, edited by Robert Campbell, Charles Inouye, and Sumie Jones. (University of Hawai’i Press, forthcoming).

“Narrative Realism and the Modern Storyteller: Rereading Yanagita Kunio’s Tôno monogatari” Monumenta Nipponica (forthcoming).

“Brave Dogs and Little Lords: Some Thoughts on Translation, Literary Style, and the Debate on Childhood in Mid-Meiji” Review of Japanese Culture and Society No. 20 (December 2008, forthcoming).

“Yanagita Kunio to Nihon no kindaika: Tôno monogatari kara sengo no kyôkasho made” Yanagita Kunio kenkyû ronshû No. 6 (Yanagita Kunio no kai, forthcoming). 

“National History as Otaku Fantasy: Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress” in Japanese Visual Culture, ed. Mark MacWilliams. (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2008), pp. 274 – 294.

“Surveying Comparative Literature from the Pacific Rim.” Coauthored with Charlotte Eubanks. ADFL Bulletin 38.3/39.1 (Spring/Fall 2007), pp. 34 – 39.

“Teaching Modern Japanese History with Animation: Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress.” Education About Asia 12.1 (Spring 2007), pp. 62 – 65.

“Indexing the past: Visual Language and Translatability in Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 14.4 (2006), pp. 278 – 291.

The Modern Murasaki: Women Writers of Meiji Japan. Coedited with Rebecca Copeland. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).

“Kano Shiho” (interview of the Japanese avant-garde filmmaker by Scott MacDonald). Translation. In A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

“Sketching Out the Critical Tradition: Yanagita Kunio and the Reappraisal of Realism” in Japanese Poeticity and Narrativity Revisited: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, West Lafayette, 4-5 October 2002, ed. Eiji Sekine. West Lafayette: AJLS, 2003, pp. 184 - 193.

“The I-Novel” in Encyclopedia of Life Writing, ed. Margaretta Jolly. 2 vols. London: Fitzroy-Dearborn Publishers, 2001. Vol. 1, 453 - 454.

“Fictional Fantasy or Historical Fact? The Search for Japanese Identity in Miyazaki Hayao's Mononokehime” in A Century of Popular Culture in Japan, ed. Doug Slaymaker. Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. 199 - 228.

Invited Lectures

• "Gender in Japanese Anime." Led faculty seminar for the St. Lawrence University Asian Studies Initiative. November 12, 2004.

• "Ethnology and Dialect: Yanagita Kunio and the Authorship of National Language." Japanese Humanities Lecture Series at the University of Washington. May 23, 2003.

Conference Presentations

• “Teaching Children to Do Things With Words: Yanagita Kunio and the Postwar Education Debate” at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Atlanta, April 3-6, 2008. abstract

• “Yanagita Kunio to Nihon no kindaika: Tôno monogatari kara sengo no kyôkasho made” at the Yanagita Kunio no kai. Ôtani University (Kyoto), July 28, 2007.

• “Indexing the Past: Visual Language and Translatability in Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress” at Kinema Club Conference VIII. Frankfurt (Germany), April 23, 2007. abstract

• "National History as Otaku Fantasy: Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress" at ACAG 2006 (International Conference on Asian Comics, Animation and Gaming). York University, Toronto, May 18-19, 2006. abstract

• "Authentic(ating) Voices of the Folk: Yanagita Kunio's Criticism of Language Reform." at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Chicago, March 28-31, 2005. abstract

• "Landscape and the Lonely Traveler: Yanagita Kunio and Sugae Masumi" at the Association for Japanese Literary Studies Annual Conference. University of Washington, October 22-24, 2004. abstract

• "Yanagita Kunio's Reflections on Snails and the Role of Dialect in Authoring National Language" at the Modern Languages Association Annual Convention. San Diego, December 27-20, 2003.

• "Miyazaki Hayao's Spirited Away: Escaping Japan?" at The New York Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS) 2002 Annual Meeting. Skidmore College, October 25-26, 2002. abstract

• "Sketching Out the Critical Tradition: Yanagita Kunio and the Reappraisal of Realism" at the Association for Japanese Literary Studies Annual Conference. Purdue University, October 4-5, 2002. abstract

• "Competing Conceptions of Modern Selfhood: Native Ethnologist Yanagita Kunio and the Meiji-Taishô Literary Community" at the DIJ Humanities Study Group. Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien, Tokyo, May 23, 2001. abstract

• "Travel Writing and Reimagining the Native Landscape: Yanagita Kunio's Kainan shôki" at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Chicago, March 22-25, 2001. abstract

• "Japanese Native Ethnology and Modern Travel Writing: Literary Genre and National Identity" at the Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC) 2000 Annual Meeting. University of Oregon, June 16-18, 2000. abstract

• "Fictional Fantasy or Historical Fact? The Search for Japanese Identity in Miyazaki Hayao's Mononokehime" at Beyond Babel: Common Language, Common Differences, Common Ground. UC San Diego, October 14-16, 1999. abstract

• "Miyazaki Hayao no Mononokehime ni okeru shizenkan" at Nihon Minzoku Gakkai dai 50kai nenkai. Bukkyô University, Kyoto, October 3-5, 1998.

• Japan Foundation Research Fellowship for 10 months of research in Japan, 2006.

• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellowship for 10 months of research in Japan, 2006.

• Wason Library Travel Grant, Cornell University, 2005.

• Class of 1966 Career Development Award, Hamilton College, 2004.

• Hewlett Grant for incorporating diversity into the curriculum, Hamilton College, 2003.

• Alvord Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Washington, academic year 2001-2002.

• Member of the Society of Scholars at the Simpson Center for the Humanities, academic year 2001-2002.

• Dissertation research fellowship at the Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien (DIJ) in Tokyo, Japan, April-July 2001.

• High Pass on the Japanese Proficiency Test Level 1, an internationally administered standardized test, 1998.

• Monbusho Fellowship for a year and a half of study at a Japanese university, 1997-1999.

• Cultural studies and intellectual history of 20th-century Japan

• Influences of European literature and critical theory on modern Japanese literature

• Comparative folklore studies

• Film and popular culture in contemporary Japan

• Translation theory

Foreign Languages

Modern Japanese:  excellent reading, writing and speaking abilities
Classical Japanese:  very good reading ability
German:  excellent reading, writing and speaking abilities
Spanish:  good reading, speaking ability
Classical Chinese:  fair reading ability

Professional Memberships

This page was last updated on February 6, 2009.