EDUCATION

BA, MA, PhD: Columbia University
MA, Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan)

BIOGRAPHY

My primary area of research has been modern Japanese literature with an emphasis on the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taishō (1912-1926) eras. Questions regarding aesthetics—in particular the connections and tensions between different artistic mediums, and how notions of beauty can traverse cultural and linguistic differences—are central to my work. I am also invested in discourses about transnational identities, gender, and affect. These themes guide the exploration of modern and contemporary Japanese literature and film in my classes and research, and will continue to figure in my future projects. 

PUBLICATIONS

Book:

Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930.  (Columbia University Press, 2024.)

Selected publications:

Introduction to and translation of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s stories “Numachi” (Quagmire, 1919) and “Yume” (Dreams, 1927) in a special edition of the Review of Japanese Culture and Society, submitted 2024.   

“Multivalent Muses in Mori Ogai’s Fictions.”  Routledge Companion to Literature and Art. Ed. Michelle Wanzheng Wang, Neil Murphy, and Cheryl Julia Lee. Taylor & Francis, 2024. 

“ ‘Nagasaki’ in Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s Taishō-era Literary Imagination.” Shadows of Nagasaki: Trauma, Religion, and Memory After the Atomic Bombing. Ed. Chad R. Diehl. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. 

“Crisis and Literature in Contemporary Japan: From 3-11 to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Kanehara Hitomi’s Fictions.” Japanese Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2 (June 2023). 

“Matayoshi Naoki and Dazai Osamu: Rethinking Literary Masculinity.” Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies. Vol.21, 2020.  (2022.) 

“The Fashion Statements of Dazai Osamu: Sartorial and Literary Expressions of Gender in Wartime Japan.” The Journal of Popular Culture. Vol. 50, No. 6 (December 2017). 

“Endeavors of Representation: Visual Art and the Literature of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.”  Japanese Language and Literature. Vol. 56, No. 20 (October 2016). 

“Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: Manga Depictions of a Literary Icon.” International Journal of Comic  Art. Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2014/15).