Bio

My primary research has involved two areas of interest that center on the relationship between aesthetic and social realities, all situated in the discipline of comparative literature studies with a focus on Japanese culture in the modern transnational context.

The first research interest examines Ishikawa's search for a locus of literary reality as an alternative to the preexisting historiography of modern Japan, arguing that the literature of Ishikawa, as a key case of modern Japanese literature, reflects his social commitment by his literary experiments—a project that highlights his rethinking of the Japanese avant-garde in its interplay with its Western counterparts, and polemics of history and literature in the context of the historical development of Japanese modernity.

The second research interest concerns the 1980s Japanese culture and society focusing on how the tropes and modes of advertising, in conjunction with the cultural critic Amano Yukichi's critical analysis of advertising, intersect with those of modern Japanese poetry particularly by Tanikawa Shuntaro.

The third research interest explores what it means to be a minority in Japan, beyond its existing definition and scope. In this vein of research, I am specifically interested in how the marginal voices in society and culture reveal the neglected social problems, negotiate with the existing art forms, and thereby lead Japan's cultural landscape into a new direction.

Department Member Since 2010