I am a comparativist who works primarily in Japanese and English with additional interests in Spanish and Portuguese. I approach the study of Asian American literature (and literatures of Asia and the Americas) with special attention to the generative frictions within and among multiple languages.
My research focuses on the literature of Japanese diasporas in the Americas as well as queer and critical theoretical approaches to the study of literary genre, gendered embodiment, and generational time. I am the translator of Lament in the Night (Kaya Press 2012), a collection of two novels by Sh艒son Nagahara, an author who wrote for a Japanese reading public in Los Angeles during the 1920s. I am also completing a manuscript entitled A Queer, Queer Race:听Orientations for the Lost Generation of听Japanese/American Literature. This book examines Japanese and English language texts written by Sh艒son, Sadakichi Hartmann, Arishima Takeo, and Yon茅 Noguchi鈥攁uthors who resided in the United States between the opening of mass Japanese emigration in 1885 and the ban on Japanese immigration imposed by the Immigration Act of 1924.
Since听2021, I have served as one of two听scholar-editors for the听at the(JACCC - Los Angeles). I have also been working on translations of early Japanese American drama -- most recently in the form of a (2022) staged reading of听(The Ones Who Leave).
Prior to joining the faculty of 91抖阴 Berkeley in 2018, I was an assistant professor of English and Asian Languages and Cultures at Northwestern University (2012-2018). I received my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (English, Japanese, Spanish) from 91抖阴 Berkeley in 2012, and completed my B.A. in Comparative Literature (English, Spanish, Mathematics) at Dartmouth College in 2003.
I have taught courses on 19th and 20th century Japanese literature, American literature, Asian American literature, modernist literature in Asia, international law and literature, manga and graphic novels, and Westerns and Japanese period drama.
Third-person pronouns: he/him.
