Education:

Ph.D. in Japanese literature; minor: Art History, Indiana University, Bloomington
M.A. in Japanese, Indiana University, Bloomington

B.A. in Psychology; minor: Fine Arts, Centre College, Kentucky

Research:

My research explores the ways in which literary and visual forms intersect in premodern Japan, particularly during what is known as the “classical” period, the Heian (794-1185). My research interests include Japanese fiction, narrative picture scrolls (emaki), visual culture, gender studies, narrative voyeurism, intertextuality, reception studies, and spectrality. I am currently at work on a book that analyzes developments in medieval literary and pictorial arts, examining visual and verbal representations of the emperor during the mid-to-late Heian period (1000-1185). More specifically, I demonstrate how artistic re-conceptualizations of imperial power rhyme with changes in the “real world” of late-eleventh century politics, arguing that both minimized the gap between the emperor as a symbol of power and the emperor as a private individual.

Publications

“Emperor on Exhibition: Representation of Kingship in Yoru no Nezame and The Nezame Scrolls.” Proceedings of the Association of Japanese Literary Studies, vol. 17, 31-43, Summer, 2016.

“Natsume Sōseki no Yume jūya: Natsume Sōseki o nemurenu yoru ni michibiita fukakujitsusei” (Natsume Sōseki’s Ten Nights of Dreams: The Uncertainty that Kept Sōseki Up at Night). Bunshū: gendai, kindai bungaku, 61-63, Yokohama: Stanford Inter-University Center, 2008.

In progress

Re-imagining Imperial Figures in Late Heian Japan: The Hunger for Visibility in Text and Image. Book manuscript expanded from my dissertation to be completed spring 2025.

“A History of mono no aware: Savoring the Fleeting Moment,” a chapter in Handbook of Japanese Aesthetics under contract with MHM Publishing in Tokyo. Publication scheduled for late 2024/early 2025.

“Re-writing the Margins of Aristocratic Motherhood: The Departed Spirit of Yang Guifei and Female (Dis)Embodiment in Heian Tales.” To be submitted to Japanese Language and Literature fall 2024.

Book reviews:

“Review of Unbinding the Pillow Book: The Many Lives of a Japanese Classic (2018) by Gergana Ivanova.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 39, no. 2, 349-351, Fall 2020.