Email

 
Field
Modern Japanese Literature and Culture

Position
Professor, Graduate School of Humanities

Education
Ph.D. (Japanese Studies) University of Trier, Germany
M.A. (Japanese Studies) Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Research Interests and Approaches
Representations of whaling in modern and contemporary literature, cultural discourse, and museum narratives; literary and cultural responses to Fukushima/3.11 and other environmental and technological disasters; environmental humanities, ecocriticism, and environmental literature; critical heritage studies; gender and postcolonial approaches to modern and contemporary Japanese literature and culture; human–environment and human–nonhuman relations.

Message to Prospective Students
I welcome inquiries from prospective MA and PhD students whose proposed projects are closely related to my areas of research and teaching. My primary field is modern and contemporary Japanese literature and culture, with particular interests in environmental humanities and ecocriticism, gender, food and literature, and literary and cultural responses to environmental and technological change. I am particularly interested in projects that combine close engagement with literary or other cultural texts with broader historical and cultural questions.

If you are considering applying to the JACS-MA program, pursuing a PhD in NU's 日本文化学 program, or enrolling as a Research Student and would like me to supervise your research, please familiarize yourself with my research areas and publications before contacting me. In your initial inquiry, please briefly describe your proposed research topic and primary materials, your academic background, and why you believe the project would be a good fit with my areas of expertise. Research proposals should reflect your own ideas, knowledge, and academic preparation. Please do not submit proposals generated by AI tools or other material that does not represent your own work and current abilities.

Please note that, although Japanese-language proficiency is not a formal admission requirement for the G30 programs, research in Japanese literature requires the ability to work with Japanese-language materials. MA students proposing projects in Japanese literature should have sufficient Japanese reading ability to engage with at least some primary and secondary sources in Japanese. For PhD projects in Japanese literature, the ability to read texts in the Japanese original and relevant Japanese-language scholarship is a prerequisite for supervision.

 

Because I receive a large number of inquiries, I am unfortunately unable to comment on research proposals that fall substantially outside my areas of expertise or to respond individually to requests concerning projects for which I would not be an appropriate supervisor. Prospective students should therefore make sure that there is a clear connection between their proposed project and my research areas before contacting me.

Prospective JACS undergraduate students are, of course, welcome to contact me with questions about the program or their studies.

Courses Taught

Spring Odd Years

"Literature" (Liberal Arts)
"Japanese Literature and Gender"
"Joint Undergraduate Seminar"
"Graduate Seminar Literary Theory and Practice"

Fall Odd Years

"Introduction to Modern Japanese Literature"
"Transnational and Minority Literatures"
"Joint Undergraduate Seminar"
"Graduate Seminar Literary Theory and Practice"

Spring Even Years

"Japanese Literature and Translation"
"New Perspectives on Japanese Modern Literature"
"Joint Undergraduate Seminar"
"Graduate Seminar Literary Theory and Practice"

Fall Even Years

"Introduction to Cultural Theory"
"Critical Literary Analysis"
"Joint Undergraduate Seminar"
"Graduate Seminar Literary Theory and Practice"

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Professional Experience

Nagoya University

• Professor, Graduate School of Humanities (2023–present)

• Associate Professor, Graduate School of Letters and Graduate School of Humanities (2013–23)

• JACS Program Director (2014–18; 2021–24)

• Affiliated Researcher, Center for Transregional Culture and Society (2023–present)

German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo

• Deputy Director (2013)

• Senior Research Fellow (2008-2013)

University of Trier

• Lecturer, Japanese Studies (2005-08)

• DFG Research Fellow, Japanese Studies (2002-2005)

Research Affiliations and Visiting Positions

• Visiting Researcher, SPIRE, University of Bergen, Norway (2025)

• Visiting Research Fellow, DFG Centre for Advanced Studies “Poetry in Transition,” University of Trier, Germany (2018–19)

• Affiliated Researcher, “Examining Cultural Discourses in Post-3.11 Japan,” International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto (2016–17)

Selected Publications

Monographs & Edited Volumes

• 2017. Fukushima and the Arts. Negotiating Nuclear Disaster. Routledge (co-edited with Barbara Geilhorn). 2018 paperback edition.

• 2015. Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature. Routledge (co-edited with Roman Rosenbaum). 2018 paperback edition.

• 2013. Raifukōsu no yukue. Nihon to doitsu no shigoto, kazoku, sumai. Beyond a Standardized Lifecourse - Biographical Choices about Work, Family and Housing in Japan and Germany. Tokyo: Shinyosha (co-edited with Hiromi Tanaka, Maren Godzik).

• 2010. Contemporary Japan. Vol. 22, No. 1+2, Inaugural Special Issue "Mind the Gap: Stratification and Social Inequalities in Japan" (co-edited with Barbara Holthus).

• 2008. Alles nur Theater? Gender und Ethnizität bei der japankoreanischen Autorin Yū Miri. Munich: Iudicium.

• 2005. Ethnizität und Geschlecht - (Post-)Koloniale Verhandlungen in Geschichte, Kunst und Medien. Böhlau (with Graduiertenkolleg Ethnizität und Geschlecht).

　　

Journal Articles & Book Chapters (selection)​

• 2026. "The Cultural Catch: Japanese Whaling Fiction and the Gender(ed) Politics of Nostalgia." Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 24. https://apjjf.org/2026/5/iwata-weickgenannt

• 2025. “Literature: Feminist Bodies of Fiction” in Ulrike Wöhr und Andrea Germer, Handbook of Feminisms in Japan. Tokyo: Japan Documents, 147-155.

• ​2024 “Writing Back at the Capitalocene. Radioactive Foodscapes in Japan’s Post-3/11 Literature”, in Hannes Bergthaller, You-ting Chen, eds. Foodscapes of the Anthropocene. Literary Perspectives from Asia. Peter Lang. Mit Aidana Bolatbekkyzy. Reprint from Contemporary Japan.

• ​2024. “Beyond the Now and Then—Crafting Memory in Yū Miri’s Literature”, in Angela Yiu, ed. Literature in Heisei Japan 1989-2019. Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 107-126.2023. “Voice and Voicelessness: On the Use of Tōhoku Vernaculars in Post-3.11 Literature”, in Linda Flores, Barbara Geilhorn, eds., Literature after Fukushima. From Marginalized Voices to Nuclear Futurity. London: Routledge, 47-65.

• ​2023. "Writing Back to the Capitalocene. Radioactive Foodscapes in Japan's Post-3.11 Literature", in Contemporary Japan. Co-authored with Aidana Bolatbekkyzy. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2023.2208399

• 2023."Voice and Voicelessness. Reading Vernaculars in Post-3.11 Literature", in Linda Flores and Barbara Geilhorn, eds, Literature After Fukushima. From Marginalized Voices to Nuclear Futurity. Routledge, 47-65.

• 2021. "Kusomamire no inochi--kyapitarosen hihan toshite Kimura Yūsuke no Cs Seichi o yomu", in Kimura Saeko and Anne Bayard-Sakai, eds, Sekai bungaku toshite no 'shinsaigo bungaku'. Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 289-310.

• 2020. "Erlesenes Essen. Kimchi, Gender und Ethnizität in der japankoreanischen Gegenwartslyrik", in Eduard Klopfenstein, ed. Japanische Lyrik der Gegenwart. XXI. Europäische Japandiskurse. Berlin: Theseus, 70-88.

• 2020. "Broken Narratives, Multiple Truths: Writing 'History' in Yū Miri's The End of August." positions east asia cultures critique, Vol. 28 No.4, 815-840.

• 2020. "Shi ni kizamu kimuchi--'zainichi' shijin no egaku shoku, jendā, sabetsu", in JunCture (Tokushū kokumin, kokka, shoku), Vol. 11. 58-71.

• 2019. "Uwagaki suru bungaku--Yū Miri JR Ueno eki kōenguchi o shuuhen kara no rekishi toshite yomu", in Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, ed., 'Post 3.11' media gensetsu saikō. Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku shuppankyoku, 197-215.

• 2019."The Roads to Disaster, or Rewriting History from the Margins--Yū Miri's JR Ueno Station Park Exit." Contemporary Japan, Vol. 31, No. 2, 180-196, doi 10.1080/18692729.2019.1578848.

• 2018. "Challenging the Myth of Homogeneity: Immigrant Writing in Japan", in Sandra Vlasta and Wiebke Sievers, eds. Immigrant and Ethnic-Minority Writers since 1945. Fourteen National Contexts in Europe and Beyond. Brill Rodopi, 318-354.

• 2018. "Pavane for a Dead Princess, or Exploring Geographies of the City, the Mind, and the Social: Fujita Yoshinaga's Tenten and Miki Satoshi's Adrift in Tokyo", in Barbara Thornbury and Evelyn Schulz, eds. Tokyo--Memory, Imagination, and the City. Lexington Books, 25-44.

• 2017. "Negotiating Nuclear Disaster. An Introduction", in Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, eds. Negotiating Nuclear Disaster--'Fukushima' and the Arts. Routledge, 1-20.

• 2017. "Gendering 'Fukushima': Resistance, Self-responsibility, and Female Hysteria in Sono Sion's Land of Hope", in Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, eds. Negotiating Nuclear Disaster--'Fukushima' and the Arts. Routledge, 110-126.

• 2015. "'Fukushima leben', oder wie spricht man von der verlorenen Heimat? Politische Ambivalenzen in Wagō Ryōichis Katastrophenpoesie", in Lisette Gebhardt and Evelyn Schulz, eds. Neue Konzepte japanischer Literatur? Nationalliteratur, literarischer Kanon und die Literaturtheorie. EB Verlag, 223-252.

• 2015. "Precarity beyond 3/11 or 'Living Fukushima'--Power, politics, and space in Wagō Ryōichi's poetry of disaster", in Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt and Roman Rosenbaum, eds. Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature. Routledge, 187-201.

• 2015. "Kirino Natsuo's Metabola, or the Okinawan stage, fractured selves and the precarity of contemporary existence", in Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt and Roman Rosenbaum, eds. Visions of Precarity in Japanese Popular Culture and Literature. Routledge, 24-42.

• 2013. "Terebi dorama ni miru raifukōsu no datsu hyōjunka to mikonka no hyōshō: Around 40 to Konkatsu! o rei ni", in Hiromi Tanaka, Maren Godzik, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, eds, Raifukōsu no yukue. Nihon to doitsu no shigoto, kazoku, sumai. Beyond a Standardized Lifecourse - Biographical Choices about Work, Family and Housing in Japan and Germany. Tokyo: Shinyōsha, 176-201.

• 2012. "Precarity discourses in Kirino Natsuo's Metabola--the Okinawan stage, fractured selves and the ambiguity of contemporary existence." Japan Forum. Vol. 24:2, 141-161.

• 2011. "The Japanese Television Drama Around 40 and the Politics of Happiness: Count What You Have Now." Asian Studies Review. Vol. 35, 295-313; with Alisa Freedman.

• 2011. "'Unsichtbare Menschen'? Zur Entstehung und gegenwärtigen Situation der koreanischen Minderheit in Japan", in Hilaria Gössmann, Renate Jaschke, Andreas Mrugalla, eds. Interkulturelle Begegnungen in Literatur, Film und Fernsehen. Ein deutsch-japanischer Vergleich. Iudicium, 113-144.

• 2008. "Die Fremde als Heimat? Die Heimat als Fremde? Zu Identitätsdiskursen in der Literatur der koreanischen Minderheit in Japan", in Michael Lackner, ed. Zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Selbstbehauptung. Ostasiatische Diskurse des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Nomos-Verlagsgesellschaft, 105-133.

• 2007. "Aidentiti no datsu kōchiku toshite no 'jibun sagashi'--Yū Miri no Hachigatsu no hate ron", in Shakaibungaku (Tokushū 'Zainichi' bungaku: kako, genzai, mirai), Vol. 26, 136-147.

• 2007. "Yū Miri und das 'schöne Dorf': Konstruktionen von 'roots' und 'routes' in Hachigatsu no hate." Asiati¬sche Studien/ Études Asiatiques. Special Issue: Schriftstellerinnen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Vol. LXII-2/2007, 661-683.

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