Lin Meng Walsh
Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese
PhD, Stanford University, 2025
- Office Location
- 425 Lattimore Hall
Office Hours: By appointment only
Biography
- PhD in Japanese Literature (with distinction), Stanford University, 2025
- MA in East Asian Studies, Stanford University, 2017
- BA in Asian Studies and Japanese, Pennsylvania State University, 2014
Research Overview
My research interests arise from the convergence of three core areas: literary forms, gender, and colonial studies. My doctoral dissertation is a critical study of the essay (Ch. suibi, J. zuihitsu) and its fictionality and politics. To investigate the resonance between literary and political forms, I situate the essay in the context of Manchukuo—a puppet state installed by the Empire of Japan in 1932 that existed for 14 years until the end of the Second World War. As a fraught geo-political body on which warring discourses of nationalism, colonialism, and multi-culturalism were inscribed, Manchukuo provides a rewarding site for an in-depth examination of the poetics and politics of the essay.
Besides developing my dissertation into a book manuscript, I am currently working on a series of projects spotlighting women’s lives in Manchukuo. My studies feature complex cultural figures including Sakane Tazuko, Yamaguchi Yoshiko, and Fujiwara Tei and themes such as national policy films (kokusaku eiga), repatriation literature (hikiage bungaku), and the media history of “continental brides” (tairiku no hanayome).
My research has been supported by organizations including the Fulbright-Hays program, the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program (FLAS), and the Nippon Foundation.
Research Interests
- Trans-Asia Comparative Literature
- The Essay (Ch. suibi, J. zuihitsu, K. sup’il)
- Manchukuo Literature and Cinema
- Women in East Asian Literature and Media
- Empire, Colonial, and Postcolonial Studies
Courses Offered (subject to change)
- JPNS 209: After the Quake: Introduction to Disaster Literature and Cinema in Japan
- JPNS 225: Introduction to Women’s Literature in East Asia
- JPNS 226: Texts of Confession: I-novel, Essay, and Autobiographical Writings in Japanese Literature
- JPNS 237: Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei: East Asian Metropolises in Literature and Film
Honors and Activities
- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship (2024)
- Stanford University Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) Summer Grant (2023)
- Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) Japan Fund Dissertation Grant (2022)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship (2021, declined due to the Covid-19 pandemic)
- Stanford University Centennial Teaching Assistant Award (2021)
- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Award (2020)
- Stanford University Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) Summer Grant (2018)
- Stanford University Asia Pacific Scholar Fellowship (2016)
- The Nippon Foundation Fellowship (IUC) (2015)
- Janssen Family Prize in Asian Studies (2014)