Faculty & Instructors

Research Overview

My dissertation is a comparative project that studies the literary form of the fragmented essay (Ch: suibi; J: zuihitsu) in Manchukuo—the puppet state installed by the Empire of Japan in 1932. In the East Asian literary topography, the Chinese suibi and the Japanese zuihitsu maintain prominent presence yet have received little critical attention. Through a rigorous engagement with Chinese and Japanese-language fragmented essays, I offer fresh insights into the notions of literariness, fictionality, and representation. I illuminate how writers used suibi and zuihitsu—forms conventionally associated with the “unaffected” and the “personal”—as world-making instruments alternative to fictional narrativization. Literary expressions that adopted the practice of “sincerity” became especially salient in the context of Manchukuo—a polity described by historian Prasenjit Duara as a “symbolic regime of authenticity” (2003).

My second project shifts the focus to women’s creative enterprise in Manchukuo. Spotlighting figures including Sakane Tazuko, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (Li Xianglan/Ri Kōran), and Fujiwara Tei, I analyze how women energized and subverted the colonial project of Manchukuo through cultural products such as national policy films (kokusaku eiga) and repatriation literature (hikiage bungaku).

Research Interests

• 20th century Japanese literature and cinema
• Manchukuo literature and cinema
• Fragmented essay (Ch: suibi; J: zuihitsu)
• Women’s cultural production
• Empire, colonial, and postcolonial studies
• Comparative East Asian literature and cultures