Professor EmeritaAdvisory Committee, Department of Women’s Studies
Affiliated Faculty, Department of American Studies
Fellow, Institute for Arts and Humanities, UNC-Chapel Hill
Past President, Southeast Conference/Association of Asian Studies
Research
My research field is best described as Japanese women’s studies with an emphasis on how women’s lives have been imagined and differently presented in fiction, film and theater, women’s magazines, feminist debate, and social institutions. My current projects explore concepts of women’s liberation in early Cold War feminist debate, beauty contests, and women’s magazines. I also continue to write about the New Woman of the 1910s and to do research on contemporary representations of geisha and maiko in Japanese popular culture.
Awards
Turner Fellow, Institute for Arts and Humanities, spring 2015
William R. Kenan Jr. Senior Faculty Research and Scholarly Leave, UNC-Chapel Hill, July-December 2014
Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Fellow, UNC-Chapel Hill, August 2013-June 2014
Hiratsuka Raichou Award, Japan Women’s University, 2012
Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, UNC-Chapel Hill, February 2009
Chapman Family Faculty Fellowship for Distinguished Teaching, UNC-Chapel Hill, fall 1998 and fall 2004
Edward Kidder Graham Teaching Award, The Class of 2002, General Alumni Association and Division of Students Affairs, UNC-Chapel Hill, April 9, 2002
Sitterson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching First-Year Seminars, UNC-Chapel Hill, February 2001
Outstanding Faculty Woman Award, The Women’s Issues Network and Student Government, UNC-Chapel Hill, April 1998
Courses
ASIA 54: First-Year Seminar: The American Life of Japanese Women
ASIA 58: First-Year Seminar: Chasing Madame Butterfly
ASIA 67: First-Year Seminar: Japanese Fashion: History and Culture
ASIA 691H: Senior Honors Thesis I
JAPN 160: Introduction to Japanese Literature in Translation
JAPN 161: Geisha in History, Fiction, and Fantasy
JAPN 261: Japanese Theater
JAPN 381: Women and Work in Japan
JAPN 384: Women Writers in Japanese Society
JAPN 409: Japanese Modernism (taught in Japanese)
JAPN 482: Embodying Japan: The Cultures of Beauty, Sports, and Medicine in Japan
Publications
Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan. SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014.
Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and Etiquette in Japan. Introduction, eleven articles, Co-edited with Laura Miller. University of California Press, 2011.
The Bluestockings of Japan: New Women Essays and Fiction from Seitô, 1911-1916. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2007.
Bad Girls of Japan. Co-edited with Laura Miller. Introduction, eleven articles, Afterword. Palgrave, 2005.
Documentary Film: Women in Japan: Memories of the Past, Dreams for the Future. With Joanne Hershfield. 56 minutes. 2002.