Professor in ‘Japanese Language and Culture,’ Stockholm University.
I am holding a first degree in Japanese Studies and a PhD in Aesthetics/Art Studies [Kunstwissenschaft], obtained from Humboldt University, Berlin, in 1987 and 1991 respectively. Between 1991 and 2017 I was teaching at Japanese universities, mainly in Japanese, but also in English. My teaching and research has been primarily in the field of visuals arts and media cultures with a special focus on manga and anime as multimodal serial narratives. It has been concerned with Japan, although less with “what” Japan is, but “how,” as an exemplary case.
Research Areas: Manga/Comics Studies, Anime/Animation Studies, Japanese Studies, Asian Studies, Media Studies.
For The Japan Foundation I directed the world-traveling exhibition Manga Hokusai Manga: Approaching the Master’s Compendium from the Perspective of Contemporary Comics (2016-); for the Kyoto International Manga Museum I co-curated the exhibition 『愛すべき無理難題』 (Crossing Borders: Mahler’s Manga Park), which was realized in collaboration with the Caricature Museum Krems, Austria, and the Austrian Embassy in Japan in 2014-2015. At present I am preparing the exhibition Manga: Reading the Flow, to be held at Rietberg Museum, Zürich, in relation to Love, Fight, Feast: Dynamics in Japanese narrative art, in autumn 2021.
International collaboration:
- with The University of Tokyo, on Playing Japan: Games Studies, Anime Research, and Language Education, with Associate Prof. Dr. Hiroshi Yoshida (The University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, Dept. of Aesthetics) and – from the Dept. of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies/Japanese section – Dr. Mitsuyo Kuwano-Lidén (linguistics, language education) and Ida Kirkegaard (PhD student; visual culture, anime studies).2020/04_workshop of The University of Tokyo
2020/09_symposium at Stockholm University - with Niigata University, Archive Centre for Anime Studies, and Asian Link Research Center (Archiving Anime: Intermediate Anime Materials)
- with Universida de Vigo, Spain, Faculty of Fine Arts, dx5 – digital & graphic art research group, headed by Dr. Ana Soler Baena, project title Exploring new graphic territories from a transdisciplinary perspective: Expanded-field comics, artist hyper-books and contemporary animetic theories, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competetiveness, State Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation (December 2016 – December 2019)
Employment History: [FY = Japanese fiscal/academic year, from April to March]
- FY2009–16 Professor in Manga/Comics Theory, Kyoto Seika University (KSU), Graduate School of Manga Studies
- FY2001–09 Associate Professor in Art and Media Studies [tenured], Yokohama National University, Japan, Faculty of Education and Human Sciences]
- FY1995-2001 Associate Professor in Art Sociology [tenured], Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, College of Social Sciences
- FY1994-95 Associate Professor in German [tenured], Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, College of Law
- FY1991-94 Full-time Instructor of German Language, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, College of Science and Technology
Guest Professorships: 2012 National University of Singapore, Department of Japanese Studies, The Japan Foundation Visiting Professorship Grant; 2008 Bridgestone Foundation guest professor at the Insitute of East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University; 2005 DAAD guest professor at Leipzig University, Japanese Studies.
Memberships:
European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS, intermittently since 1991; council member since 2017);
Nordic Network for Comics Research (NNCORE)
founding member of the Japan Society for the Study of Cartoons and Comics (Nihon manga gakkai, board member 2001-2005, 2010-2014),
Japan Society for Animation Studies (JSAS; member of editorial board, 2012-2017)