sayumitakahashicv

Degrees and Honors

• • Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania (Comparative Literature and Literary Theory) May 2007. Dissertation title: “Discipline and Publish: Intermedia Poetics of Gendered Resistance in Ôtagaki Rengetsu, Yoko Ono and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.” Advisor: Dr. Ayako Kano. Committee: Dr. Linda Chance and Dr. Julie N. Davis.

  • Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2004

  • M.A. University of Pennsylvania (Comparative Literature and Literary Theory) 2001

  • B.A. Princeton University (Philosophy, Minor in Creative Writing) 1999, magna cum laude

Publications

• • “Yoko Ono and the Poetics of the Vanishing Gift.” in Postgender: Gender, Sexuality and Performativity in Japanese Culture. Ed. Ayelet Zohar. Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming

  • A Review of Derek Kirk Kim’s Same Difference and Other Stories, MELUS: Special Issue on Graphic Narrative. Vol. 23, No. 3 (Fall 2007): pp. 292-295.

  • “Rengetsu’s Gassaku: The Sprit of Collaboration.” in Black Robes, White Mist: The Art of Otagaki Rengetsu. Exhibition Catalogue. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2007. pp. 105-117.

  • “Beyond Our Grasp? Materiality, Meta-Genre and Meaning in the Po(e)ttery of Rengetsu-ni.” Hermeneutical Strategies: Methods of Interpretation in the Study of Japanese Literature. Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, Vol. 5, Summer 2004. Ed. Michael Marra. Midwest Association for Japanese Literature Studies ISSN 1531-5533. pp. 261-278.

Selected Lectures, Panels, Conferences, Symposia

Conference Papers

• • “Bakumatsu Literati Women in Meiji Editions: The Strange Case of Rengetsu.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting. Boston, MA. March 25, 2007

  • “Tea and Sympathy in Nineteenth-Century Japan: The Po(e)ttery of Otagaki Rengetsu.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Philadelphia, PA. December 29, 2006

  • “Yoko Ono and the Poetics of the Vanishing Gift.” Postgender: Gender, Sexuality and Performativity in Contemporary Japanese Art. Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, Israel. December 9, 2005

  • “Ôtagaki Rengetsu and the ‘Promiscuity’ of the Woman Poet.” Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies (MAR/AAS). Pittsburgh, PA. October 29, 2005

  • “Electric Affinities in the Comic Unconscious: Kawahara Izumi’s ‘Furoito 1/2.’” Elective Affinities: 2005 Conference of the International Association for Word and Image Studies (IAWIS). Philadelphia, PA. September 27, 2005

  • “Yoko Ono and the Poetics of the Vanishing Gift.” Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) Visual Arts of Asia workshop. Tokyo, Japan. August 24, 2005

  • “Electric Affinities in the Comic Unconscious: Kawahara Izumi’s ‘Freud 1/2.’” Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities (HICAS). Honolulu, HI. January 14, 2005

  • “Beyond Our Grasp? Materiality, Meta-Genre and Meaning in the Po(e)ttery of Rengetsu-ni.” Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies (AJLS): Hermeneutical Strategies: Methods of Interpretation in the Study of Japanese Literature. Los Angeles, CA. November 22, 2003

  • “Spooky Women and the Troubled Masculinity of the Defeated Warrior: Gender and Imperialism in Kurosawa’s Kumonosu-jô.” Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies (MAR/AAS). Baltimore, MD. October 26, 2002

  • “Of Bookworms and Wormholes: Writing Time and the Self in Post-Einsteinian Narrative.” Graduate Humanities Symposium: Time and Space, Memory and Place. University of Pennsylvania. March 2, 2002

Invited Lectures and Panels

• • “Otagaki Rengetsu: Intermedia and the Idea of Collaboration.” Invited public lecture as part of programming for the exhibition, “Black Robe, White Mist: Art of the Japanese Buddhist Nun Rengetsu” at the National Gallery of Australia. Canberra, Australia. January 8, 2008.

  • “Barefoot Gen: Framing the Atomic Comic.” Two-part guest lecture for Rita Barnard’s ENGL 104.401: The Twentieth Century and War course. University of Pennsylvania. March 2006

  • Respondent to paper by Karolin Machtans, “Between Scholarship and Personal Text: Saul Friedländer’s Poetic Concept of Memory.” Graduate Jewish Studies Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania. January 19, 2006

  • Panelist, “Tomorrow’s Leaders in Academia,” with Drs. Lydia Fisher and Jean Lutes. American Association of University Women, Lansdale Branch meeting, January 17, 2006

  • Guest Speaker, “The Invention of Japanese Pop Culture and Japan as Invention.” Anime Fest 2005. The Gloucester County (NJ) Library System Anime Club. December 28, 2005

  • “Is the Actor an Agent? Self-consciousness, Performativity, and Identity in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” University of Pennsylvania Asian-American Colloquium Series, December 13, 2001

Grants, Fellowships, Awards

• • Faculty Development Research Grant, University of the South, 2007 - 2008

  • Center for Teaching – Teaching and Learning Grant, University of the South, Spring 2007

  • Japan Foundation South Film Festival Institutional Grant, February 15-March 8, 2007 (enabled first Japanese Film Series to take place on campus of Sewanee: The University of the South)

  • Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, May - Sept. 2005

  • American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship, 2005 - 2006

  • University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) Dissertation Fellowship, 2005-2006 (Awarded)

  • Dean's Fellowship for Specialized Language Training (19th-Century Japanese Calligraphy), University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2004

  • Dean’s Scholar Award, University of Pennsylvania, 2003

  • William Penn Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2000 - 2005

  • Warbeke Senior Thesis Prize in Aesthetics, Princeton University, 1999

  • Warbeke Senior Thesis Prize in Metaphysics & Epistemology, Princeton University, 1999

Employment History

• • Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, Sewanee: The University of the South, July 2007 - present

  • Instructor of Asian Studies, Sewanee: The University of the South, July 2006 - June 2007

  • Assistant Account Executive, Resnicow Schroeder Associates, New York, NY, June 1999 - July 2000

Teaching Experience

At Sewanee: The University of the South:

• • Technology, Love and Terror in Modern Japanese Literature and Film (Asian Studies 220), Fall 2007

  • Japanese Aesthetics (Asian Studies 310), Spring 2007

  • Advanced Japanese: Composition and Conversation (Japanese Studies 301), Spring 2007

  • Elementary Japanese II (Japanese Studies 104), Spring 2007

  • Independent Study (Asian Studies 444), Fall 2006, Spring 2007

  • Heroes and Heroines in Japanese Literature and Film (Asian Studies 210), Fall 2006

  • Intermediate Japanese (Japanese Studies 203), Fall 2006, Fall 2007

  • Elementary Japanese I (Japanese Studies 103), Fall 2006, Fall 2007

At the University of Pennsylvania:

• • The Twentieth Century: Literature and War (English / Comparative Literature 104), Spring 2006. Teaching Assistant to Rita Barnard.

  • Cultural Chinas: 20th-Century Chinese Literature and Film (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 267), Spring 2004. Teaching Assistant to Tina Lu.

  • Possessing Women: The Feminine Authorial Voice in World Literature (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 187, Women's Studies 187, Comparative Literature 187), Fall 2003. Teaching Assistant and Writing Fellow (Critical Writing program at the University of Pennsylvania) to Linda Chance.

  • Intensive Beginner’s Japanese (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 085), Fall 2002-Spring 2003. Teaching Assistant to Yoko Makishima.

  • Graphic Strips: Gender and Sexuality in Comics and Animated Film (Women’s Studies 296 / Comparative Literature 295), Summer 2002

  • Gender and Society (Women’s Studies 002), Fall 2001. Teaching Assistant to Dana Barron.

Research Experience

• • Visiting Researcher, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Collection, Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive. Berkeley, CA. June 2006

  • Visiting Art Researcher / Rengetsu Specialist, Bachmann Eckenstein Art and Antiques, Basel, Switzerland. October 2005

  • Graduate Research Fellow, Keio University (Japan) Department of Aesthetics and Art History, Maeda Fujio Research Group, Summer 2005

  • Research Assistant to Professor Julie Davis, History of Art Department, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2005 – Spring 2006

  • Research Assistant to Professor Victor Mair, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, Summer 2002 (worked as an editor on Sino-Japanese Dictionary project)

  • Research Assistant to Professor Liliane Weissberg, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2002

  • Research Assistant to Professor Helen Nissenbaum, Center for Human Values, Princeton University, 1997-1999

  • Research Assistant for Postdoctoral Fellows at the Center for Human Values, Princeton University, 1997-1999

Academic Community Service

• • Chair of Japanese Studies program, Sewanee: The University of the South, 2006 - present

  • Search and Hiring Committee, Department of Asian Studies, Sewanee: The University of the South, 2006 – present

  • Film Studies Advisory Committee, Sewanee: The University of the South, 2006 - present

  • Co-Chair, Graduate Employees Together at the University of Pennsylvania (GET-UP/AFT), 2004 - 2005 (elected position)

  • President, Comparative Literature Graduate Council, University of Pennsylvania, 2003 - 2004 (elected position)

  • Project Coordinator / Web Designer, Theorizing in Particular lecture series at the University of Pennsylvania, 2001 - 2004

  • Fellow, Graduate Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania, 2001 - 2006

  • Student Fellow, Center for Human Values, Princeton University, 1999

Professional Affiliations

• • Modern Language Association

  • Association for Asian Studies

  • ASIANetwork

  • Association for Japanese Literary Studies

  • Association of Teachers of Japanese

  • Society for Intercultural Comparative Studies

  • International Association of Word and Image Studies (Association Internationale pour l’Étude des Rapports Entre Texte et Image)

  • Imêji to jendâ kenkyûkai (Image and Gender Research Association)

Special Qualifications

• • Trained and worked as writing tutor / fellow in the Writing Across the University (WATU) program at the University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2004

  • Participated in 19th-century Japanese calligraphy kuzushiji workshop, University of Chicago, Summer 2004

  • Completed Oral Proficiency Interview training at OPI language teacher training workshop, University of Pennsylvania, Sept. 2002

Languages

• • English

  • Japanese

  • French

  • German (reading knowledge)

  • Classical Japanese (reading knowledge)

  • Classical Chinese (reading knowledge)

  • Modern Spoken Arabic (beginner level)