I was born in Kyoto City, and have spent most of my life there. I majored in American Literature at Doshisha University (Department of English, Faculty of Letters) and its Graduate School of Letters. In 1993, I took up a post at the College of Law, Ritsumeikan University to help formulate the English curriculum for the College of Policy Science. I took up a post at the College of Policy Science in 1994 when the college was established. I was a visiting researcher at the Center for American Studies of Columbia University, the U.S. from 2011 to 2012. I was a visiting professor at the University of Bergamo, Italy (Department of Foreign Languages and Literature) from 2019 to 2020. My hobbies are classical ballet, traveling, and eating out.

I conducted research on contemporary Jewish American novels as an undergraduate and graduate school student. Later, before and after studying in the U.S., I conducted research on modern and contemporary literature by female Native American authors and the Native American culture related to land and writing. Recently, I have broadened my interests to the representation of women in political thought in Europe, the U.S., and Japan, systems and history of higher education, and mobility of food culture and performing arts. At the college and graduate school, I am in charge of “English for Policy Science,” in which students acquire introductory knowledge about policy science (social science) in English and prepare content related to Japan in English, “Comparative Studies in Culture,” in which cultures are compared from various viewpoints, and English-based subjects. All of these subjects focus on the relationships among society, culture, and policies from the viewpoint of social science and humanities.

Policy science and literature/cultural research appear to be completely unrelated. However, when policies are regarded as textbooks just like literary works and cultural phenomena, it is possible to conduct interpretation research to decipher policies. If one of the characteristics of the college is “how to study” rather than “what to study,” the research method can be considered as part of “how to study.” The process of carefully observing, describing, explaining, analyzing, and interpreting the target materials, including policies, cultural phenomena, and literary works, is important. One of the attractive features of the College and Graduate School of Policy Science is that students can conduct research on both social science and humanities.

American literature, American culture, comparative studies in culture, Italian culture, Japanese culture