PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS
July 2009 to present
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Lafayette College
July 2008 to June 2009
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Lafayette College
January 2008 to June 2008
Visiting Lecturer
Department of Anthropology
Yale University
EDUCATION
May 2008
Yale University, Ph.D. in anthropology;
Dissertation title: "Intimate Separations: Divorce and its Reverberations in Contemporary Japan."
Supervised by: William W. Kelly
May 2003
Yale University, M.Phil. in anthropology
June 2001
The University of Chicago, A.B. with honors, double concentrating in anthropology and sociology.
Thesis title: "Transitions into Motherhood: Women's Experiences of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Postpartum Recovery In Japan and the United States."
Supervised by: Joseph Hopper, Norma Field, Linda Waite, and Susan Gal
RESEARCH INTERESTS
The anthropology of marriage and divorce;
family lives and family change;
theories and experiences of identity and subjectivity;
romance and romantic failures;
field methods and ethnographic representations;
anthropology of Japan.
FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS
May 2009 to July 2009
Short Term Research Fellowship
Japan Foundation
Jan. 2007 to Dec. 2007
Council on East Asian Studies Prize Dissertation Fellowship
Dissertation writing fellowship
Sept. 2005 to Sept. 2006
Fulbright IIE Dissertation Research Fellowship
Nov. 2005
Honorable Mention, Society for East Asian Anthropology's Theodore C.
Bestor Prize for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper for "Divorce in the Mainstream: Portraits of contemporary Japanese experiences."
Summer 2004
Yale Council on East Asian Studies Language Grant
Funding for language study in Tokyo with private tutors.
Sept. 2003 to May 2004
Richard U. Light Fellowship
Funding to study Japanese language at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
Summer 2003
Richard U. Light Fellowship
Funding to study Japanese language at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Summer 2002
Richard U. Light Fellowship
Funding to study Japanese language at Inter-University Center, Yokohama, Japan.
Summer 2002
Yale Council on East Asian Studies Research Grant
Received funding to begin preliminary research on the marketing of the birth control pill in Japan.
June 1999 to June 2001
Maroon Key Society, University of Chicago
Awarded for academic performance and work with student groups.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Fall 2009, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 238, “Gender and Popular Culture.”
Fall 2009, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 238, “Transnationalism.”
Spring 2009, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 102, “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.”
Spring 2009, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 212, “Sex and Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective.”
Spring 2009, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 353, “Japan: Culture, Society, Modernity.”
Fall 2008, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 224, "Self, Society, and Culture: Anthropology of Love and Romantic Intimacies."
Fall 2008, Lafayette College
Anthropology & Sociology 102, "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology."
Summer 2008, Yale University
Anthropology 110s, "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology."
Spring 2008, Yale University
Anthropology 254b, "Japan: Culture, Society, Modernity."
Spring 2008, Yale University
Anthropology 392b, "The Anthropology of Love and Romantic Intimacies."
Summer 2007, Yale University
Co-Instructor (with Emily Margaretten) for Anthropology 110s, "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology."
Spring 2005, Yale university
Teaching fellow for Anthropology 110b, "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology," with Dr. Linda-Anne Rebhun.
Fall 2004, Yale University
Teaching fellow for Anthropology 254a, "Japan: The Anthropology of an Alternative Modernity," with Dr. William W. Kelly.
PUBLICATIONS - ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS
in preparation
"Attractive Dependence and the Risks of Intimacy in Neoliberal Japan."
in preparation
"Balancing Disconnecton in Contemporary Japanese Marriages." As part of, "The Ethics of Disconnection," a special issue of Anthropology Quarterly. Ilana Gershon and Allison Alexy, eds.
in preparation
"When I got Divorced, My Single Friends said "Welcome Home!"" As part of, Home and Family in Japan: Transformation and Continuity. Richard Ronald and Allison Alexy, eds. Routledge Press.
November 2007
"Deferred Benefits, Romance, and the Specter of Later-life Divorce." Japanstudien [Japan Studies], vol. 19: 169-188. German Institute of Japanese Studies, Tokyo.
PUBLICATIONS - EDITED VOLUMES
March 2010
co-editor with Richard Ronald, "Home and Family in Japan: Transformation and Continuity." Routledge Press.
PUBLICATIONS - BOOK REVIEWS
October 2007
"The Too-Good Wife: Alcohol, Codependency, and the Politics of Nurturance in Postwar Japan" by Amy Borovoy. Southeast Review of Asian Studies, vol. 29, pages: 261-264.
July 2004
"Doing Fieldwork in Japan" edited by Theodore Bestor, Patricia Steinhoff and Victoria Lyon Bestor. H-Net Online.
PRESENTATIONS AND WORKSHOPS
March 2010
The Door My Wife Closed: Houses, Families, and Divorce in Contemporary Japan. Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Philadelphia.
December 2009
An Aura of Virtuality: Moving Marital Support Groups On- and Offline in Contemporary Japan. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia.
April 2009
I Love you More than I Can Say: Divorce and Communication in Contemporary Japan. Bard College.
March 2009
Three Words to Save Your Marriage? Articulated Emotions and Divorce Risk in Contemporary Japan. Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Chicago.
November 2008
Discussant on panel entitled "Re-reading Ethnographies of Japan and Korea."
November 2008
The Popular Logics of Demographics in Japan. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco.
May 2008
Balancing Disconnect in Contemporary Japanese Marriages. Annual Meeting of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, Long Beach, California.
November 2007
Wives as Mothers, Divorce Risk, and Professional Counseling in Japan. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.
March 2007
But He's Still my Kids' Father: Post-divorce parenting in contemporary Japan. Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Boston, Massachusetts.
March 2007
When I got divorced, my single friends said, "Welcome home!" Japan Anthropology Workshop Series, Oslo, Norway.
February 2007
Participant in the Social Science Research Council's Japan Dissertation Workshop, Monterey, California.
January 2007
Talking Technology: Technological Strategies for Scholarship and Fieldwork. Co-presented with William Kelly and Gavin Whitelaw.
Ethnography and Social Theory Colloquium. Yale University, Department of Anthropology.
November 2006
Living as an X: Toward a theory of the batsu ichi. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Jose, California.
October 2006
On a First Name Basis: Identity and marital problems in contemporary Japan. New York Regional Meetings of the Association of Asian Studies.
September 2006
Individuals, Families and Divorce in Contemporary Japan. Guest lecture in Dr. Stephanie Assmann's class at Tokyo International University.
August 2006
Obligation, Romance, and the Specter of Middle-Aged Divorce. Modern Japan History Workshop, Waseda University.
July 2006
Divorced from the Ideal. Society for East Asian Anthropology's "East Asian Anthropology/Anthropology in East Asia" Conference,
Hong Kong.
April 2006
The Business of Divorce. Anthropology of Japan in Japan spring meetings, Kyoto, Japan.
December 2005
Two Spouses, Two States: Considering inter-Asian divorce. Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange Program workshop "Transnational
Marriage and the State," Chiang Mai, Thailand.
November 2005
Malinowski’s American Homes. Poster Session at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington DC.
The project website is here.
April 2005
Divorce and Family Change in Contemporary Japan. Society for East Asian Anthropology's "Reports from the Field" Workshop, Chicago,
Illinois.
February 2005
Divorcing between Narita and Middle-Age. Graduate Conference on East Asia, Columbia University.
October 2004
Acknowledging Reproduction. "Reproduction in Modern Japan" conference, Yale University.
July 2004
Discussant for「タイに向かう日本人の若者たち」[Young Japanese people headed for Thailand], a presentation by Ono Mayumi. Modern
Anthropology Doctoral Workshop, Tokyo University. [In Japanese]
April 2004
Selling (Responsible) Sex to Young Women: Marketing the birth control pill in Japan. Anthropology of Japan in Japan Spring meetings,
Sendai, Japan.
March 2004
An Unpopular Pill: Modernity, globalism, and Japanese birth control. Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, San Diego,
California.
February 2004
Supplemented Bodies: Vitamins, kampoyaku, and the pill in modern Japan. East Asia Society graduate conference, Harvard University.
January 2004
「広告なしマーケティング：日本における避妊のピル」 [Marketing without Advertising: The birth control pill in Japan]. Workshop on
Cultural Anthropology, Waseda University. [In Japanese]
CONFERENCE PANELS
December 2009
Co-Organizer of "Ethnography 2.0: Anthropology of Online Commitments" at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia.
March 2009
Co-organizer of "Intimate Japan: Cultivating Human Relationships in an Era of Neoliberal Independence" at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Chicago.
November 2007
Organizer of "Commodified Romance and Intimate Selves" at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.
March 2007
Co-Organizer of "De-materializing Ie: fragmentation and diversification in the Japanese home and family" at the Japan Anthropology Workshop
Series, Oslo, Norway.
November 2006
Organizer of "Stigmatized Kinship in Contemporary Japan" at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Jose, California.
July 2006
Organizer of "Belonging in Japan: Reconsidering Groups in Contemporary Japan" at the Society for East Asian Anthropology's "East Asian Anthropology/Anthropology in East Asia" Conference, Hong Kong.
RESEARCH GROUPS AND CONFERENCE LEADERSHIP
January to September 2006
Coordinator of Modern Japan History Workshop, Waseda University.
September 2004 to August 2005
Co-coordinator of Ethnography and Social Theory Colloquium, Department of Anthropology, Yale University.
October 2004
Organizer of Reproduction in Modern Japan conference, Yale University.
Sept. 2003 to Sept. 2004
Coordinator of Tokyo Doctoral Workshop. Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
JAPANESE LANGUAGE STUDY
Sept. 2003 to May 2004
Center for Japanese Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo
Summer 2003
Asia in Today’s World, Kyushu University, Fukuoka
Summer 2002
Inter-University Center, Yokohama
Fall 1999
Stanford Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto
Sept. 1998 to June 1999
Intermediate Japanese, the University of Chicago
Sept. 1997 to June 1998
Beginning Japanese, the University of Chicago