About

Born and raised in the mid-sized industrial city of Hamamatsu, Japan, I earned an A.A. (1991) in English at Kansai Foreign Language College and worked as an "office lady" at the Hamamatsu Branch Office of Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Company for six years. Since I moved to the U.S. in 1997, I earned an M.A. (2001) in Asian Studies at the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. (2008) in Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

I joined the University of Kansas in 2007 and am now an associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I am also affiliated with the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center for Global and International Studies at KU. I am currently undertaking my second book project on the porn industry in Japan through the lens of labor practice.

My first book, Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club, is available from Stanford University Press and Amazon, I am very excited about that.