Organization of the Graduate School

Department of Japanese Studies

Course Group	Department	Position	Name	Research Theme
Japanese Culture Studies	Innovative Japanese Studies	Professor	TANAKA Shigeto	Connections between gender-based inequality and family system; Time-use analysis; Application of information technology in social sciences; Scientific knowledge formation process; Scientific knowledge and public opinion and policy
		Associate Professor	MOTEGI Kennosuke	1) Modern and contemporary representation of the Emperor (system) 2) Ghost stories and the occult in modern and contemporary Japan
		Associate Professor	AKAI Kimi	interdisciplinary research on literature and theatre; research on the commercial theatre from the end of the Edo period and throughout the early the modern era; research on shingeki as compared to kabuki and shimpa
		Assistant Professor	NISHIHARA Shiho
	History of Japanese Thought	Professor	KATAOKA Ryu	History of thought in East Asia of the early modern period (1995-present); East Asia in search of public philosophy and theory of life (2009-present); Reconsidering pacifism and theory of spirituality in modern East Asia (2015-present)
	History of Japanese Thought	Associate Professor	HIKINO Kyousuke	The development of commercial publishing in Early Modern Japan and changes in Buddhist thought
Japanese language Studies	Japanese Linguistics	Professor	ŌKI Kazuo	History of Japanese grammar; Japanese language history; Japanese grammar; History of Japanese linguistics
		Professor	KODA Naomi	Structure of spoken and written discourse; Conversation analysis
		Associate Professor	NAKANISHI Taro	Research on communication such as greetings and language behavior Research on communication with non-native speakers Dialectological research through corpora-based methods
	Applied Japanese Linguistics	Professor	OGAWARA Yoshiro	Japanese language education methods
		Associate Professor	SHIMASAKI Kaori	Sociocultural language learning, International students education, Learning environment design, Multicultural education
		Assistant Professor	ONISHI Yumi	second-language acquisition
Japanese Literature	Japanese Literature	Professor	SAKURA Yoshiyasu	Analysis of expressive structure and special characteristics of Japanese literary works contextualized within the history of Japanese culture and literacy
		Professor	YOKOMIZO Hiroshi	Literature of the Heian period; Medieval court literature in Japan
		Associate Professor	NIHEI Masato	Modernist literature of the 1920s-1930s Avant-garde literature and culture during the period of high economic growth
Japanese History	Japanese History	Professor	YANAGIHARA Toshiaki	Comparative historical research of the periphery regions (Tohoku and South Kyushu) in medieval Japan; Study of historical materials related to medieval Japan; Development of historical studies in Tohoku region before and during the Second World War; Tohoku University before and during the Second World War
		Professor	ADACHI Hiroaki	Modern and contemporary Japan and Asia; Spatial policy and national planning in pre- and postwar Japan, and their implementation on the local level; Development of the mobilization system in Japan during World War II
		Professor	HORI Yutaka	Structural study of the Emperor’s authority (1997-present); Japanese religions in East Asia (1995-present)
		Professor	KAGOHASHI Toshimitsu	Early modern Japanese history; History of local communities in the early modern period; Rural history; History of Japanese clans
		Assistant Professor	KURIHARA Shinichiro	The politics of the Tohoku domains and self‐awareness of their people during the Bakumatsu-Ishin period.
	[Collaborative Professor]Japanese History	Professor (The Center for Academic Resources and Archives)	KATO Satoshi
	Archaeology	Professor	KANOMATA Yoshitaka	Application of use-wear analysis (traceology) as a research method of prehistoric archaeology; Establishing the chronology of Palaeolithic sites in Tohoku region; Comparative cultural analysis of periods of the earliest pottery
	Archaeology	Associate Professor	MATSUMOTO Keita	reconstruction of the history of exchange based on the Bronze Age artifacts
	[Collaborative Professor]Archaeology	Professor ( Tohoku University Museum)	FUJISAWA Atsushi
	Cultural Properties Science ( Collaborative Field )

Department of Global Humanities

Course Group	Department	Position	Name	Research Theme
Comparative and Cross-Cultural Studies	Cultural Anthropology	Professor	KAWAGUCHI Yukihiro	Family and kinship, religion, and migration in East Asia (particularly in China)
		Associate Professor	OCHI Ikuno	Cultural contact in migration, travel and tourism
		Assistant Professor	BAO Shuangyue	Nomadism; livestock farming; the turn to permanent settlement and farming
	Religious Studies	Professor	KIMURA Toshiaki	Natural disasters and religion; Modern transformations of folk belief; Indonesian society and religion
		Professor	TANIYAMA Yozo	Application of sutra chanting, prayers and other religious practices as spiritual care
		Associate Professor	TOISHIBA Shiho	Ancestor worship, funeral rites, and burial systems in modern and contemporary Japan
		Assistant Professor	ABE Tomonori	Buddhism and folk customs; the genealogy of folk religion studies; contemporary changes in folk religion; changes in the concept of soul
		Specially Appointed Assistant Professor (Research)	IKAWA Yugaku	the public nature of religion; religion and welfare; religion and disaster; clinical spiritual care
	Death & Life Studies/ Practical Religious Studies	Professor	TAKAHASHI Hara	Religious specialists and mental health care
	Death & Life Studies/ Practical Religious Studies	Professor	TANIYAMA Yozo (Joint Posting)	Application of sutra chanting, prayers and other religious practices as spiritual care
	Indology and History of Indian Buddhism	Professor	SAKURAI Munenobu	Esoteric funeral rituals in India and Tibet; Luyipada School in Esoteric Buddhism
		Professor	NISHIMURA Naoko	History of Vedic literature; Vedic rituals and their transformations; myths and rites; life in ancient India based on livestock rearing and dairy processing; interrelations between fetus development, the doctrine of transmigration and the family system; influences on early Buddhist formation
		Assistant Professor	WATANABE Ryo	Rites and rituals of various schools of Indo-Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism; history of Indian Esoteric Buddhism
Asian Culture and History	Chinese Language and Literature	Professor	YATA Naoko	Chu Ci (“Verses of Chu”) of the Han dynasty; development and transformations of the image of Quyuan; establishment and evolution of Chu Ci studies in Japan; women’s attire in the Tang dynasty
		Professor	TSUCHIYA Ikuko	Textual analysis of Chinese plays
		Associate Professor	CHANG Peiju	Grammaticalization of verbs (particularly perception verbs)
		Assistant Professor	SUGAWARA Naoki	Quotations from poetry in classical Chinese novels Entrance examinations based on the Chinese classics in the Meiji and Taisho periods
	Chinese Philosophy	Professor	SAITO Tomohiro	Chinese Medieval Intellectual History；History of religion in China
	East Asian History	Professor	ONO Koji	Chinese bureaucracy and the imperial examination system for civil servants in Ming and Qing periods
		Associate Professor	WATANABE Hideyuki	Sino-barbarian thought; administration of non-Chinese ethnic groups during the Qin and Han Dynasties; constitutional history of the Qin Dynasty
		Assistant Professor	Chen Ying	History of modern China; Chinese bureaucratic system;
Western Culture and History	English Literature	Professor	OKOCHI Sho	English romantic literature; History of English thought in the 18^th century; Modern critical theory
		Professor	ONUKI Takashi	Culture and literature of 20^th century England; Raymond Williams
		Professor	TINK James	Early modern English literature, including works by Shakespeare and Milton; English poetry and poetics; English literature in the 20^th century
	English Linguistics	Professor	SHIMA Etsuro	Operation of movement (1992-present); Tense phenomena (2000-present); Ellipsis in natural languages (2002-present)
	English Linguistics	Associate Professor	NAKAMURA Taichi	Ellipsis; Labeling Algorithm
	German Language and Literature	Professor	SHIMAZAKI Satoru	Historical development of grammatical categories; Tense theory; Point of view in Japanese and German languages; The Song of the Nibelungs as romance fiction; Authorship in popular literature; Reception of European culture in Japan
		Professor	NARROG Heiko	Grammaticalization; semantic change; modality
		Assistant	SHIMIZU Shota	History of epistolary novels in the 18^th century
	French Language and Literature	Professor	IMAI Tsutomu	Research project funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI): Cultural-historical analysis of Paul Valéry’s letters (Category C, 2014-2016)
		Professor	MEVEL Yann	Samuel Beckett’s and Marguerite Duras’ ouvre; Contemporary French literature, in particular literary works by Pierre Michon and authors published by Les Éditions de Minuit;
		Professor	KUROIWA Taku	Research project funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI): “Subsequent use and development of the prosodic structure principles found in Arnoul Gréban’s Mystère de la Passion” (Category C; 2017-2019)
	European and American History	Professor	ARIMITSU Hideyuki	“The Norman Empire” and local communities; Epistolary exchange and communication in medieval Europe; Peoples of the British Isles and national consciousness
	European and American History	Professor	ASAOKA Zenji	Russian agricultural communities under the New Economic Policy (NEP)
	[Collaborative Professor]European and American History	Professor	TERAYAMA Kyosuke

Department of Integrated Human Sciences

Course Group	Department	Position	Name	Research Theme
Philosophy and Ethics	Philosophy	Professor	NAOE Kiyotaka	Phenomenological inquiry into human behavior (1985-present); Philosophy and ethics of technology (1985-present)
		Professor	OGIHARA Satoshi	Ancient philosophy; Analytic ethics
		Professor	KIDO Atsushi
		Associate Professor	HARA Saku	The issue of executability of interactive science communication; Theoretical basis for research integrity
		Assistant Professor	MINEGISHI Yusuke	Exploring the basic structure and principles of autonomy ; Elucidating the cultural and social context of theory of self-consciousness; Exploring the current possibilities of existential theology
	Ethics	Professor	MURAYAMA Tatsuya	1. Modal notions (contingency, possibility, necessity) in French philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th century; 2. Historical and analytical inquiry into the meaning of life
	Ethics	Associate Professor	KOMATSUBARA Orika	restorative justice; community rebuilding; victim support; art activism
Arts and Humanities	Eastern and Japanese Art History	Professor	NAGAOKA Ryusaku	History of Japanese sculpture; The cult of Śarīra (Buddhist relics) and plastic arts in Pan-Asia; Philosophy of Buddhist Art
		Professor	SUGIMOTO Yoshihisa	18^th century cultural trends and the diversity of expressive means in painting
		Assistant Professor	HAMASUMI Mayu	Japanese literati paintings with a focus on Ike Taiga
	Aesthetics and Western Art History	Professor	ADACHI Kaoru	Formation and social and cultural sources of Mannerism Synchronization and mutual influences between art and magic and the art of memory
		Associate Professor	Marinucci Lorenzo	Nioi and olfactory thought
		Assistant Professor	SETO Haruka	Formation and sources of Mannerism in the 16^th-century Florence paintings
Psychology and Linguistics	Psychology	Professor	ABE Tsuneyuki	Research on the physicality of emotions; Psychological functions of everyday behavior; Salivary cortisol measurement; Social meaning of face; Ecological functions of the sense of smell; Disaster and the emergent norm theory
		Professor	SAKAI Nobuyuki	Psychology of eating (including psychology of sensation and perception, biological psychology, health psychology, etc.); Chemical sensing system (sense of taste, sense of smell, somatic senses, etc.) from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience
		Professor	TSUJIMOTO Masahiro	Mutual aid in local communities; Life history research; Nikkei communities in South America
		Professor	OMORI Mika	Psychosocial attributes related to health behaviors, risk perception and health communication
		Associate Professor	ARAI Takashi	Promotion of crime prevention behaviors; effective distribution of crime information; mechanisms of violence; dating violence and stalking; anger management
		Associate Professor	KAWACHI Yousuke	Research on visual information processing, inter- and intrasensory integration, kansei information processing, structural and functional brain analysis
		Assistant Professor	RAEVSKIY Alexander	Connection between language and cognition
	Linguistics	Professor	KOIZUMI Masatoshi	1) Field-based cognitive psycholinguistic study of the discourse-processing mechanisms of OS-type languages; 2) Study on pragmatic inferences
		Associate Professor	KIYAMA Sachiko	Age-related changes in pragmatic language processing; Field-based cognitive neurolinguistics
		Associate Professor	NAITO Maho	Research on endangered, unanalyzed, and unwritten languages
		Assistant Professor	KATO Makiko	1) Study of effective instruction on summary writing for EFL learners 2) Study of validity and reliability in assessing summary writing
Social and Human Sciences	Sociology	Professor	NAGAI Akira	Jürgen Habermas’ social theory; Structural change processes in rural communities; Sociological research of medical care systems in rural communities
		Professor	KOMATSU Takeaki	Meta-research of the social systems theory; Sociological research of risk and knowledge/non-knowledge
		Professor	TASHIRO Shimon	Social control of biomedical research Sociology of death and dying
		Associate Professor	AOKI Soko	Development process and effects of social movements Comparative research on environmental movements in Japan and Germany
	Behavioral Science	Professor	HAMADA Hiroshi	Examining social phenomena through mathematical models; Integrating mathematical models with statistical models
		Associate Professor	OGAWA Katsunori	Inequality of educational opportunity Attitudes towards educational and social welfare policies Causal inference in social sciences
		Assistant Professor	SAZAKI Ai	Funeral practices and Memorial service for the dead of the Orthodox Church in Japan Reception of Christianity in Japan Transformations of the contemporary religious culture
	Computational Humanities and Social Sciences	Associate Professor	LYU Zeyu	political polarization; opinion formation on social media; applied machine learning in social sciences

Others

Belong		Position	Name	Research Theme
In charge of Foreign Students		Assistant Professor	KOPYLOVA Olga	Transmedia storytelling (as well as similar development of other types of content) within popular culture, its specifics and potential; Fan culture, international fandom, and fiction-based transmedia projects; Media mix as a specific type of transmedia franchise
Computer Room		Assistant Professor	MORIKAWA Tamon	Identity and religion in modern Japan (2005-present)