Japanese

Graduate School Faculty of Arts and Letters Tohoku University

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 CRAIG Christopher Modern Japanese farming villages (2006-present)
Colonialism (2016-present)
Associate Professor MOTEGI Kennosuke 1) Modern and contemporary representation of the Emperor (system)
2) Ghost stories and the occult in modern and contemporary Japan
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)
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)
Associate 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.
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
[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 NUMAZAKI Ichiro Economic Development and Sociocultural Change in Taiwan (1986-present);
Culture and human rights (1991-present);
Gender and violence (2000-present);
History of American anthropology (2010-present)
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
Death & Life Studies/ Practical Religious Studies Professor TAKAHASHI Hara Religious specialists and mental health care
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
Associate 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
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 History of thought in medieval China (2005-present)
East Asian History Professor ONO Koji Chinese bureaucracy and the imperial examination system for civil servants in Ming and Qing periods
Western Culture and History English Literature Professor OKOCHI Sho English romantic literature;
History of English thought in the 18th century;
Modern critical theory
Professor ONUKI Takashi Culture and literature of 20th century England; Raymond Williams
Associate Professor TINK James Early modern English literature, including works by Shakespeare and Milton;
English poetry and poetics;
English literature in the 20th century
English Linguistics Professor SHIMA Etsuro Operation of movement (1992-present);
Tense phenomena (2000-present);
Ellipsis in natural languages (2002-present)
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 18th century
French Language and Literature Professor ABE Hiroshi Intervention of subjectivity in Japanese, French and English sentences without information;
Desirability and subjectivity in language;
Contrastive analysis of temporal and spatial deixis in French and Japanese novels;
Free indirect speech and fictional speech acts;
Grammaticalization of spatial concepts; etc.
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;
Associate 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
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
Associate Professor HARA Saku The issue of executability of interactive science communication;
Theoretical basis for research integrity
Professor KIDO Atsushi
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 TOSHIMA Kiyoshi
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
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
Associate Professor SUGIMOTO Yoshihisa 18th 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
Assistant Professor SETO Haruka Formation and sources of Mannerism in the 16th-century Florence paintings
Associate Professor Marinucci Lorenzo Nioi and olfactory thought
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
Associate 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 KIMURA Kunihiro Quantitative research on social attitude and belief formation;
Numerical study on unintended consequences of social decision-making;
Experimental research on questionnaire-filling behaviours
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)

Graduate

Japanese