Profiles

Assistant Professor NISHIHARA Shiho

Affiliations :

Father’s shoes

I first visited Sendai in the fall of 2008, when I accompanied my father, a graduate of the Faculty of Science at Tohoku University, to his alumni meeting. Even weakened by pancreatic cancer, Father travelled everywhere on foot, just like before the disease. I still remember anxiously following him as he walked around the city.
Back then, I was working on my doctoral thesis in Nagoya. My thesis focused on Onna San no Miya from The Tale of Genji. Onna San no Miya, who has become a nun, and her father Suzakuin make a vow to meet each other in the afterlife… Mori Mari weaves with words a rich tapestry of father-daughter relations in the memory of her late parent… I myself was a ‘mother’s girl.’ Besides, my father was not into reading, so we had no common topics. And yet, for some reason stories about fathers and daughters have always fascinated me.
I currently keep Father’s shoes at my place. Mother made me take them to Tokyo after I had spent some time at my parents’ home. She thought it too dangerous to reveal that I was living alone and wanted me to use the shoes as a ‘camouflage.’ It would have never occurred to me back then that I would receive a position at Tohoku University. Maybe my father’s shoes wanted to take another stroll around Sendai.

  • Research, History
  • Courses
    Introduction to Humanities and Social Sciences: Introduction to Innovative Japanese Studies (co-lecturer)
    Personal History
    Born 1980, Kagawa
    2003 Graduated from the Department of Japanese Literature, Faculty of Letters, Doshisha University
    2005 Completed the master’s program at the Graduate School of Letters, Nagoya University
    2009 Received a Ph.D. in literature at the Graduate School of Letters, Nagoya University

    Career:
    2010-2011 Researcher, Center for the Studies of Higher Education, Nagoya University
    2017-2020 Adjunct Researcher, National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics
    Part-time Lecturer, Kyoai Gakuen University
    Part-time Lecturer, Daito Bunka University
    Oct. 2022 Appointed to current position
    Keywords
    Asexual; posthuman; gender; animal theory
    Affiliation
    Japan Literature Association; Monogatari Kenkyukai [Society for Narrative Studies]; The Association for the Study of Japanese Heian Literature; Association for Showa Literary Studies; The Association for Studies of Culture and Representation; The Japan International Doll and Toy Research Association; The Association for the Study of Japanese Language and Literature
    Database of Researchers Information
    https://www.r-info.tohoku.ac.jp/ja/055c97e3a4c108c162e255e096a0b5fb.html