Rachel DiNitto

Associate Professor of Japanese Studies, The College of William and Mary

Professor DiNitto teaches classes on Japanese literature, film, nationalism and contemporary culture, as well as courses on language and translation. She works on the literary and cultural studies of Japan's prewar (1910s-1930s), and postbubble eras (1990-2000s). In addition to her monograph, Uchida Hyakken: A Critique of Modernity and Militarism in Prewar Japan, publications include articles on depictions of the Asia-Pacific War in the work of manga artist Maruo Suehiro; Kanehara Hitomi, the young, female writer whose controversial novel Snakes and Earrings won Japan's most prestigious literary award in 2004; and cult director Suzuki Seijun's return to the cinema in the 1980s.  Professor DiNitto manages a website on contemporary Japanese culture, and is currently working on a new book project, "Writing Fukushima: Imagining Disaster in Japan."

Margherita Long

Associate Professor of Japanese & Comparative Literature, University of California, Riverside

Professor Long’s fields of study include modern Japanese literature and film, feminist politics and theory, psychoanalysis and Japanese visual culture.  The working title of her second book is Post-Fukushima Public Intellectuals and the Problem of Eco-Feminism.  This project focuses on six figures whose work has both inspired and analyzed Japan's grassroots "Hydrangea Revolution" to end nuclear power.  They are manga artist Hagio Moto, media theorist Azuma Hiroki, political scientist Kang Sangjung, and two novelists, Oda Makoto and Oe Kenzaburo.  The book argues that what unifies their disparate texts is a debate over the force that the material world can and should exert on culture, and on human thought.  Although all six figures are widely recognized as influential thinkers, none identifies primarily as a feminist.  The book proposes that ecofeminism is nevertheless  central to all their projects, and that to read their work from this angle is to see that the problem of the nuclear is always also a feminist problem.