At Shirayrui, it is my goal to help students grow as individuals and develop their critical thinking in regard to the world around them. I am dedicated to helping students improve their abilities and achieve their goals.
Through my classes, I aim to give students a variety of tools and skills that they can use throughout their lives, and help them grow into independent, confident members of society.
My research interests cover media, gender, and culture on a broad scale, but I specialize in the contemporary Japanese context. Through my classes, I aim to introduce students to how they can think more deeply about these fields, and how developing critical understanding of these topics can be useful in a variety of contexts.
It is vitally important to think more deeply about the things we encounter every day. A main goal of my classes is to help students develop the skills necessary to do so.
In many of my classes, we focus particularly on gender. Although we may not think about it very often (even to the point where the term in Japanese is still a loanword from English!), ideas about gender affect our everyday lives in deep, profound ways. It is important to think more deeply about and question our preconceived notions of gender, or the things that we think are “natural” about women and men. Very little, if anything, is “natural” or “a matter of course” when it comes to gender, and yet strict ideas about proper gender roles (or ideas about what it means to be a “proper woman” or “proper man”) influence our lives every day. In some cases, we may even feel pressured or dominated by them, and our freedom and individuality can be hurt. Therefore, it is important to understand these ideas, where they come from, and how we can move beyond them if we want to achieve equality for all and improve the world for future generations everywhere.
Another main focus of my classes is looking at media and culture to help us understand the world we live in. Popular culture and media tell us a lot about our broader culture and society. A society’s values, ideals, and common ways of thinking tend to be emphasized and highlighted within what the people in that society consume for fun and enjoyment. In my classes, we look at various parts of our culture, from the internet to television to our favorite music, and use these as windows to examine our world.