My general field is American literature and culture of the 20th and 21st centuries (i.e. post-1945), with particular interests in American Cultural Studies, contemporary African American literature, protest literature, the transnational, the immigrant experience, satire, ecocriticism, and critical pedagogy.
My current book project examines higher education protest literature and is tentatively titled Academic Dissent: US Higher Education Protest Literature, 1985-2015. It examines cultural works—ranging from novels to films to sculptures—that protest against the corporatization of US higher education institutions, focusing particularly on representations of academic capitalism. It is a mixed-methods American Studies project in which I analyze cultural works such as life writing by academics, John Singleton’s campus film Higher Learning, and campus novels such as Jane Smiley’s Moo. In particular, I focus on representations of academic capitalism in these narratives and show that they protest against higher education's increasingly private-good orientation, which undermines its democratic citizenship aims and common good mission.
While I lived and taught in Japan, my research focused on EFL pedagogy, authentic materials and activities development, and using literature in EFL.