UC Santa Barbara is hiring: Assistant Professor in Modern Literary and Media Cul

We seek a scholar trained in Japanese literature from the late nineteenth century to the present whose research and teaching address the contemporary transmedial context of literature as well as the global reach of Japanese literature, media, and popular culture. Applicants should focus on the modern and contemporary periods, but should be able to speak to the historical depth that informs the contemporary world. We would be interested in a focus on cultures of creativity, material culture, and/or formal aspects of verbal and textual production, especially as they moved from primarily book/paper-based formats to film and radio, television and anime, and more recently to the internet and social media production spaces.

We are particularly interested in scholars who engage with questions of racial and social justice—for example, work by or about ethnic Koreans in Japan and within the Japanese empire, bilingual works as expressive of immigrant experience, or narratives of Japanese biracial experiences—and who employ digital methodologies in ways that open new questions for literary studies. We are also interested in candidates whose work can complement existing strengths in the department and in the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts more broadly, especially translation and border crossing, critical bibliography, media studies, and/or gender and sexuality studies.

The successful candidate will be asked to teach courses in English on modern and contemporary Japanese literature and media, including their cultural and social impacts in Japan and across the globe; survey courses on nineteenth through twenty-first century Japanese literature; and advanced language classes in Japanese focused on readings related to their research interests.

The department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching, and service.