Melek Su Ortabasi

Curriculum Vitae

Mailing address:
Program in World Literature
Simon Fraser University
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Unit 250-13450
102 Ave., Surrey, BC
V3T0A3 Canada
Email: mso1(at)sfu.ca

Academic Background 

Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of Washington, Seattle, December 2001.
Dissertation title: “Japanese Cultural History as Literary Landscape: Scholarship, Authorship and Language in Yanagita Kunio’s Native Ethnology” Abstract

Research Fellow, Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, October 1997 to March 1999.

Certificate, Stanford Inter-University Center, Yokohama, Japan, June 1995.

Master of Arts, Comparative Literature (Japanese and German), University of Washington, Seattle, June 1994.

Bachelor of Arts, Comparative Literature (Japanese and German), University of California, Berkeley, May 1992.

Teaching Experience

Associate Professor
Program in World Literature
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Simon Fraser University
May 2012 – present

Assistant Professor
Program in World Literature
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Simon Fraser University
July 2008 – May 2012

Assistant Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature
Department of Comparative Literature
Hamilton College
January 2002 – June 2008

Publications 

Books

The Undiscovered Country: Text, Translation and Modernity in the Work of Yanagita Kunio. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center (forthcoming).

The Modern Murasaki: Women Writers of Meiji Japan. Coedited with Rebecca Copeland. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Journal articles/book chapters

“Shajitsushugi bungaku to shite yomu Tôno monogatari” (Reading Tôno monogatari as Realist Literature). Trans. Nakai Maki. In Sekai no naka no Yanagita Kunio, ed. Ronald A. Morse and Akasaka Norio (Tokyo: Fujiwara shoten, forthcoming).

 “(Re)animating Folklore: Raccoon Dogs, Foxes and other Supernatural Japanese Citizens in Takahata Isao’s Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko” Special issue of Marvels and Tales, on Japanese fairytales (forthcoming).

“Sekai bungaku to shite no Tôno monogatari,” in Tôno monogatari to 21 seiki: kokusaika jidai no igi, ed. Ishii Masami (Tokyo: Miyai shoten, forthcoming).

"Reading Tôno monogatari (Tales of Tôno) as Literary Realism,” in Yanagita Kunio and Japanese Folklore Studies in the 21st Century, ed. Ronald A. Morse. Kawaguchi, Japan: Japanime Co., 2012: pp. 81 – 105. Online ebook.

“Brave Dogs and Little Lords: Some Thoughts on Translation, Literary Style, and the Debate on Childhood in Mid-Meiji,” in Translation in Modern Japan, ed. Indra Levy. New York: Routledge, 2011: pp. 186 – 212.

“Narrative Realism and the Modern Storyteller: Rereading Yanagita Kunio’s Tôno monogatari” Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 64 No. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 127 – 165.

“Brave Dogs and Little Lords: Some Thoughts on Translation, Literary Style, and the Debate on Childhood in Mid-Meiji” Review of Japanese Culture and Society Vol. 20 (December 2008), pp. 178 – 205.

“Yanagita Kunio to Nihon no kindaika: Tôno monogatari kara sengo no kyôkasho made” Yanagita Kunio kenkyû ronshû No. 6 (August 2008), pp. 49 – 57.

“National History as Otaku Fantasy: Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress” in Japanese Visual Culture, ed. Mark MacWilliams. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2008: pp. 274 – 294.

“Surveying Comparative Literature from the Pacific Rim.” Coauthored with Charlotte Eubanks. ADFL Bulletin 38.3/39.1 (Spring/Fall 2007), pp. 34 – 39.

“Indexing the past: Visual Language and Translatability in Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 14.4 (2006), pp. 278 – 291.

“Sketching Out the Critical Tradition: Yanagita Kunio and the Reappraisal of Realism” in Japanese Poeticity and Narrativity Revisited: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, West Lafayette, 4-5 October 2002, ed. Eiji Sekine. West Lafayette: AJLS, 2003, pp. 184 – 193.

“Fictional Fantasy or Historical Fact? The Search for Japanese Identity in Miyazaki Hayao’s Mononokehime” in A Century of Popular Culture in Japan, ed. Doug Slaymaker. Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. 199 – 228.

Translations

“Kano Shiho” (interview of the Japanese avant-garde filmmaker by Scott MacDonald). Translation. In A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 347 – 357.

Short pieces 

“Millennium Actress by Kon Satoshi” in Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation, revised edition, ed. Giannalberto Bendazzi. (John Libbey, forthcoming 2012).

Book Review of Michiko Suzuki, Becoming Modern Women, Stanford University Press, 2009; in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific 28 (February/March 2012). Online. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue28_contents.htm

“Teaching Modern Japanese History with Animation: Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress.” Education About Asia 12.1 (Spring 2007), pp. 62 – 65.

“The I-Novel” in Encyclopedia of Life Writing, ed. Margaretta Jolly. 2 vols. London: Fitzroy-Dearborn Publishers, 2001. Vol. 1, 453 – 454.

Invited Lectures 

“Shajitsushugi bungaku to shite yomu Tôno monogatari” (Reading Tôno monogatari as Realist Literature). Symposium entitled “21-seiki ni okeru Yanagita Kunio.” Tôno City, Japan, August 24, 2012. In Japanese.

“Ten Years post-PhD, or: Thoughts on Surviving (and Thriving) in the Profession.” Keynote speech. UBC Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference. University of British Columbia, May 12, 2012.

“The Curious Cabinet of Kon Satoshi: Phantasm, Feminism, and Fear.” Asian Film Festival at the Kellogg Institute of International Studies, University of Notre Dame. March 26, 2011. Event website

“Amerika kara yomu Tôno monogatari” (Reading Tales of Tôno from America). Symposium “Aratanaru Yanagita Kunio", Tokyo Gakugei University. January 29, 2011. In Japanese.

“An Introduction to Anime: The History and Culture of a Transnational Medium.” Invited by the Asian Educational Media Service at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. April 29, 2009. Event website

“Gender in Japanese Anime.” Led faculty seminar for the St. Lawrence University Asian Studies Initiative. November 12, 2004.

“Ethnology and Dialect: Yanagita Kunio and the Authorship of National Language.” Japanese Humanities Lecture Series at the University of Washington. May 23, 2003.

Conference Presentations 

“Translating the modernizing landscape: Yanagita Kunio and the travelogue” at UBC Japan Seminar. UBC, March 23, 2012.

“Children’s Literature and Translation, or: The World Republic of Childhood” at Scroll to Screen Symposium. UBC, October 3, 2011.

“The Politics of Translation: Iwaya Sazanami’s Tale of the Brave Dog Koganemaru (1891) as an ‘Original’ Work of Children’s Literature” at Modernist Studies Association annual meeting. Victoria, November 11-14, 2010. Abstract

“(Re)Animating Folklore: Raccoon Dogs, Foxes, and other Supernatural Citizens in Takahata Isao’s Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko” at Kinema Club 2010 (an association of scholars of Japanese cinema) annual meeting. Honolulu, July 30 - August 1, 2010. Abstract

“World Literature for Children: The Case of Iwaya Sazanami’s The Brave Dog Kogane-maru (1891)” at ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) Annual Meeting. New Orleans, April 1-4, 2010. Abstract

 “Thinking like a Patriot, Speaking like an Individual: Yanagita Kunio and Prewar Education” at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Chicago, March 26-29, 2009. Abstract

“Teaching Children to Do Things With Words: Yanagita Kunio and the Postwar Education Debate” at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Atlanta, April 3-6, 2008. Abstract

“Yanagita Kunio to Nihon no kindaika: Tôno monogatari kara sengo no kyôkasho made” at the Yanagita Kunio no kai. Ôtani University (Kyoto), July 28, 2007. In Japanese

“Indexing the Past: Visual Language and Translatability in Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress” at Kinema Club Conference VIII. Frankfurt (Germany), April 23, 2007. Abstract

“National History as Otaku Fantasy: Kon Satoshi’s Millennium Actress” at ACAG 2006 (International Conference on Asian Comics, Animation and Gaming). York University (Toronto), May 18-19, 2006. Abstract

“Authentic(ating) Voices of the Folk: Yanagita Kunio’s Criticism of Language Reform” at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Chicago, March 28-31, 2005. Abstract

“Landscape and the Lonely Traveler: Yanagita Kunio and Sugae Masumi” at the Association for Japanese Literary Studies Annual Conference. University of Washington (Seattle), October 22-24, 2004. Abstract

“Yanagita Kunio’s Reflections on Snails and the Role of Dialect in Authoring National Language” at the Modern Languages Association Annual Convention. San Diego, December 27-20, 2003. Abstract

 “Miyazaki Hayao’s Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi: Escaping Japan?” at The New York Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS) 2002 Annual Meeting. Skidmore College (New York State), October 25-26, 2002. Abstract

“Sketching Out the Critical Tradition: Yanagita Kunio and the Reappraisal of Realism” at the Association for Japanese Literary Studies Annual Conference. Purdue University (Indiana), October 4-5, 2002. Abstract

“Competing Conceptions of Modern Selfhood: Native Ethnologist Yanagita Kunio and the Meiji-Taishô Literary Community” at the DIJ Humanities Study Group. Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien (Tokyo), May 23, 2001. Abstract

“Travel Writing and Reimagining the Native Landscape: Yanagita Kunio’s Kainan shoki” at AAS (Association of Asian Studies) Annual Meeting. Chicago, March 22-25, 2001. Abstract

“Japanese Native Ethnology and Modern Travel Writing: Literary Genre and National Identity” at the Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC) 2000 Annual Meeting. University of Oregon, June 16-18, 2000. Abstract

“Fictional Fantasy or Historical Fact? The Search for Japanese Identity in Miyazaki Hayao's Mononokehime” at Beyond Babel: Common Language, Common Differences, Common Ground. UC San Diego, October 14-16, 1999. Abstract

“Miyazaki Hayao no Mononokehime ni okeru shizenkan” at Nihon Minzoku Gakkai dai 50kai nenkai. Bukkyô University, Kyoto, October 3-5, 1998.

Fellowships, Grants and Honors 

University Publications Committee Grant (SFU), 2012.

Elected to the Executive Committee for Modern Languages Association Division “East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900,” November 2010.

Visiting Researcher at The University of Tokyo, July 2010.

World Literature Research Grant (SFU), 2010.

SSHRC Travel Grant, 2009

Presidential Research Grant (SFU), 2008.

Visiting Researcher at The University of Tokyo, August 2006 - December 2008.

Japan Foundation Research Fellowship for 10 months of research in Japan, 2006.

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellowship for 10 months of research in Japan, 2006.

Wason Library Travel Grant, Cornell University, 2005.

Class of 1966 Career Development Award, Hamilton College, 2004.

Hewlett Grant for incorporating diversity into the curriculum, Hamilton College, 2003.

Alvord Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Washington, academic year 2001-2002.

Member of the Society of Scholars at the Simpson Center for the Humanities, academic year 2001-2002.

Dissertation research fellowship at the Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien (DIJ) in Tokyo, Japan, April-July 2001.

High Pass on the Japanese Proficiency Test Level 1, an internationally administered standardized test, 1998.

Monbusho Fellowship for a year and a half of study at a Japanese university, 1997-1999.

Research Interests 

Children’s literature and World Literature

Cultural studies and intellectual history of 20th-century Japan

Influences of European literature and critical theory on modern Japanese literature and vice versa

Comparative folklore studies

Film and popular culture in contemporary Japan

Translation theory and practice

Courses Currently Taught 

Please click here for course descriptions and outlines

Foreign Languages

Professional Memberships

Association for Asian Studies (AAS), Modern Language Association (MLA), Association for Japanese Literature Studies (AJLS), American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA)