Robert T. Tierney

(Ph.D. Stanford)
Assistant Professor EALC and Comparative and World Literatures:

Japanese modern novel and film, colonial and post-colonial studies,
gender and sexuality, the practice and theory of translation

2038 FLB
rtierney@uiuc.edu

Robert Tierney studies Japanse literature and cultural history from 1600 to the present. He is currently writing a book titled Wannabe Imperialists: Savagery, the West and the Japanese Empire which looks at representations of "savages" in Japanese literature of the colonial period. He is very interested in the practice and theory of translation, and is planning to publish translations of fictional works by Nakajima Atsushi, Sato Haruo and Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Recent research studies include the interrelation between ethnography and Japanese colonial fiction, folklore and imperialism, early 20th century adaptations of Shakespeare to the Japanese stage, Japan and post-colonial theory, literature of the Russo-Japanese War.

Publications:

“The Colonial Eyeglasses of Nakajima Atsushi,” in Japan Review, 2005, 17:149-196
“Ethnography, Borders, and Violence: Reading Between the Lines in Sato Haruo’s Demon Bird” Japan Forum, Journal of the British Association of Japanese Studies, 19(1) 2007: 89-110
Forthcoming Book: Wannabe Imperialists: Savagery, the West and the Japanese Empire