My research focuses on the material realities and literary portrayals of the circulation of textiles across East Asia and Southeast Asia. In this capacity, I have worked on the ways in which woolen fabrics shaped material culture both inside and outside of Japan. I am particularly interested in how various figures in Japan promoted mass-produced Japanese textiles through print media during the transwar period.

My research project with CSEAS has two related components, one grounded in material culture and the other in literary activities. First, I will explore the history of cross-cultural textile exchange between Japan and Southeast Asia before 1945. Because Japan’s political and military activities in the early 1940s reshaped the distribution of textile resources in both East Asia and Southeast Asia, I would like to explore how fashion in these regions changed as a result of their connections with international politics during wartime. I see changes and continuities in textile resources as an important lens by which to read the history of wartime fashion in Japan and Southeast Asia.

Secondly, I will investigate Japanese female writers’ literary activities in Southeast Asia during World War II and the contested legacies of these activities after 1945. As pioneers in both literature and fashion, these Japanese female writers’ portrayals of southeast Asia offer unique views that bring new and complex elements into Japanese-language literature. Because their Southeast Asia-related writings have rarely been studied, I am collecting and translating several of these works.