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Susan J. Napier

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Susan J. Napier
Napier in 2008
Napier in 2008
OccupationProfessor, anime critic
NationalityAmerican
SubjectJapanese literature
Notable worksAnime from Akira to Princess Mononoke

Susan Jolliffe Napier (born October 11, 1955) is a professor of the Japanese program at Tufts University. She was formerly the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin. She also worked as a visiting professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University,[1] and in cinema and media studies at University of Pennsylvania. Napier is an anime and manga critic.

Biography

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Napier is the daughter of historian Reginald Phelps, a historian and educational administrator, and Julia Sears Phelps, both Harvard academics. She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2] Her neighbors included John Kenneth Galbraith, Julia Child, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. She obtained her A.B., A.M., and PhD degrees from Harvard University.[3]

In 1991 Napier published Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo. Her second book, The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion of Modernity, followed in 1996.[3]

Napier first became interested in anime and manga when a student showed her a copy of Akira. Napier then saw the film, which led to the creation of her third book, Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation,[1][4] which was revised in 2005.[5] Napier's From Impressionism To Anime: Japan As Fantasy And Fan Cult In The Western Imagination was published in 2007, which discusses anime fandom in greater depth.[6][7]

Works

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  • Napier, Susan J. (1996). The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion of Modernity. London: Routledge. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-415-12458-4.
  • Napier, Susan J (1998). "Vampires, Psychic Girls, Flying Women and Sailor Scouts". In Martinez, Dolores P (ed.). The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture: Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63128-9.
  • Napier, Susan J. (2001). "Confronting Master Narratives: History As Vision in Miyazaki Hayao's Cinema of De-assurance". Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. 9 (2): 467–493. doi:10.1215/10679847-9-2-467. S2CID 144130648.
  • Napier, Susan J. (March 11, 2008). From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 272. ISBN 978-1-4039-6214-0.
  • Napier, Susan J (2006). Meet Me on the Other Side: Strategies of Otherness in Modern Japanese literature. London: Routledge. pp. 38–55. ISBN 978-0-415-36185-9.
  • Napier, Susan J. (2006). "'Excuse Me, Who Are You?': Performance, the Gaze, and the Female in the Works of Kon Satoshi". In Brown, Steven T (ed.). Cinema Anime: Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-8308-4.
  • Napier, Susan J. (2005). Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Japanese Animation. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 384. ISBN 978-1-4039-7052-7.
  • Napier, Susan J. (2007). "When the Machine Stops: Fantasy, Reality, and Terminal Identity in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments: Lain". Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime. University of Minnesota Press. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-8166-4973-0.
  • Napier, Susan J. (2018). Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art. Yale University Press. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-300-22685-0.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Anime Lecture at MIT". Anime News Network. May 1, 2001. Retrieved November 27, 2009.
  2. ^ Tufts University profile, "Don't Call Them Cartoons" Archived April 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b Tufts
  4. ^ Gerrow, Robin (2004). "An Anime Explosion". University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on October 13, 2009. Retrieved November 28, 2009.
  5. ^ Anime From Akira To Howl's Moving Castle, Updated Edition
  6. ^ "Susan Napier presents new book on American anime fans". Anime News Network. March 30, 2007. Retrieved November 27, 2009.
  7. ^ Participations
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