Matthew (Matt) Wayne Shores a scholar of early modern and modern Japanese literary arts and entertainment. Much of his work to date has focused on modern comic storytelling (rakugo) and its early-modern precursors, literary and otherwise. He recently completed a book manuscript, tentatively titled Kamigata Rakugo: Comic Storytelling in Japan’s Cultural Heartland.
He began his career at Cambridge, where he was in charge of modern Japanese literature and translation courses, and examiner for premodern Japanese language and literature courses. He was also a Governing Body Fellow and Director of East Asian Studies at Peterhouse, the oldest of the Cambridge colleges. In 2019, he’ll join the University of Sydney as a Lecturer in Japanese Studies.
Shores has advised students of all levels, undergraduate to Ph.D., and taught courses on modern/contemporary Japanese literature, East Asian cinema, Japanese theater and cultural history, Edo-period literature and culture, classical Japanese, modern Japanese language, translation, and academic writing. He has a Ph.D. in Japanese literature from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa; his master’s degrees are from Tezukayama University and Portland State University.
Each summer he directs an intensive three-week summer program in Kyoto called Traditional Theater Training (T.T.T.), which introduces the arts of nō, kyōgen, and Nihon buyō to participants from around the globe. He also serves as Japan editor for Asian Theatre Journal.
He’s a native of Oregon and has spent over ten years in Japan for graduate school and research. In his free time he enjoys running, birdwatching, and caring for houseplants.
