I’m a scholar of Japanese literary arts and entertainment, which mostly means rakugo — traditional comic storytelling — and the premodern forms it grew out of. My monograph The Comic Storytelling of Western Japan: Satire and Social Mobility in Kamigata Rakugo came out with Cambridge University Press in 2021.

I’ve also spent a good deal of time on the other side of it. From 2002 to 2004 I apprenticed with the rakugo master Katsura Bunshi V (1930–2005), and from 2010 to 2012 with Hayashiya Somemaru IV (b. 1949). Alongside that I’ve trained in nō, kyōgen, kabuki, kouta, shamisen and hayashi music. It’s hard to write well about a performing art you’ve never had to perform badly.

My career began at Cambridge, where I ran Japanese literature and translation units and was a Governing Body Fellow and Director of East Asian Studies at Peterhouse, the oldest of the Cambridge colleges. I’m now a senior lecturer in Japanese at the University of Sydney, which is the oldest university in Australia. I appear to have a type.

I’ve supervised students from first-year undergraduates to PhD candidates, and taught across the whole range — classical Japanese and kuzushiji, premodern poetry and prose, traditional theatre and cultural history, and on the modern side film and media, translation, and language at every level from absolute beginner up.

For 2026 and 2027 I’m in Tokyo on a Japan Foundation Fellowship, writing a book-length study of engei — rakugo and all the other acts that share the variety-hall bill with it.

I hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Portland State University, a master’s from Tezukayama University, and a PhD in Japanese literature from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

I was born and grew up in Oregon, and I’m a proud first-gen. I’ve spent fifteen years in Japan altogether, for postgraduate study and research since. In my free time I run, rearrange furniture, and collect Billiken curios. I’ve also been caught reading and writing poetry and fiction, translating this or that.

日本文芸学者。
研究テーマは主に落語、およびその源流にあたる前近代の文学・芸能。２０２１年、研究書『西日本の滑稽話芸－上方落語における風刺と社会的移動』（ケンブリッジ大学出版局）刊行。

研究を深めるため、専門の落語のみならず、能、狂言、歌舞伎、小唄、三味線、囃子音楽など、様々な芸能の稽古に取り組む。
２００２年〜２００４年　五代目桂文枝の見習い弟子。
２０１０年〜２０１２年　四代目林家染丸の臨時弟子。

ケンブリッジ大学にて日本文学・翻訳の授業を担当。同大学最古のカレッジであるピーターハウスでは、フェロー及び東アジア研究ディレクター。２０１９年より、豪州シドニー大学日本研究准教授。

学部生から博士課程後期生までを指導し、担当科目は「近代・現代日本文学」、「東アジアの映画論」、「日本演劇文化史」、「近世文学と文化」、「文語・崩し字」、「現代日本語」、「日英翻訳」、「アカデミックライティング」等。

２０２６年〜２０２７年　国際交流基金フェローとして東京に滞在。落語をはじめ、寄席を彩る諸芸を対象とした演芸研究書を執筆中。

ポートランド州立大学卒業、同大学院修士課程修了、帝塚山大学修士課程修了、ハワイ大学マノア校博士課程修了、日本文学博士。

アメリカ、オレゴン州出身。家族で初めて大学に進学した第一世代。進学および研究のため、通算１５年を日本で過ごす。趣味はランニング、インテリアの配置換え、ビリケン収集、俳句や短編小説を読んだり書いたりすること、翻訳。

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