Contact Sayumi Takahashi
Education:
University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D.
“Having been born in Tokyo, raised in the Deep South, and having shuttled half-way across the world every year for most of my life, I suppose I was bound in some way to play the role of a critical interlocutor of two or more cultures. From very early on, I was aware that there were no easy answers to such questions as, ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where is your home?’ ” muses Takahashi. “This is precisely why writing such a thing as a faculty profile represents a profoundly ironic venture.” - Sayumi Takahashi
Sayumi Takahashi Harb
Assistant Professor of Japanese
Joined Connecticut College: 2008
Specializations:
- Modern Japanese literature
- Japanese film and visual culture in transnational contexts
- Asian American literature
- Gender studies
- Pre-modern poetics and literati culture
- Multimedia and word/image studies
Sayumi Takahashi Harb received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory with a specialization in Women’s Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007. Her doctoral dissertation titled “Discipline and Publish: Intermedia Poetics of Gendered Resistance in Otagaki Rengetsu, Yoko Ono and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha,” examined the works of three Asian women writer/artists and the ways in which they blend text, image and material to inspire a re-imagination of certain stereotyped notions of identity.
Before joining Connecticut College, Harb taught courses in Japanese language, literature, and film at the University of the South, where she served for two years as Chair of Japanese Studies.
Her courses include "After-lives and Apocalypses: Postwar Japanese Cinema," "Advanced Japanese," "Heroes and Heroines in Japanese Literature and Film," "Shodo: the Art of Japanese Brushwork" and "Love, Terror and Technology in Modern East Asian Culture."
Her areas of specialization and interest include gender studies, pre-modern poetics and literati culture, multimedia and word/image studies, modern Japanese literature, Japanese film and visual culture in transnational contexts, as well as Asian American literature.
Harb is currently writing a book about the 19th century Japanese Buddhist literati nun poet/painter/potter/calligrapher, Otagaki Rengetsu (1790-1875).
Harb serves on the Committee for Academic Standing (term ending in spring 2012) as well as the Film Studies Advisory Committee.
In addition to her scholarly pursuits, Harb enjoys playing the violin and listening to music of all kinds, cooking and eating (mostly eating) healthy meals, shodo (Japanese brush penmanship), capoeira, learning Arabic and playing with her son Kinan.