Bruce Suttmeier

Bruce Suttmeier joined the Lewis & Clark faculty in 2001 after receiving his doctorate in Asian Languages (Japanese Literature) from Stanford University. His early research examined war memory and trauma in the fiction of 1960s Japan. More recently, his work studied Tokyo in its frenetic preparations for the 1964 Olympic Games. His current research explores the literature of ‘counterfactual history,’ particularly alternative narratives of World War II and the postwar era. He teaches courses in Japanese language, literature, and civilization, as well as a first-year course on travel and travel writing.  His most recent literature class explored a thousand years of Japanese fiction and film through the lens of ghosts and monsters, beginning in the 10th century Heian court, through the medieval and early-modern period, and ending in the early 21st century world of popular culture. In Fall 2019 he is teaching an advanced Japanese language class (JAPN 498). 

He joined the Dean’s Office in 2015 as Associate Dean for Faculty Development, where he managed faculty searches, faculty orientation and mentoring, developmental and tenure/promotion reviews, and faculty development programs. He is currently the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, overseeing all academic programs, as well as the library, the advising center and about a dozen other offices across campus. 

Specialty

Postwar Japanese Fiction

Academic Credentials

 PhD 2002 Stanford University: Asian Languages

 A.M. 1994 Stanford University: East Asian Studies

 BS 1991 University of Rochester: Computer Science/Mathematics (Magna Cum Laude; High Honors)

 BA 1991 University of Rochester: Japanese Literature (Magna Cum Laude; Highest Honors)

Teaching

Fall 2018:

JAPN 498: Advanced Japanese Language Study

Spring 2017:

JAPN 230: Intro to Japanese Literature: 1000 years of Ghosts and Monsters

Course Summary:

JAPN 101/102: Beginning Japanese

JAPN 310: Readings and Composition in Japanese

JAPN 420: Advanced Readings in Japanese, Fiction and Nonfiction

JAPN 230: Introduction to Japanese Literature: Post-bubble Blues - Making Sense of Contemporary Japan

JAPN 290: Topics in Japanese Literature: Voices of Modernity

JAPN 290: Topics in Japanese Literature: After the Ashes - Post-disaster culture in 20th and 21st century Japan

Research

“Eating Amid Affluence: Kaiko Takeshi’s Adventures in Food” in Devouring Japan (Oxford University Press), ed. Nancy Stalker, 2018.

“Held Hostage to History: Okuda Hideo’s ‘Olympic Ransom’” in Tokyo: Memory, Imagination, City (Lexington Books), eds. Barbara Thornbury and Evelyn Schulz, 2017.

“On the Road in Olympic Era Tokyo” in Cartographic Japan: A History in Maps, (University of Chicago Press), eds Kären Wigen, Fumiko Sugimoto, and Cary Karacas, 2016.

“Speculations of Murder: Ghostly Dreams, Poisonous Frogs and the return of Yokoi Shōichi” in Perversion and Modern Japan: Experiments in Psychoanalysis, (Routledge) eds. Keith Vincent and Nina Cornyetz, 2010.

“Ethnography as Consumption: Travel and National Identity in Oda Makoto’s Nandemo mite yarō” Journal of Japanese Studies (35:1), Winter 2009

 “Assassination on the Small Screen: On Images and Writing in Ōe Kenzaburō” Mosaic:  a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature (41: 2), June 2008.

“Seeing Past Destruction: Trauma and History in Kaikō Takeshi” positions: east asia cultures critique (15:3), Winter 2007.