Staff | About | School of Literature and Human Sciences, Graduate School of Literature and Human Sciences | Osaka Metropolitan University

Philosophy and History
Human Behavioral Sciences
Language and Culture
Cultural Management

Philosophy and History

Philosophy

Name	Research Topic
Professor Takashi Nakahara	Professor Takashi Nakahara conducts research on philosophy and philosophy of religion, with a focus on modern and contemporary German thought, including Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. This professor is responsible for courses including the “Advanced Studies in Religious Problems.”
Professor Tomohiro Takanashi	Professor Tomohiro Takanashi conducts research on topics including modern German esthetics with a focus on Kant, phenomenological esthetics, and art theory of the Kyoto School. This professor is responsible for courses including “Advanced Studies in Aesthetics.”
Associate Professor Takashi Tsuchiya	Associate Professor Takashi Tsuchiya conducts research on ethics, medical ethics (research on ethical issues related to modern medicine), human rights theory (research on the ethical foundations of human rights), moral education theory (research on education regarding ethics and morality). This associate professor is responsible for courses including “Ethics Research.”
Associate Professor Takeshi Sakon	Associate Professor Takeshi Sakon conducts research focusing on contemporary theories of time and related metaphysical issues in the context of analytic philosophy in the English-speaking world. This associate professor is responsible for courses including “Introduction to Philosophy.”

Japanese History

Professor Naofumi Kishimoto	Professor Naofumi Kishimoto conducts research on Kofun-period society by examining tumuli and tumulus groups; he plans to conduct a series of surveys of keyhole-shaped tumuli in the Kinki region.
Associate Professor Toru Iwashita	Associate Professor Toru Iwashita conducts research on ancient Japanese history (Asuka to Heian period). Main topics of his research are the gunji system, ancient records (diaries), and the ancient history of Osaka.
Professor Hiroshi Niki	Research focusing on the history of cities and villages across Japan, especially the Kinki region from the Middle Ages to the Oda and Toyotomi periods. Other main research topics include the daimyo, economy, and distribution during the Warring States period.
Associate Professor Hiroko Saito	Associate Professor Hiroko Saito conducts research on the regional communities in Osaka and Izumi in the early modern period (Edo period); she investigates the characteristics of governance by feudal lords within the Kinki region from regional history’s perspective.
Professor Ashita Saga	Professor Ashita Saga conducts research on the modern (from the Meiji era onward) megalopolis of Osaka, thus focusing on the diverse local communities that have existed within the city. Recently, he has also been investigating the history of communities in licensed red-light districts from the early modern period to the present.

Asian History

Professor Shigeki Hirata	Professor Shigeki Hirata's research focuses on the political structure of early modern China from the perspectives of political systems, processes, spaces, and networks. He also studies the communication and networks of Chinese early-modern Shitaifu.
Professor Kenya Watanabe	Professor Kenya Watanabe engages in research on China's early-modern cities --especially Khanbaliq, which served as the model for Beijing --from the perspective of urban structures and people's daily lives. In addition, he also researches various aspects of the history of academic exchange between Japan and China in modern and contemporary times.
Professor Mami Hamamoto	Professor Mami Hamamoto studies central Eurasian history and Russian history. Main topics: Muslim-Christian coexistence, trade between Russia and Central Eurasia from the early modern period to the modern era.
Associate Professor Masayuki Ueno	Associate Professor Masayuki Ueno studies Ottoman Empire history and Armenian history. Main topics: the treatment of Christian Armenians and urban society in Istanbul during the early modern and modern Ottoman Empire.

Western History

Professor Masafumi Kitamura	Professor Masafumi Kitamura studies modern Europe, especially German social history. While researching the history of Berlin's urban society, he also attempts to trace the history of housing culture exchanges through Bruno Taut, an architect who went into exile in Japan when the Nazi regime came to power.
Professor Hisatsugu Kusabu	Professor Hisatsugu Kusabu studies Byzantine Empire history and Western medieval religious culture history. He considers religious beliefs and political ideals in the premodern Eastern Mediterranean world, and deals with the issues of heresy, media theory, and court culture.
Associate Professor Shinya Mukai	Associate Professor Shinya Mukai studies history of the middle ages in the West and French history. Especially, his research focuses on the formation of the state by royal authority and the villagers' self-governance in the south of France in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Human Behavioral Sciences

Sociology

Professor Saeko Ishita	Professor Saeko Ishita specializes in cultural sociology, visual sociology, and media culture theory; the current main research topics include the relationship between images and society, the globalization of culture, and the public nature of archives.
Professor Noriko Ijichi	Professor Noriko Ijichi specializes in the sociology of the life world, sociology of local communities, and Korean area studies; the current main research topics include international migration and locality in East Asia, the life history of people from Jeju Island in Japan, and people living in maritime areas of Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
Professor Eiji Kawano	Professor Eiji Kawano specializes in the sociology and comparative sociology of urban and social policy; the current main research topics include international comparative research on poverty and social exclusion in large cities.
Associate Professor Ryo Hirayama	Associate Professor Ryo Hirayama specializes in family sociology, the sociology of aging, and gender studies; the current main research topics include the relationship between masculinity and social care, responsibility for care-related decisions and coordination, and the social sharing of such responsibility.
Associate Professor Hideaki Sasajima	Associate Professor Hideaki Sasajima deals with urban sociology, the sociology of art, and historical sociology; the current main research topics include changes in the social systems that supported art (painting and sculpture) in cities in the 20th century.

Psychology

Professor Hiroshi Yama	Professor Hiroshi Yama is concerned with cognitive psychology, reasoning, explicit and implicit thought, and comparative cultural research.
Professor Kouichi Kawabe	Physiological psychology: mind and body (brain), behavior and drugs, higher cognitive functions with a focus on learning and memory, and mental disorders' mechanisms in the brain.
Professor Daisuke Saeki	Professor Daisuke Saeki is concerned with behavioral analysis, namely, judgment, decision-making, choices.
Associate Professor Hirofumi Hashimoto	Social psychology: group dynamics, altruistic behavior within groups, cultural differences of the mind

Education

Professor Yoshihito Ii	Professor Yoshihito Ii is associated with research on teacher education, teacher and community collaboration, and career development of teachers.
Professor Yosuke Hirota	Professor Yosuke Hirota is associated with research on history of educational thoughts and education, educational theory in modern Germany, body theory, and theories of chilcren's culture.
Specially Appointed Professor Haruo Soeda	Specially Appointed Professor Haruo Soeda is associated with the comparative history of education and culture, research on speaking and listening in education and learning, and international comparison of bullying-related issues. [Global Bullying (co-edited), Kaneko Shobo, 1998]
Associate Professor Kemma Tsujino	Associate Professor Kemma Tsujino is associated with the educational management studies, educational administration, and school management theory
Associate Professor Nozomi Shimada	Associate Professor Nozomi Shimada is associated with the educational methodologies, research on the methodology of classroom research, and research on the design of inquiry-based learning activities.

Geography

Professor Takashi Yamazaki	Professor Takashi Yamazaki deals with political and social geography research on global political and economic changes and local social movements.
Professor Ryoji Soda	Professor Ryoji Soda is concerned with human geography, population migration, resource use and management, disaster culture, and Southeast Asian area studies.
Professor Yoshinari Kimura	Professor Yoshinari Kimura is concerned with geographic information systems, geodemographics, and application of GIS in the fields of healthcare and medicine.
Associate Professor Taku Sugano	Associate Professor Taku Sugano is concerned with social geography research related to solving urban, social, and other issues.

Language and Culture

Japanese Language and Literature

Professor Naoki Kobayashi	Professor Naoki Kobayashi deals with research on medieval narratives and narrative compilations, investigating the worlds of literary works and the cultural bases that underpin them.
Professor Hiroaki Kubori	Professor Hiroaki Kubori is associated with research on early modern literature with a focus on the history of ningyo joruri, studying the historical background of a work and how it was viewed by contemporary audiences.
Professor Kumiko Okuno	Professor Kumiko Okuno is interested in research on modern literature, especially the works of Ryunosuke Akutagawa and others from the Taisho period, studying the origin of a work by examining manuscripts, earlier works, and the cultural background to its creation.
Specially Appointed Professor Tetsuya Niwa	Specially Appointed Professor Tetsuya Niwa is concerned with grammar and semantics of modern language, research on the mechanisms that have shaped the language we use in our daily lives, and how they have changed from the past to the present.
Associate Professor Mayuko Yamamoto	Associate Professor Mayuko Yamamoto is interested in research on the literature of the Heian period, mainly studies of Chinese literature and waka poetry, focusing on the relationship between native Japanese expressions and those of Chinese origin and the features and origins of expressions in literary works.

Chinese Linguistics and Sinology

Professor Shinmin Chou (Zhang Xinmin) (Chinese Cultural Studies)	Specializing in contemporary Chinese cultural theory and film studies, he has recently been studying the ways in which the social status of film was constructed in early Chinese cinema. He also studies films from what are referred to as lunxianqu (“Japanese-occupied territories”), i.e., areas such as Shanghai and North China during the Second Sino–Japanese War.
Professor Koji Oiwamoto (Chinese Language)	His research focuses on ancient Chinese character dictionaries. He has long held an interest in reconstructing the sounds of the ancient Chinese language using character dictionaries as clues for exploring this topic. He would like to continue his research on materials that can provide clues in the study of phonological history, materials for elementary education that use the characters themselves as the subject of writing, and books that have encyclopedia-like features.
Professor Miki Takahashi (Chinese Literature)	Research on Tang dynasty literature, particularly the literature and life of the poet Du Mu, who was active in the late Tang dynasty. In addition to interpreting the works of Du Mu, Professor Takahashi’s research examines the relationship between his literary works and the ideas found in his commentaries on Sun Tzu, as well as his attitude towards the political changes of the time. The Professor’s other research focuses on examining the usage and changes over time in the various slang words used in poetry during the Tang and Song dynasties.

English and American Language and Literature

Professor Junichi Toyota	Research on the peculiarities of English grammar within the context of Indo–European languages, typological studies of perceptual verbs, and the relationship between historical changes in language and culture (e.g., views of religion and the concept of death). Book: Sense of Emptiness: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Cambridge Scholars, 2012), 222 pages.
Professor Ai Takahashi	Research on 19th-century American novels with a focus on Herman Melville. Book: Defiance to the Ideology of “Manhood”: Reading Melville from a Perspective of Gender (Koyo Shobo, 2022), 179 pages (Japanese).
Specially Appointed Professor Takanobu Tanaka	Research on issues surrounding the “other” such as class, gender, and race in British novels from the 18th century to the present and on literary texts and popular media in relation to these issues. Book: Dickens’s Changing View of Gender: The Conflict between the Center and the Periphery (Otowa Shobo Tsurumi Shoten, 2006), 434 pages.
Associate Professor Kohei Uchimaru	Research on Renaissance theater with a focus on Shakespeare and adaptations of Shakespeare’s works, in addition to research on the history of English language and literature education in Japan.
Associate Professor Jean Lin	Specializing in aesthetics, Associate Professor Jean Lin philosophically analyzes various cultural phenomena and social issues related to art and everyday experiences. Book: Aesthetics of Attribution: Does the Nationality of the Chef Change the Taste of Sushi? (Shumpusha, 2024), 302 pages (in Japanese)

German Language and Literature

Professor Kinuko Takai	Professor Kinuko Takai is interested in 20th century literature in the German-speaking world, especially the relationship between postwar social conditions and literature, focusing on the works of women writers such as Bachmann and Haushofer.
Associate Professor Kenichi Hasegawa	Associate Professor Kenichi Hasegawa focuses on conducting a comprehensive study of 18th and 19th century culture and literature (including writers such as Goethe, Jung-Schilling, and Novalis), including historical and social context.
Lecturer Moe Nobukuni	Lecturer Moe Nobukuni deals with research in the field of German language, focusing on the syntactic and semantic relationships between adjectives and constructions in modern German, with a particular interest in the relationship between adjectives and phrases that describe phenomena and propositions.

French Language and Literature

Professor Yoshiyuki Fukushima	Professor Yoshiyuki Fukushima is responsible for the part of the course relating to French-speaking regions. His areas of research include linguistics (analysis of communication and reciprocal action and study of grammar), foreign language learning (study of cooperative learning, portfolios, etc.), theories of boundaries and theater (study of theatrical sites and theatrical spaces), study of the French-speaking world, and community emergence.
Professor Yuki Shirata	Professor Yuki Shirata is responsible for the part of the course relating to French-speaking regions. Her research focuses on the representation of gender and race in French fin de siècle literature and culture of the 19th century and on Art Nouveau and interculturalism.
Associate Professor Yoko Harano	Associate Professor Yoko Harano specializes in 20th century literature and culture, with a focus on Boris Vian, the Collège de Pataphysique, and the Workshop of Potential Literature. She is also conducting research on violence and representation (or fighting art), the two world wars and literature, and the relationship between science, technology and art, including fantasy science.
Associate Professor Mayo Oyama	Associate Professor Mayo Oyama studies foreign language education for children and adults, focusing on the idea of plurilingualism, which emerged in French-speaking Europe at the end of the twentieth century. Her plurilingualism-related research topics include approaches such as “awakening to languages” and “integrated teaching,” “visual linguistic autobiography” that uses social linguistic methods, and education using linguistic landscapes.

Linguistics Applied

Professor Masato Yamazaki	Professor Masato Yamazaki studies linguistic structure theory and linguistic information theory, considering various aspects of how language works. Similarities can be found between the Japanese language and some Asian languages. For example, there is a form of expression in Japanese that uses the visual verb shitemiru (lit., to do and see) to mean “to try out.” In Asia, similar forms are found widely, and we are considering the characteristics of each of them.
Professor Kazuhiko Tanaka	Professor Kazuhiko Tanaka studies linguistic semantics and linguistic performance theory. He conducts comparative research on issues related to tense and phase in English and Japanese, focusing on indirect speech constructions and how tenses behave in adverbial clauses of time.
Associate Professor Kayo Tsuji	Associate Professor Kayo Tsuji specializes in second language acquisition theory and English pedagogy, and teaches linguistic education and English education-related classes. She conducts research on children's language education aimed at synergy between the mother tongue and foreign language, as well as foreign language writing education that combines native language use and machine translation.
Associate Professor Masaki Ogura	Associate Professor Masaaki Ogura is interested in English dictionaries and their history, specifically, the writing style and linguistic characteristics of Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century dictionary editor and writer in Britain. This research explores Johnson's use of language in The Rambler, a periodical published when he was compiling his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). In other words, from a grammar point of view, this research considers how the periodical's language compares to late modern English, and how normative (or not) its use of language was.

Cultural Management

Culture and Representation

Professor Youko Takashima	Professor Youko Takashima focuses on comparative literature and comparative culture, i.e., comparative cultural research on folk tales and folklore (especially, fairy tales).
Professor Satoshi Masuda	Professor Satoshi Masuda is associated with popular music research, popular culture research, and cultural ownership theory (copyright, authorship theory, etc.).
Professor Takeshi Ebine	Professor Takeshi Ebine deals with cultural theory, film theory, German studies, and representational culture theory.
Associate Professor Kimi Emura	Research on Modern and Contemporary Art and Visual culture, Russian Culture. Main Areas of Interest: Reconsideration on Art of Russian Avant-garde, Cultural Exchange on Art between Russia and Japan in early Soviet era, and Interpretation of the Photography or Installation in Conceptual Art.

Asian Culture

Professor Hiroshi Tawada	Professor Hiroshi Tawada specializies in cultural anthropology, his main field of study is Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia. He is interested in understanding culture from perspectives in application, including the status of culture and religion in contemporary society, and challenges relating to creating multicultural societies of coexistence.
Professor Madoka Hori	Professor Madoka Hori focuses on the study of Japanese culture and Japanese literature from an international perspective. She employs a comparative perspective to study the history and reality of negotiations relating to art, literature, and culture, seeking to define Japan in terms of its status as a region within Asia.
Professor Hewon Son	Research on the peoples of the Korean Peninsula and the global Korean diaspora, including in Japan, with the aim of uncovering the words, literature, and histories of marginalized people who have been deprived of their voice.
Associate Professor WANG JING	My main research interests are modern Chinese tea and Taiwanese tea. On the basis of fieldwork, my research aim is to elucidate the creative and transformative processes in “tea culture” through factors such as policy intervention by governments, economic initiatives by businesses, and practices on the part of tea connoisseurs.

Cultural Resources

Professor Mayumi Sugawara	Professor Mayumi Sugawara deals with research focusing on Japanese art history, especially early modern and modern ukiyo-e prints, cultural resource theory, and museology. Before joining the faculty staff, she worked as a museum curator. She teaches modules including Art and Cultural Resource Studies.
Specially Appointed Professor Akihiro Odanaka	Specially Appointed Professor Akihiro Odanaka deals with research focusing on theories of representational culture, especially comparative historical research of French and Western theater, and exploring the characteristics of theatrical expression. He teaches modules including International Cultural Resource Studies.
Associate Professor Keita Amano	Associate Professor Keita Amano deals with research focusing on the study of tourism, especially urban tourism, new styles of tourism, and the relationship between the media and tourism-related activity from a sociological and cultural perspective. He also teaches modules including Tourism and Cultural Resource Studies.
Associate Professor Rii Numata	Associate Professor Rii Numata deals with research on clinical musicology, especially the possibilities of music therapy and improvisational music. She plans and practices music-themed workshops such as Otoasobi Kobo, mainly in Kobe. She teaches modules including Social and Practical Cultural Resource Studies.