Akiko Takeyama
- Professor
- Director, Center for East Asian Studies
- Interim Director of Graduate Studies
Contact Info
Lawrence
Biography —
Akiko Takeyama is a professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas. Her research and teaching interests lie in changing gender, sexuality, and class dynamics in the context of neoliberal globalization. Her first book, Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club (2016 Stanford University Press), theorizes the commercialization of feelings, emotions, and intimate relationships among socially marginalized population —the youth and the female— in contemporary Japan’s service-centered economy. Her book was shortlisted for 2017 Michelle Rosaldo Book Prize, Association of Feminist Anthropology in American Anthropological Association.
Her second book project, entitled “Japan's Adult Video Industry: Gender, Technology, and Labor in the Age of Internet and the Content Business,” explores the interrelation among politico-legal systems, information technology, and the global economy. Specifically, she intends to bring human affect —hope, fear, and a sense of vulnerability— to the center of an analysis of 21st century capitalism, complicating such legal categories as human rights and individual consent especially when sexual and economic exploitation are carried out in the name of individual freedom of choice. Her research will shed light on the complex set of social, economic, and legal contexts wherein consent and coercion, pleasure and danger, and hopes and disparity coexist intimately.
Research —
Teaching
Her teaching explores human experience through which cultural meanings are created and negotiated in everyday lives. She also often uses gender, among other factors, as an analytical lens to critically analyze social structure and lived experiences in various socio-historical contexts, (post)colonial geopolitics, and global capitalism.
Courses Taught at KU
Introductory Courses
- ANTH 108/308 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
- WGSS 201 Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Undergraduate Courses
- ANTH/WGSS 363 Gendered Modernity in East Asia
- ANTH/WGSS 389 Anthropology of Gender: Female, Male, and Beyond
- WGSS 301 Research Methods
Upper division/Graduate Courses
- ANTH 501/775 People of Japan
- ANTH 501/775 Social Construction of the Self
- ANTH 501/775 Migration and Human Trafficking
- ANTH 565 Popular Images in Japanese Culture, Literatures, and Films
- ANTH/WGSS 580 Feminism and Anthropology
- ANTH/WGSS 583 Love, Sex, and Globalization
- WGSS 601 Capstone: Critical Approach to Human Trafficking
Graduate Courses
- ANTH 775/WGSS 701 Gender and Modernity in East Asia
- ANTH 783 Doing Ethnography
- WGSS 701 Affect and Queer Theory
- WGSS 801 Feminist Theory
- WGSS 802 Feminist Methodologies
- WGSS 803 Feminist Pedagogy
Research
Her research interests, as well as teaching interests, lie in changing gender, sexuality, and class dynamics in the context of neoliberal globalization. She employs interdisciplinary informed theories and methods in her research.
Research Interests
- Gender
- Sexuality
- Class
- Subjectivity
- The body and affect
- Labor and commodity
- Popular culture
- Neoliberal globalization
- Trafficking in persons
- Human rights
- Feminist epistemology
- Critical theory
- Japan
- East Asia
Service
She values service for the university, the community, and the profession as important part of her career and personal development.
Service to the Profession and the School
- Editorial board member of Current Anthropology
- Book manuscript review for Duke University Press, Stanford University Press, University of California Press, and University of Chicago Press
- Article manuscript review for Feminist Studies, Sexualities, American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Ethnos, Dialectical Anthropology, Ethnography, Humanities,Culture, Health, and Sexuality, Human Organization, American Studies, Japan Studies
Selected Publications —
Book
Takeyama, A. (2016). Staged Seduction: Gender Politics and Class Struggle
in a Tokyo Host Club (. & Eds.). Stanford University Press. (a finalist
for 2017 Michelle Rosaldo Book Prize, Association of Feminist Anthropology
in American Anthropological Association). More information available on the Stanford University Press website.
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters
Takeyama, A. (2005). Commodified Romance in a Tokyo Host Club. In M.
McLelland & R. Dasgupta (Eds.), Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in
Japan (pp. 200-215). New York: Routledge. (2005 Bestor Prize for Best
Graduate Paper, Society for East Asian Anthropology)
Takeyama, A. (2020) Doing and Writing Affective Ethnography. In N. Kottmann and
C. Reiher (Eds.), Studying Japan. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos.
(forthcoming)
Takeyama, A. (2020) Possessive Individualism in the Age of
Postfeminism and Neoliberalism:
Self-Ownership, Consent, and Contractual Abuses in Japan’s Adult Video
Industry. In L. A. Saraswati and B. L. Shaw (Eds.), Feminist and Queer
Theory: An International and Transnational Reader. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (forthcoming)
Takeyama, A. (2019) Opening the Box: An International Asian Woman
Scholar’s Fight.
In K. L. C. Valverde and W. M. Dariotis (Eds.), Fight the Tower: Asian
American Women Scholars’ Resistance and Renewal in the Academy, (pp. 234-254).
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Takeyama, A. (2005). Commodified Romance in a Tokyo Host Club. In M. McLelland
& R. Dasgupta (Eds.), Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan (pp.
200-215). New York: Routledge.
Selected Presentations —
Invited Presentations (Selective)
2019 “Sexual Self-Determinism in Japanese Adult Videos in the Age of the Internet? Institute for Japanese Studies Lecture Series, East Asian Studies Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, September 23.
2019 “Contract-Based Sexual Labor in Japan’s Adult Video Industry.” Colby College, Waterville, MI, April 25.
2019 “Contract-Based Sexual Labor in Japan’s Adult Video Industry.” Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, April 8.
2019 “Contract Bondage in Japan’s Adult Video Industry.” Gender Seminar at Hall Center for the Humanities, KU, Lawrence, KS, February 21.
2018 “Gender, Labor, and Justice in Japan’s Adult Video Industry.” Institute of Comparative Culture (ICC), Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, July 13.
2016-17 Book Talk, “Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club”
- Center for Gender Research and Social Sciences, Department of Cross-Cultural Studies, Kanagawa University, Kanagawa, Japan, December 20, 2017.
- Japanese Studies in English Lecture Series 2017, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan, November 6, 2017.
- Department of Anthropology, San Diego Miramar College, San Diego, CA, April 20, 2017.
- Department of Anthropology and Asian Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, February 10, 2017.
- Department of Humanities & Social Sciences Arts and Science Seminar, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, January 30, 2017.
- Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, November 10, 2016.
- Modern Japanese Studies Program, University of Hokkaido, Hokkaido, Japan, July 8, 2016.
- Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, June 29, 2016.
- Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, June 16, 2016.
- Center for Gender Research and Social Sciences, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan, July 6, 2016.
- Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Washburn University, Topeka, KS, March 2, 2016.
2015 “Human Trafficking in Japan: Vulnerability, Hope, and Risky Endeavors.” Japan Foundation Headquarter, Tokyo, Japan, December 10.
2015 “Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club.” Kadokawa Summer Program, “Mediated World: Sociality, Publicness, and Celebrity,” University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, July 29.
2015 “Private Lives of Professional Seducers: Male Hosts in Tokyo Host Clubs.” International Workshop on “Intimate Lives of Intimate Laborers,” Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, March 1.
2014 “Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club.” Department of Anthropology and East Asia Center, University of Virginia, October 31.
2012 “Japanese Women: Reproducing Desire.” Enduring Spirit of Japan Workshop, Center for East Asian Studies, Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia, National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, KU, Edwards Campus, KS, Nov. 10.
2012 “Affect Theory and the Politics of Temporality: Dramaturgy of Future-Oriented Aspiration in Tokyo Host Clubs.” Remediations Symposium, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, May 25 – 27.
2012 “Affect Theory and Methodology of Fieldwork in Tokyo Host Clubs.” Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies: Information, Technology, and Society, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies,University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, April 17.
2011 “Temporality of Future-Oriented Aspiration in Tokyo Host Clubs and New Millennial Japan.” Symposium, University of Tokyo and Seoul National University, Yamanashi, November 11.
2010 “Consumptive Labor and Commodity Self in Contemporary Japan.” Youth, Labor and Neoliberal Governmentality in East Asia Symposium, Asian Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 6.
2008 “The Art of Seduction and Affect Economy: Neoliberal Class Struggle and Gender Politics in a Tokyo Host Club.” The Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University, February 15.
2006 “Commodified Romance: Gender, Sexual, and Class Politics in a Tokyo Host Club.” Women’s Studies, George Mason University, November 8.
Grants & Other Funded Activity —
External
- 2019-20 Social Science Research Council (SSRC)/Abe Fellowship, Brooklyn and Tokyo ($68,000)
- 2017 A finalist for Michelle Rosaldo Book Prize, Association of Feminist Anthropology in American Anthropological Association
- 2014-15 Japan Foundation Research Fellowship, Tokyo, Japan (JPY 5,500,000, roughly $55,000)
- 2011-12 Social Science Research Council (SSRC)/Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship (PE11542), Brooklyn and Tokyo (JPY 5,574,500, roughly $71,000)
- 2010-11 Wenner-Gren Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship, Wenner-Gren Foudation, New York ($40,000)
- 2007-08 Postdoctoral Associate, The Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University ($40,000, declined)
- 2005 Best or Prize for Best Graduate Paper, Society for East Asian Anthropology
Internal (Selective)
- 2019-20 Supplementary Salary Fund, Office of the Provost, KU ($35,250)
- 2017-18 Sabbatical Leave, KU
- 2016-17 General Research Fund (#2301163), Center for Research, Inc., KU ($14,305)
- 2016 Fall 2016 Faculty Colloquium, “The Cultural Lives of Neoliberalism,” Hall Center for Humanities, KU ($1,000)
- 2014-15 Supplementary Salary Fund, Office of the Provost, KU ($15,000)
- 2013-14 University of Kansas, Level II Strategic Initiative Grant (#6633), Co-PIs with Hannah Britton, Katie Cronin, Dorothy Daley, Shannon O’Lear, Mariya Omelicheva, and Emily Rauscher for “Kansas Anti-Human Trafficking and Slavery Initiative: KASHTI,” Center for Research, KU ($39,809)
- 2013 General Research Fund (#2301772), Center for Research, Inc., KU, May ($10,000)
- 2012 Fall 2012 Faculty Colloquium, “The City Imagined: Cosmopolitan, Dystopian, Global, Adaptable,” Hall Center for Humanities, KU($1,000)
- 2011 General Research Fund (#2301571), Center for Research, Inc., KU, May ($8,744)
- 2010 General Research Fund (#2301467), Center for Research, Inc., KU, May ($3,792)
- 2009 Fall 2009 Faculty Colloquium, “Respectability,” Hall Center for the Humanities, KU ($1,000)
- 2009 Best Practices Institute 2009, Facilitator, Center for Teaching Excellence, KU, May 20-21 ($1,000)
- 2008 New Faculty General Research Fund (#2302172), Center for Research, Inc., KU, July ($8,000)
- 2008 Best Practices Institute 2008, Center for Teaching Excellence, KU, May ($750)
- 2008 Course Redesign Colloquium, Instructional Development & Support, KU, June ($1,000)