Pembroke Center

PhD English Literary Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2021

Dissertation: “Intimacies by Proxy: Japanese Toys and the Lost Objects of Transpacific Conflict”

Erica Kanesaka is the 2021-22 Shauna M. Stark '76, P'10 Postdoctoral Fellow. In the fall of 2021, she taught the GNSS course "Transpacific Femininities," using the term as a theoretical framework, archival method, and activist practice that places gender and sexuality at the center of Asian American literature, culture, and Pacific Rim geopolitics.

Dr. Kanesaka's research has received awards from the Association for Asian American Studies and the North American Victorian Studies Association. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in venues including Journal of Asian American Studies, positions: asia critique, and Victorian Studies. She is currently working on a project that traces the transitional circulation of racial affects between Japan and the United States through children’s books and toys. In 2022, Dr. Kanesaka will join Emory University's faculty as an Assistant Professor of English.