Faculty & Staff
Tenure-Track Faculty
Mikiko Hirayama
Associate Professor of Japanese Art History, A&S German Studies
728F Old Chemistry Building
Her research focuses on Japanese art criticism of the early twentieth century. Her recent publications include “Inner Beauty: Kishida Ryūsei (1891-1929)’s Theory of Realism.” Edited by Minh Nguyen. New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics: Philosophy, Politics, Culture, Literature, and the Arts. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2017, “Ishii Hakutei and the Journal Hōsun.” Edited by Chris Uhlenbeck, Amy Riegle Newland, and Maureen de Vries. Waves of Renewal: Modern Japanese Prints, 1900-1960. Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2015, “‘Fictionalized Truth’: Realism as the Vehicle for War Painting” in Art and War in Japan and Its Empire, 1931-1960 (2012), “From Art without Borders to Art for the Nation: Japanist (Nihonshugi) Painting by Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai during the 1930s” in Monumenta Nipponica (2010), and Reflecting Truth: Japanese Photography in the Nineteenth Century (co-editor, 2005).
She has delivered papers at venues such as the College Art Association conference, Association for Asian Studies conference, and Asian Studies Conference Japan. Hirayama's service to the field included serving as an anonymous reviewer for Art Bulletin and Ars Orientalis.
Gergana Ivanova
Director of Asian Studies, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, A&S German Studies
728E Old Chemistry Building
Ivanova's recent publications explore the role of Japanese "classics" in manga (https://jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL). She is also completing a co-translation of One Hundred Exemplary Women, One Poem Each (Retsujo hyakunin isshu, 1847 https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/hundred/items/1.0055346). Her current book project centers on the eroticization of tenth- and eleventh-century women writers in early modern Japan.
Ivanova teaches courses in Japanese literary and visual culture.
Dinshaw Mistry
Professor, A&S Political Science
728B Old Chemistry Building
He specializes in international relations, security studies, Asian security, and technology and politics. Within these fields, his research covers two main areas: nuclear and missile proliferation, and South Asian security and US foreign policy in the region.
Dr. Mistry is author of two major books and co-author and editor of a third. The first, Containing Missile Proliferation, is a comprehensive study of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and its impact on 14 missile programs; it also analyzes the supply-side approach to nonproliferation. The second, The US-India Nuclear Agreement, offers the most detailed analysis of nuclear negotiations with India; it highlights the impact of domestic politics on nuclear diplomacy. The third is an edited volume, Enduring and Emerging Issues in South Asian Security, where he authored the leading chapters on US foreign policy interests in South Asia, ranging from strategic issues to democracy and development, and regional challenges in these areas.
His additional writings appear in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, Political Science Quarterly, Asian Security, and Arms Control Today, and in the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, and Washington Post.
His current research projects examine regional nuclear issues and the global arms control regime; the new dimensions of missile proliferation and missile defense; and US foreign policy in South Asia and its implications for Asian security.
At the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Mistry directed the program in Asian Studies and developed the curriculum in security studies.
Educator Faculty
Noriko Fujioka-Ito
Professor-Educator and Director of Japanese Language and Culture Program , A&S German Studies
737 Old Chemistry Building
Adjunct Faculty
Michiko Araki
Adjunct Instructor, A&S German Studies Adjuncts
740 Old Chemistry Building
Jade Yuh-Hwan Lin
Adjunct Instructor, A&S German Studies
726A Old Chemistry Building
Junko Markovic
Adjunct Instructor, A&S German Studies Adjuncts
726C Old Chemistry Building
Affiliate Faculty
Peter A. Chamberlain
Associate Professor, DAAP School of Design
5280C Wolfson Center
He has worked in the Rapid prototyping industry and for companies in transportation-related manufacturing technology in both Japan and the United States. His research focus is on issues of person <--> packaging interaction. Additionally, his continued international experience has been formative in developing a body of research that considers the unique role that culture plays in the appreciation of everyday products and experiences. Professor Chamberlain teaches courses ranging from foundation studios to graduate design seminars. He has worked extensively with corporate partners, guiding interdisciplinary collaborative student teams as they tackle complex and crosscutting packaging design problems.
Carla Chifos
Associate Professor, DAAP School of Planning
6280A DAA Addition
Stefan P Fiol
Professor, CCM Composition, Musicology & Theory
4246 Emery Hall
An emergent area of Fiol's research examines the role of music and mindfulness in stimulating memory, cognitive function, and experiences of awe and flow. Working with a team of music therapists and neurologists, Fiol has developed a service learning course that pairs music and medical students with individuals experiencing neurodegeneration, and their caregivers. Longitudinal analyses of data from this course will inform the optimal design of music and mindfulness interventions and will assess the relationship between artistic engagement with others and cognitive function.
Fiol's research has been published in Ethnomusicology, Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnomusicology Forum, Asian Music, Journal of South Asian Popular Culture and Yearbook for Traditional Music, as well as edited volumes including More than Bollywood (Oxford, 2014), This Thing Called Music (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) and Music in Contemporary Indian Film (Routledge, 2017). His research has been funded by fellowships from Fulbright-Nehru, Wenner-Gren Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts Social Science and Humanities Faculty Research Program at the University of Cincinnati.
Fiol received his Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2008 after conducting two years of ethnomusicological research in India, and shorter fieldwork projects in Chile, Paraguay and Zimbabwe. Fiol has been a visiting scholar in the South Asia Program at Cornell University, and has previously taught at the University of Illinois (2002-04), the University of Notre Dame (2005-06) and the Eastman School of Music (2008-10). Trained in classical piano, Fiol currently studies and performs on the Indian sitar, the Zimbabwean mbira dzavadzimu and a range of central Himalayan percussion and melody instruments.
Elizabeth B. Frierson
Associate Professor , A&S History
340A McMicken Hall
Dana Gregory Griffith
Annual Adjunct Assistant Professor, A&S Judaic Studies
Robert J Haug
Associate Professor, A&S History
331 McMicken Hall
Laura D. Jenkins
Professor and Graduate Director, Political Science, Faculty Affiliate WGSS and Asian Studies , A&S Political Science
1114 Crosley Tower
Her book Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India (Penn Press 2019) won the Hubert Morken Best Book Prize from the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). A study of mass conversions to Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism and ongoing efforts to prevent conversions, Jenkins reveals how "religious freedom" arguments and laws have actually undermined the religious freedom of women, lower castes, and religious minorities.
Jenkins' book Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged (Routledge, 2003, 2009) examines competing demands for affirmative action on the basis of caste, religion, class, and gender and the ways the government identifies recipients through the courts, census, and official certificates. Her research as a Fulbright New Century Scholar in South Africa and India resulted in Affirmative Action Matters: Creating Opportunities for Students Around the World, co-edited with Michele S. Moses (Routledge 2014).
In her articles, she analyzes religious freedom and conversion, competing minorities’ claims for affirmative action, colonial and contemporary government anthropology, the role of social science in anti-discrimination law, reserved legislative seats for women, and the role of culture and the arts in sustainable development.
Jenkins' book chapters examine anti-Muslim political communication in the US and India, religious family laws, mass religious conversion as protest, comparative affirmative action, minority rights, historically Dalit colleges, anxious secularism, women and development, regulation of religion, and methodological diversity in political science.
In addition to two Fulbrights, Dr. Jenkins has received fellowships from the Dartmouth Humanities Center and the United States Institute of Peace.
Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Hubert Morken Best Book Award
APSA Religion and Politics Section
Affirmative action matters: Creating opportunities for students around the world. (with Michele S. Moses). New York: Routledge, 2014.
Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003, reissued in paperback by Routledge 2009.
Man Bun Kwan
Associate Professor, A&S History
303 McMicken Hall
Lin Liu
Professor, Interim Graduate Director, Co-Director of GIS Center, A&S Geography
400E Braunstein Hall
Johanna W Looye
Associate Professor, DAAP School of Planning
6207 DAA Addition
Thomas G. Moore
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, and Affiliated Faculty, Asian Studies Program, A&S Political Science
1104 Crosley Tower
Lewis A. Owen
Visiting Scholar, Quaternary geology, geomorphology and geochronology
My research and teaching focuses on understanding the nature and dynamics of Quaternary paleoenvironmental change and landscape evolution, environmental geology, natural hazards, and geochronology. Please note that I have recently moved to the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University (please follow this link: https://meas.sciences.ncsu.edu/people/laowen2/).
Shailaja D Paik
Associate Professor of History, Faculty Affiliate, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Asian Studies, A&S History
340 B McMicken Hall
Courses Developed and Taught
- Gender, Sexuality, and Society (Graduate Research Seminar)
- Women, Sexuality, and Society (Seminar)
- Gender and Empire (Under-graduate and Graduate Seminar)
- World History (Online)
- Ambedkar and Gandhi
- Civilizations of South Asia
- The Making of Modern India (1800-1947)
- Indian Nationalism and Anti-colonialism
- Film and Empire
- Caste, Gender, and Nation (Seminar)
- Women in South Asia (Seminar)
- Caste and Identity in India (Seminar)
- India on Film
Susanna T.Y. Tong
Professor, Director of Environmental Studies Program, Director of 2+2 Program in Geography, A&S Geography and Environmental Studies, A&S Geography
400D Braunstein Hall
Rina Williams
Associate Professor of Political Science; Affiliate Faculty, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Asian Studies, A&S Political Science
1118 Crosley Tower
Emeriti Faculty
Staff
Steve R Hofferber
Program Manager, A&S Romance & Arabic Languages & Literat
723 Old Chemistry Building
Elaine M Dunker
Financial Administrator 1, A&S Romance & Arabic Languages & Literat
360D McMicken Hall