Dr. Jonathan Zwicker

Biography

Jonathan Zwicker is a Professor in the Japanese Program at the University of California, Berkeley, where he specializes in Japanese literature, theater, and visual culture from the 1770s to the 1910s. His research explores the representation and epistemology in literature, focusing on the emergence of new modes of historicism and the meanings attached to theater ephemera. He has published two books in this field: "Practices of Sentimental Imagination: Melodrama, Novel, Social Imaginary in Nineteenth-Century Japan" (Harvard Asia Center, 2006) and "Kabuki’s Nineteenth Century: Stage Print of Early Modern Edo" (Oxford University Press, 2023). His essays have appeared in various journals and edited volumes, including "Novel," "Blackwell History of the Novel," and "Voice of Something Japanese." Currently, he is working on projects examining literature and urban space in Japanese fiction from 1890 to 1915, the history of Japanese-American intelligence officers in film censorship during the Occupation of Japan (1945-49), and the role of television in the career of filmmaker Ozu Yasujirō. In addition to his research, Zwicker teaches a range of courses that cover premodern and modern Japanese literature, modern East Asian literature in a comparative context, and specific readings in Japanese fiction, poetry, and manga, including a lecture course focused on the works of Miyazaki Hayao and Murakami Haruki.

Research Interests