Professor Rebecca Suter
Professor Suter's main research interest is in modern Japanese literature and comparative literature.
- comparative literature
- comparative history
- Japanese literature
- Japanese history
- Asian cultural studies
- postcolonial studies
- translation studies
Teaching
- JPNS1611 Japanese 1
- JPNS3676 Monsters and Ghosts: Japanese fantasy and Science Fiction
- ASNS6905 Asian Popular Culture
- ASNS2677 Beyond the Geisha/Samurai Binary
- ICLS1001 World Literatures in Translation
- OLET1115 (Im)Politeness in Global Society
Supervision
- Japanese literature
- Japanese popular culture
- Cross-cultural representations
- Comparative Literature
- Comparative History
- Literary Theory
- Asian Cultural Studies
- Postcolonial Studies
- Translation Studies
- Food Studies
- Cultures of consumption
My research is in Comparative Studies, with a specific focus on Japan’s creative appropriation of Euro-American culture, and the challenges it poses to current views of globalization, multiculturalism, and transnationalism.
My first monograph, The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan and the United States (2008), was the first scholarly work to approach the texts of this renowned contemporary author from a cross-cultural perspective. , providing an explanation of his reception on both sides of the Pacific.
My second monograph, Holy Ghosts: The Christian Century in Modern Japanese Fiction (2015), investigated modern Japanese fictional representations of the Christian century (1543-1638), to challenge the conventional understanding of Japan’s cross-cultural negotiations and propose an innovative vision of Japanese social and political formations.
My edited volume, Rewriting History in Manga: Stories for the Nation (2016), a collective volume co-edited with Dr. Nissim Otmazgin, looks at the representation and “rewriting” of history in the medium of manga, Japanese comics.
My edited volume, Women's Manga in Asia and Beyond (2019)elucidates social and historical aspects of the Asian wave of manga from ever-broader perspectives of transnationalization and glocalization. With a specific focus on women’s direct roles in manga creation, it illustrates how the globalization of manga has united different cultures and identities, focusing on networks of women creators and readerships.
My third monograph, Two-World Literature: Kazuo Ishiguro's Early Novels (Hawaii UP 2020) explored the Nobel-Prize winning author's double cultural positioning and its use to challenge the conventional understanding of World Literature.
I am currently working on two projects;
The first is a collaborative ARC Discovery Project entitled "Opening Australia's Multilingual Archive." The project looks critically at Australian Anglocentrism to raise important questions about the dynamics of living in a multilingual society. The project aims to mobilise Australia’s considerable and under-utilised non-English language resources in order to rethink our migrant and settler history. It asks what difference language makes in the ways people engage with, and ultimately think of themselves as ‘Australian’ or not. For the first time, a rich multilingual archive will be used to examine Australia’s history from non-English perspectives.
The second project, in collaboration with the Charles Perkins Centre, is a comparative study of Japanese and Australian cultures of soft drink consumption, and their relationship with corporate strategies and health policy. It combines an analysis of the impact of Japanese and Australian soft drinks consumption cultures on the localised marketing strategies of global corporations with a study of the different approaches of these two countries to the institutional regulation of nutrition and health. Through an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, it aims to highlight the importance of the cultural dimension of nutrition, and the need to consider it when formulating policy.
Asian Studies Association of Australia (area representative for Japan)
Oriental Society of Australia (assistant secretary)
Japanese Studies Association of Australia (member)
Asian Studies Association (member)
Modern Languages Association (member)
Japan-Australia Society (member)
Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 2021
NAATI certified translator, English-Italian, Italian-English, 2020
Inoue Yasushi Award for Outstanding Research in Japanese Literature, Culture, and Art 2013
| Project title | Research student |
|---|---|
| Finding Common Places: Sententiae Kingen and the Jesuits in Japan | Rose COUNSELL |
Selected publications
(University of Hawaii Press, 2020)
(University of Hawaii Press, 2015)
(Harvard University Asia Center, 2008)
Publications
Books
- Suter, R. (2020). Two-World Literature: Kazuo Ishiguro's Early Novels. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2015). Holy Ghosts: The Christian Century in Modern Japanese Fiction. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
- Suter, R. (2008). The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan the the United States. Cambridge, Massachusetts USA: Harvard University Asia Center.
Edited Books
- Otmazgin, N., Suter, R. (2016). Rewriting History in Manga: Stories for the Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
Book Chapters
- Suter, R. (2025). Rethinking Gender and Genre in Contemporary Women's Manga. In Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase and Masami Toku (Eds.), Women's Voices in Manga: Japanese Cultural and Historical Perspectives, (pp. 167-181). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2023). Manga, National Identity and Internationalization in Postwar Japan. In Simon Avenell (Eds.), Reconsidering Postwar Japanese History: A Handbook. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2022). Faraway So Close: The Representation of the American West in Igarashi Yumiko's Mayme Angel. In Antoinette Sol and Christopher Conway (Eds.), The Comic Book Western: New Perspectives on a Global Genre, (pp. 277-298). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. [More Information]
Journals
- Suter, R. (2024). Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism by Edward Mack (review). Journal of Japanese Studies, 50(1), 260-263. [More Information]
- Horikawa, T., Suter, R. (2024). Why Us Too? Japanese Views of Immigration and Racial Exclusion in Australia. Australian Historical Studies, 55(4), 669-687. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2022). Book review - Western Rock Artists, Madame Butterfly, and the Allure of Japan: Dancing in an Eastern Dream by Christopher T. Keaveney. Journal of Japanese Studies, 48(1), 248-251. [More Information]
Conferences
- Suter, R. (2008). Modanizumu and science fiction: Naoki Sanjûgo's Henkaku Tantei Shôsetsu. The 17th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA), Australia: Monash Asia Institute.
- Suter, R. (2007). Kawaii/Kowai: Manga in the United States. XVIII Biennial Conference of AISNA. Carocci editore.
- Suter, R. (2005). From Genbun-icchi to JSL (and beyond?): phonocentrism and heterolinguism in Japanese language teaching. The Third Conference on Japanese Language and Language Teaching, Rome: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina.
Textual Creative Works
- Suter, R. (2022). Translation - Non ridere della vita sessuale degli altri Condividi (authored by Nao-cola Yamazaki, translated by Rebecca Suter). Non ridere della vita sessuale degli altri Condividi, New York, United States of America: Rizzoli. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2017). Tekkon Kinkreet Omnibus (Italian), authored by Taiyo Matsumoto and translated by Rebecca Suter. Tekkon Kinkreet Omnibus (Italian), (pp. 1 - 624). Italy: Edizioni BD.
Magazine / Newspaper Articles
- Suter, R. (2012). Review of Coffee Life In Japan (by Merry White). The Times Higher Education, No. 2060.
- Suter, R. (2012). Review of Modern Women In China And Japan: Gender, Feminism and Global Modernity Between The Wars (by Katrina Gulliver). The Times Higher Education, No. 2058.
Other
- Suter, R. (2013), Interview: Come costruire una pila di gettini addormentati..cercando di non svegliarli - Rebecca Suter Intervista Murakami Haruki, Published in Japan Pop: Parole, Immagini, Suoni Dal Giappone Contemporaneo (ISBN: 978-88-548-6002-5), Rome: Aracne; pp. 43-60.
2025
- Suter, R. (2025). Rethinking Gender and Genre in Contemporary Women's Manga. In Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase and Masami Toku (Eds.), Women's Voices in Manga: Japanese Cultural and Historical Perspectives, (pp. 167-181). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
2024
- Suter, R. (2024). Acquired Alterity: Migration, Identity, and Literary Nationalism by Edward Mack (review). Journal of Japanese Studies, 50(1), 260-263. [More Information]
- Horikawa, T., Suter, R. (2024). Why Us Too? Japanese Views of Immigration and Racial Exclusion in Australia. Australian Historical Studies, 55(4), 669-687. [More Information]
2023
- Suter, R. (2023). Manga, National Identity and Internationalization in Postwar Japan. In Simon Avenell (Eds.), Reconsidering Postwar Japanese History: A Handbook. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. [More Information]
2022
- Suter, R. (2022). Book review - Western Rock Artists, Madame Butterfly, and the Allure of Japan: Dancing in an Eastern Dream by Christopher T. Keaveney. Journal of Japanese Studies, 48(1), 248-251. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2022). Faraway So Close: The Representation of the American West in Igarashi Yumiko's Mayme Angel. In Antoinette Sol and Christopher Conway (Eds.), The Comic Book Western: New Perspectives on a Global Genre, (pp. 277-298). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2022). From Ramune to Ryokucha: Continuities and Discontinuities in Japanese Beverage Consumption. In Timothy Amos and Akiko Ishii (Eds.), Revisiting Japan's Restoration: New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation, (pp. 191-195). London: Routledge. [More Information]
2021
- Suter, R., Sakyo, K. (2021). "Dear Ivan Efremov": A Critique of Socialist Science Fiction Theory. Mechademia: an annual forum for anime, manga and the fan arts, 14(1), 11-27.
- Suter, R. (2021). Lovers' quarrels: Japan-Korea relations in amateur Boys' Love manga. In Rumi Sakamoto and Stephen Epstein (Eds.), Popular Culture and the Transformation of Japan-Korea Relations, (pp. 153-166). Abingdon: Routledge. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2021). Review - Fumiaki Miyazaki, Kate Wildman Nakai, and Mark Teeuwen, eds. Christian Sorcerers on Trial: Records of the 1827 Osaka Incident. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 48(1), 187-189. [More Information]
2020
- Suter, R. (2020). Kumo de aru koto: Kazuo Ishiguro no nijisekai bungaku (On being spiders: Kazuo Ishiguro's Two-World Literature). In Yoshiki Tajiri and Kunio Shin (Eds.), Kazuo Ishiguro to Nihon: Yurei kara senso sekinin made (Kazuo Ishiguro and Japan: From Ghosts to War Responsibility), (pp. 274-296). Tokyo: Seiyusha.
- Suter, R. (2020). The artist as a medium and the artwork as metaphor in Murakami Haruki's fiction. Japan Forum, 32(3), 361-378. [More Information]
- Suter, R., Miller, C., Gill, T., Coveney, J. (2020). The bitter and the sweet: a cultural comparison of non-alcoholic beverage consumption in Japan and Australia. Food, Culture, and Society: an international journal of multidisciplinary research, 23(3), 334-346. [More Information]
2019
- Suter, R. (2019). Book review - Contents tourism in Japan: pilgrimages to "sacred sites" of popular culture, by Philip Seaton, Takayoshi Yamamura, Akiko Sugawa-Shimada & Kyungjae Jang. Asian Studies Review, 43(2). [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2019). Re-centring Australia in the Shōjo Imagination. In Fusami Ogi, Rebecca Suter, Kazumi Nagaike, John A. Lent (Eds.), Women's Manga in Asia and Beyond: Uniting Different Cultures and Identities, (pp. 135-150). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2019). Review of The Anime Ecology: A Genealogy of Television, Animation, and Game Media by Thomas Lamarre. Journal of Japanese Studies, 45(2), 467-471. [More Information]
2018
- Suter, R. (2018). Murakami Haruki's Transnational Avant-Pop Literature. In Alisa Freedman, Toby Slade (Eds.), Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, (pp. 313-322). Abingdon: Routledge. [More Information]
2017
- Suter, R. (2017). Review - Japanese Mythology in Film: A Semiotic Approach to Reading Japanese Film and Anime, written by Yoshiko Okuyama. Journal of Religion in Japan, 6(1), 71-74. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2017). Tekkon Kinkreet Omnibus (Italian), authored by Taiyo Matsumoto and translated by Rebecca Suter. Tekkon Kinkreet Omnibus (Italian), (pp. 1 - 624). Italy: Edizioni BD.
2016
- Suter, R. (2016). Between Self-promotion and Cultural Politics: Murakami Haruki's Travelogues. Japan Forum, 28(2), 176-196. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2016). Beyond Kizuna: Murakami Haruki on Disaster and Social Crisis. In Mark R. Mullins, Koichi Nakano (Eds.), Disasters and Social Crisis in Contemporary Japan: Political, Religious, and Sociocultural Responses, (pp. 288-308). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2016). Critical Engagement through Fantasy in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. In Matthew Strecher, Paul Thomas (Eds.), Challenging Authors: Murakami Haruki, (pp. 59-71). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. [More Information]
2015
- Suter, R. (2015). Holy Ghosts: The Christian Century in Modern Japanese Fiction. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
- Suter, R. (2015). Review of Strecher, Matthew, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. [More Information]
2014
- Suter, R. (2014). Disaster and National Identity: The Textual Transformations of Japan Sinks. In Roy Starrs (Eds.), When The Tsunami Came to Shore: Culture and Disaster in Japan, (pp. 214-230). Leiden: Global Oriental. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2014). The March 2011 Tohoku Disaster in Japanese Science Fiction. In Simon Butt, Hitoshi Nasu, Luke Nottage (Eds.), Asia-Pacific Disaster Management: Comparative and Socio-legal Perspectives, (pp. 153-164). Heidelberg: Springer. [More Information]
2013
- Suter, R. (2013). Gender Bending and Exoticism in Japanese Girls' Comics. Asian Studies Review, 37(4), 546-558. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2013). Grand Demons and Little Devils: Akutagawa's Kirishitan mono as a Mirror of Modernity. Journal of Japanese Studies, 39(1), 39-66. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2013), Interview: Come costruire una pila di gettini addormentati..cercando di non svegliarli - Rebecca Suter Intervista Murakami Haruki, Published in Japan Pop: Parole, Immagini, Suoni Dal Giappone Contemporaneo (ISBN: 978-88-548-6002-5), Rome: Aracne; pp. 43-60.
2012
- Suter, R. (2012). Cosmopolitanism and Anxiety of Influence in Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Kirishitan Mono. In Roy Starrs (Eds.), Rethinking Japanese Modernism, (pp. 148-163). Leiden, The Netherlands: Global Oriental. [More Information]
- Suter, R. (2012). Human and Superhuman in Contemporary Japanese Girls' Manga. In L.E.Semler, Bob Hodge and Philippa Kelly (Eds.), What is the Human Australian Voices from the Humanities, (pp. 82-100). Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
- Suter, R. (2012). Orientalism, Self-Orientalism, and Occidentalism in the Visual-Verbal Medium of Japanese Girls' Comics. Literature and Aesthetics, 22(2), 230-247.
2011
- Suter, R. (2011). Creative misreadings of Christianity in Japanese popular culture. Asian Currents, 1, 10-11.
- Suter, R. (2011). Science Fictions as Subversive Hypothesis: Henkaku tantei shosetsu between Entertainment and Enlightenment. Japanese Studies, 31(2), 267-277. [More Information]
2010
- Suter, R. (2010). Japan/America, Man/Woman: Gender and Identity Politics in Adriane Tomine and Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Paradoxa: studies in world literary genres, 2010 (22), 101-122.
- Suter, R. (2010). Review of James Dorsey's "Critical aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, modernity, and wartime Japan". Asian Studies Review, 34(4), 533-535.
2009
- Suter, R. (2009). Adrian Tomine tra Geek-Chic e Gekiga. Acoma, 38(spring), 44-60.
- Suter, R. (2009). From Jusuheru to Jannu: girl knights and christian witches in the work of Miuchi Suzue. Mechademia: an annual forum for anime, manga and the fan arts, 4(4), 241-256.
- Suter, R. (2009). Review of Rachel DiNitto's "Uchida Hyakken: a critique of modernity and militarism in prewar Japan". Japanese Studies, 29(2), 311-313.
2008
- Suter, R. (2008). Covering Japan: Rappresentazioni Angloamericane del Giappone. In Valerio Luigi Alberizzi, Marco Montanari (Eds.), Ricercando in Giappone, (pp. 116-140). Rome: Domograf.
- Suter, R. (2008). Modanizumu and science fiction: Naoki Sanjûgo's Henkaku Tantei Shôsetsu. The 17th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA), Australia: Monash Asia Institute.
- Suter, R. (2008). The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan the the United States. Cambridge, Massachusetts USA: Harvard University Asia Center.
2007
- Suter, R. (2007). Kawaii/Kowai: Manga in the United States. XVIII Biennial Conference of AISNA. Carocci editore.
2005
- Suter, R. (2005). From Genbun-icchi to JSL (and beyond?): phonocentrism and heterolinguism in Japanese language teaching. The Third Conference on Japanese Language and Language Teaching, Rome: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina.
2003
- Suter, R. (2003). Chainizu bokkusu/ireko: modernism and postmodernism in "Tairando" and "Airon no aru fûkei" by Murakami Haruki. In Donatella Izzo & Elena Spandri (Eds.), "Contact zones." Rewriting genre across the east-west border, (pp. 107-131). Naples: Liguori Editore.
- Suter, R. (2003). Rewritings Between East and West: Shiga Naoya's 'Kurodiasu no nikki'. Annali dell'istituto universitario orientale, 63(1), 171-195.
Selected Grants
2020
- Opening Australias Multilingual Archive, Vickers A, Lu Y, Suter R, Loy-Wilson S, Moir C, Wilson S, Stenberg J, Alu G, Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP)
2016
- Enhancing cultural competence and cross-cultural interdisciplinary effectiveness (Open Learning Environment - Undergraduate), Suter R, Penaloza F, Sorbera L, Pitaloka D, Moores S, DVC Education/Small Educational Innovation Grant
Recent research grants
2016-17
Drink Sokenbicha! Comparing Japanese and Australian soft drink consumption cultures. (FASS Cross-disciplinary Research for Social Impact Support Scheme)
2015-16
Near West: Italy and Asutralia in the Japanese Cultural Imagination. (FASS Research Support Scheme)
In the media
Interview on Soji Shimada for 2ser Radio's program Death of the Reader:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT9ERl3rqK2zeFDiNImpWSihdlyEbIDBQ
Interview on the Nike Japan ad condemning racism for SBS radio:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=951039871970705
Guest on ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf, talking about Kazuo Ishiguro
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-bookshelf/the-rn-book-club-on-kazuo-ishiguro/13327260
RealMatter magazine:
https://www.semantix.media/realmatter/
