KEIO RESEARCHERS INFORMATION SYSTEM

Profile 【 Display / hide 】

Profile 【 Display / hide 】

• MW Larson is a visiting assistant professor at Keio University in the Faculty of Law teaching at the Hiyoshi Campus. He received his BA from Dartmouth College, completed his MFA in creative writing at the Ohio State University, and earned his PhD in English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. From 2013-2014 he was the recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant, and he used this funding to research a series of essays on the survivors of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. His current research focuses on utopian studies, science fiction, and flows of culture across the Pacific. His essays have been published or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, the Journal of the Jissen English Department, Los Angeles Review of Books, Ninth Letter, Poetics Today, and Utopian Studies. He has previously presented his research at the 2021 Asian Conference on Cultural Studies, the 2019 American Literary Society of Japan conference, the 2016 Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference, the 2014 Asian Studies Japan conference, and the Japan Studies at Dartmouth conference. His first book, "When the Waves Came: Loss, Recovery, and the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami," was published by Chin Music Press in 2020.

Message from the Faculty Member 【 Display / hide 】

Message from the Faculty Member 【 Display / hide 】

• “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”
  
  ―Oscar Wilde

Books 【 Display / hide 】

Books 【 Display / hide 】

• When the Waves Came

  Larson,Michael William, Chin Music Press, 2020.05

  　View Summary

  Larson follows the lives of a hairdresser, a café owner, a cattle rancher, and a nuclear-energy worker from the moment the 2011 tsunami hit Japan's Tohoku region through the subsequent years of recovery, grief, and frustration. In simple, straightforward prose, Larson chronicles their attempts to recover what they had lost despite a government response replete with missed opportunities and predictable missteps.

Papers 【 Display / hide 】

Papers 【 Display / hide 】

• Accumulating and Realizing the Radical Potential of Catastrophe in Karen Tei Yamashita’s "Through the Arc of the Rain Forest"

  Larson, Michael

  Utopian Studies （The Pennsylvania State University Press)  32 （ 3 ） 494 - 494 2021.11

  Research paper (scientific journal), Single Work, Accepted

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• Reading Kenji Miyazawa after 3.11: Region, Utopia, and Modernity

  Larson, Michael William

  The International Academic Forum (IAFOR)    103 - 110 2021.07

  Research paper (international conference proceedings), Single Work

• The Dialectics of March 11: A Decade After the Japan Tsunami"

  Larson, MW

  Los Angeles Review of Books  2021.03

  Single Work

• COVID19: What Japan Failed to Learn from Fukushima”

  Larson, Michael

  Tokyo Review  2020.05

  Research paper (other academic), Single Work

• Pearl S. Buck, Pavilion of Women, and Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Feminism

  Larson,Michael William

  Journal of Jissen English Department （Jissen Department of English Publishing)   （ 71 ） 29 - 47 2019.03

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Accepted,  ISSN  0389-9764

  　View Summary

  This article looks at the competing conceptions of gender in Pearl S. Buck’s Pavilion of Women. Using the work of prominent gender scholars as a lens to examine the text, I argue that the novel is a rich portrait of female subjectivity in early twentieth-century China, which should be given more attention.

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Presentations 【 Display / hide 】

Presentations 【 Display / hide 】

• アーシュラ・K・ル・グィンの『所有せざる人々』における仕事について

  Larson, Michael

  Kanto Branch of the English Literary Society of Japan, 2021 Fall Conference, 

  2021.11

  , 

  Oral presentation (general)

• Reading Kenji Miyazawa after 3.11: Region, Utopia, and Resilience

  Larson, Michael

  The 11th Asian Conference on Cultural Studies, 

  2021.06

  , 

  Oral presentation (general)

• Remembering the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami: A Reading and Discussion

  Larson,Michael William

  Niseko Green Keynote Presentation (日本 北海道県虻田郡ニセコ町) , 

  2020.02

  , 

  Oral presentation (invited, special)

• Dystopia and Utopia: The Anticipatory Consciousness of Despair in Karen Tei Yamashita’s "Through the Arc of the Rain Forest"

  Larson,Michael William

  American Literary Society of Japan (仙台) , 

  2019.10

  , 

  Oral presentation (general)

• Using Utopian-Centered Instruction to Build Critical Thinking Skills

  Larson, Michael

  Data Science in Collaboration 2019, 

  2019.07

  , 

  Poster presentation

Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

• "Utopia" in Contemporary American Literature

  2020.04

  -

  2023.03

  MEXT,JSPS, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists , Principal investigator

Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

• ENGLISH4-LEVEL2

  2024

• ENGLISH4-LEVEL1

  2024

• ENGLISH 3

  2024

• ENGLISH (INTENSIVE)

  2024

• ENGLISH (INTENSIVE)

  2023

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