Susan Jolliffe Napier (born October 11, 1955) is a professor of the Japanese program at Tufts University. She was formerly the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin. She also worked as a visiting professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University,[1] and in cinema and media studies at University of Pennsylvania. Napier is an anime and manga critic.
Susan J. Napier | |
---|---|
Occupation | Professor, anime critic |
Nationality | American |
Subject | Japanese literature |
Notable works | Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke |
Napier is the daughter of historian Reginald Phelps, a historian and educational administrator, and Julia Sears Phelps, both Harvard academics. She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2] Her neighbors included John Kenneth Galbraith, Julia Child, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. She obtained her A.B., A.M., and PhD degrees from Harvard University.[3]
In 1991 Napier published Escape from the Wasteland: Romanticism and Realism in the Fiction of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo. Her second book, The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion of Modernity, followed in 1996.[3]
Napier first became interested in anime and manga when a student showed her a copy of Akira. Napier then saw the film, which led to the creation of her third book, Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation,[1][4] which was revised in 2005.[5] Napier's From Impressionism To Anime: Japan As Fantasy And Fan Cult In The Western Imagination was published in 2007, which discusses anime fandom in greater depth.[6][7]