Dr. Angles teaches Japanese and comparative literature, Japanese cultural history, and translation theory in the Department of Foreign Languages at Western Michigan University. Much of Dr. Angles’ work has focused on expressions of ideology within twentieth-century popular literature and film from Japan, especially of the modernist era. For instance, his first book, published by University of Minnesota Press in 2011, examines representations of love and desire between men in the literature of the interwar period. Other current research interests have to do with the ways that literary translation in Japan has spurred literary development both inside and outside of Japan. The International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan invited him to come as a visiting professor in 2009-2010 to conduct a major research project on the cultural history of translation, and in 2011, he was a visiting professor in comparative literature at the University of Tokyo. Dr. Angles is also a prominent translator of modern Japanese literature. His translations of Tada Chimako, published by the University of California Press, received both the 2009 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission for the Translation of Japanese Literature and the 2011 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His translation projects have earned grants from the PEN Club of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Books & Edited Volumes
Writing the Love of Boys: Origins of Bishōnen Culture in Modernist Japanese Literature (2011)
Despite its centuries-long tradition of literary and artistic depictions of love between men, around late...
U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, special issue on Itō Hiromi (2007)
Itō, born in 1955 in Tokyo, is one of the most important and dynamic poets...
Japan: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (2006)
This collection guides the reader through the complexity that is Japan. Although frequently misunderstood as...
Translated Books
Twelve Views from the Distance (2012)
Twelve Views from the Distance, published in 1970, is the memoir of Mutsuo Takahashi, one...
Forest of Eyes: Selected Poetry of Tada Chimako (2010)
One of Japan's most important modern poets, Tada Chimako (1930-2003) gained prominence in her native...
Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems of Hiromi Itō (2009)
Itō, born in 1955 in Tokyo, is one of the most important and dynamic poets...
Soul Dance: Poetry of Takako Arai (2008)
Takako Arai was born in 1966 in Kiryū City, Gunma Prefecture (Japan) to a family...