Members

Current Position

Junior Associate Professor (Graduate School of Letters, Joint Degree Master Program in Transcultural Studies) Kyoto University

Research Field, Activities and Interests

My doctoral dissertation focused on dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in networked communities of interest, the agency of stereotypes and of cultural mediators within the transcultural sphere of non-digital role-playing games. Currently, my research deals with learning effects and how live-action role-playing can be employed not only for therapeutic means but also for the presentation of research results.
This research builds on the expertise I gained in Japanese Studies but seeks to overcome the “nation-state default mode” of studying culture, which has brought me to the interdisciplinary field of transculturality. The transregional outlook of this approach is based on the perspective that cultures are not contained within homogenous and territorially bounded spheres but that they are constituted through transformations and entanglements. Transculturality informs not only my research but also my teaching: Students will learn to unpack established concepts and are geared towards empirical studies of cultural processes.

Education

PhD in Japanese Studies, Heidelberg University

Personal website

www.b-ok.de