Professional Biography

Linda Isako Angst’s research in cultural anthropology has focused on questions of ethnicity, colonialism/postcolonialism, gender, and national identity in Japan. Her dissertation for Yale University looked at questions of Okinawan women’s political subjectivity, particularly as understood through their narratives about wartime experiences and memories and postwar occupation by the U.S. military. Today she continues to study the effects of everyday forms of violence on Okinawans through the continued presence of massive U.S. military bases. Also, since Okinawans are the longest lived people in the world, Dr. Angst's recent studies focus on longevity and the development of a wellness tourism industry that caters to aging Japanese mainland visitors. Other research includes the politics of representation in Japan’s new peace museums; a study of the politics of Pax Americana--the dissemination of American democracy through the Ryukyu American Culture Centers that sponsored beauty pageants and fashion shows for military wives and Okinawan women; the post-Pearl Harbor Japanese American internment camp experience of Oregonians. Born in Yokohama, Japan of Japanese and American parentage, Professor Angst has lived much of her life in Japan (including Okinawa). Before going to Yale, she graduated from Kenyon College with a BA in Political Science and a minor in English literature. After 6 years of living and working in Osaka and Tokyo teaching English and working as a freelance editor and translator, she completed a master’s in East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley, focusing on Japanese intellectual history as well as contemporary culture in historical perspective. Professor Angst was on leave in 2002-2003 on a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and she received a Japan Foundation grant in 2005 to begin research on longevity and wellness tourism. Her book manuscript will be published by Harvard University Press.

Academic Credentials

Ph.D. 2001, M.Phil. 1993 Yale University

M.A. 1990 University of California at Berkeley

B.A. Kenyon College, Gambier, OH; Honors, Kubasaki High School, Okinawa, Japan

Courses Offered, Fall 2009

SoAn 273: Japanese Cuture: Gender and Identity

Gend 440: Feminist Theory