Meet the Japanese Faculty

Dr. Christopher Keaveney 

Professor of Japanese

Education:
Dr. Keaveney graduated from Manhattan College in 1985 having majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. After teaching overseas in American Samoa and in Kobe, Japan for five years, Keaveney entered Washington University in St. Louis where he completed a Masters degree in Japanese language and literature in 1992. After two years of research at Tsukuba University in Ibaraki, Japan, Keaveney entered Washington University’s doctoral program and received his Ph.D in Japanese and Comparative Literature in 2000.

Academic Interests:
Keaveney’s research interests include comparative literature and Japanese language pedagogy. Keaveney completed the training program in ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview testing and served as the vice president on the board of the Association of Teachers of Japanese in Oregon from 2007-2009.  Keaveney’s primary research concerns the relations between the Japanese and Chinese literary communities in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, Keaveney’s research examines how writers and groups of writers in the two communities interacted and collaborated during that volatile time.

Publications:
Keaveney is the author of several articles about Sino-Japanese literary relations and Japanese language pedagogy. He is also the author of the following two books:

• Subversive Self in Modern Chinese Literature: The Creation Society’s Reinvention of The Japanese Shishosetsu. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

• Beyond Brushtalk: Sino-Japanese Literary Exchange in the Interwar Period. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009.
  
  

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Dr. Masayuki Itomitsu 

Assistant Professor of Japanese

Education:
Dr. Itomitsu received his Ph.D in Japanese from The Ohio State University in 2009. He also earned his M.A. in Japanese at The Ohio State; B. S. in English at Northeast Missouri State University (currently Truman State University); and B.A. in English Language and Literature at University of the Ryukyus, Japan. He also completed Exchange: Japan’s Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language program at Bryn Mawr College.

Academic Interests:
Itomitsu’s research interests include Japanese language pedagogy, material development, Japanese linguistics, teacher training, and testing. His Ph.D. dissertation concerns measuring learners’ pragmatic knowledge by a Web-based standardized test. Itomitsu is a certified ACTFL OPI tester, and serves as item writer/reviewer for AP Japanese and SAT II Subject Test in Japanese by ETS. He also serves as a board member for Association of Teachers of Japanese in Oregon (ATJO), and as Faculty Advisor for Linfield's Japanese Club.

Publications:

• Noda, Mari and Masayuki Itomitsu. 2008. Japanese: The Spoken Language Parts 2 & 3, Interactive DVD Program. Yale University Press.

• Itomitsu. 2008. Analysis of Speech Acts and Speech Events of Conversations in Japanese Language Textbooks. in Hasegawa, Atsushi, Shima Chiharu, and Junko Mori (Eds.) Toward Advanced Japanese Language Proficiency, Proceedings of the 20th Annual Meeting of the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese, 105-118.

• Eda, Sanae, Masayuki Itomitsu, and Mari Noda. 2008. Japanese Skills Test (J-SKIT) as an On-demand Placement Test: Validation Studies and Reliability Analysis. Foreign Language Annals, 41:2, 218-236

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 Ms. Nao Okumura

Teaching Assistant of Japanese

Ms. Okumura graduated from Osaka City University, and is currently pursuing her second bachelor’s degree in Sociology at Linfield College. She came to Linfield in 2011 after completing ALLEX Summer Teacher Training program at Portland State University.

    List of all faculty members of the Department of Modern Languages