Joanne Quimby, Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese, teaches Japanese language as well course in Japanese literature. After earning a dual Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Modern Japanese Literature at Indiana University in 2010, she joined the Wittenberg faculty in the fall of 2011. Dr. Quimby’s research focuses on contemporary Japanese women writers and theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality, embodiment, and performance. One of the goals of her research is to examine narrative strategies which construct alternative visions not only of “femininity” or “womanhood,” but also of the female body itself. Her dissertation, “Narratives of Sexuality and Embodiment: Performative Identities and Abject Agency in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry by Japanese Women Writers,” examines poetry and fiction by three contemporary Japanese women authors within feminist theoretical frameworks concerned with the performativity of gender and sexual identities.  She is currently working on a book-length revision of her dissertation. At Wittenberg, Dr. Quimby has taught Japanese language courses at all levels, as well as “Survey of Japanese Literature” and “Twentieth Century Japanese Novelists,” which is cross-listed with Women’s Studies. Dr. Quimby is currently developing new courses on Japanese film, literature, and culture to offer to Wittenberg students beginning in 2012.