Pedro Bassoe

Pedro Bassoe received his Ph.D. in Japanese from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 and joined the faculty at Purdue University in 2019. His primary research focuses on illustration, visual culture, and the relationship between text and image in the development of the modern novel in Japan. He is currently editing a book manuscript titled Eyes of the Heart: Illustration and the Visual Imagination in Modern Japanese Literature based on his dissertation. He has also begun research projects on literature of the fantastic in Japan and literary connections between Japan and Brazil in the work of both canonical Japanese authors and various diasporic writers. He has published one article on Natsume Sōseki, art nouveau, and book design in The Review of Japanese Culture and Society, which was recently translated into Japanese for inclusion in a volume on Sōseki. He has also had one article accepted by the Journal of Japanese Studies on Ozaki Kōyō and the photographic imagination in Japanese literature.

Dr. Bassoe teaches classes on Japanese literature from the classical to contemporary eras, in both the original Japanese versions and English translations, as well as classes on Japanese film, visual culture, literary pedagogy, popular culture, and literature of the fantastic in the School of Languages and Cultures. He has recently become affiliated with the program in Comparative Literature in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, for which he plans to offer classes in the near future.