Atsushi Fukada
Atsushi Fukada received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1987. After teaching at Nagoya University for 7 years, he joined the Purdue faculty in 1994. He has directed the Center for Technology-Enhanced Language Learning since 1997. His research interests include Japanese linguistics, pragmatics, corpus and computational linguistics, language pedagogy, and learning systems development. An example of his corpus & computational work is Meidai Conversation Corpus and Chakoshi corpus search system (linked here). In the learning systems development area, he developed an online oral practice/assessment platform Speak Everywhere (linked here). His latest major project is the development of an online textbook series titled Learn Japanese Online, of which he and Dr. Mariko Wei (see below) are Managing Authors. It's published now and available for general use. (linked here) In the graduate program, he teaches JPNS 56000 (Survey of Japanese Linguistics) regularly.
Mariko Wei
Mariko Wei received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University in 1998, the same year she joined the Purdue faculty. While Mariko’s research interests include second language acquisition and language pedagogy, her current research focuses on bilingualism and heritage language maintenance for children with autism spectrum disorder and the development of online Japanese textbooks.
She has previously taught at Columbia University, Georgetown University, John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Princeton in the Ishikawa Program. She is a faculty coordinator of the Japanese Language Program and has developed and taught a variety of courses on the Japanese language, Japanese language instruction, Japanese studies, and applied linguistics at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Her passion for teaching and mentoring has previously been recognized with the Kenneth T. Kofmehl Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2012, the Charles B. Murphy Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in 2013, and the College of Liberal Arts Award of Outstanding Graduate Teacher in 2016.
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 areas of research include literature of the fantastic in Japan (gensō bungaku), print culture, visual culture, text and image studies, the work of author Izumi Kyōka, and literary accounts of immigration and travel between Japan and Brazil. He has completed a book titled Supernatural Japan: Izumi Kyōka and the Global Fantastic, which is currently scheduled for publication with University of Michigan Press. The book describes the meeting of global influences in Kyōka’s fiction, from premodern Japanese picture books to modern French literature of the fantastic. He has published articles on topics including book design, graphic design, photography and literature, and women writers and travel narratives, including in journals such as the Review of Japanese Culture and Society and the Journal of Japanese Studies. He is continuing research on Japanese literature of the fantastic, with a current focus on author Okamoto Kanoko, as well as research on narratives of immigration from Japan produced in various cultural contexts.
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, and popular media (manga and anime) in the School of Languages and Cultures. He is also affiliated with the program in Comparative Literature in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies.