Teiko Nakamaru

From April 2024 to March 2025, I will be a guest researcher in the Department of Literature and Rhetoric supported by JSPS-KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research. The theme of the grant is “Thought and cultural exchanges among Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia: A study of the first half of the 20th century focusing on Lagerlöf”.

In 2010, I defended my dissertation on the 20th century Swedish author, Selma Lagerlöf. Previously, I was a visiting student in the Nordeuropa-Institute at Humboldt University of Berlin from 2007 to 2008 and in the Department of Literature and Rhetoric at Uppsala University in 2008. I was also a research fellow with JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) from 2010 to 2011, Assistant Professor in the Tokyo University of Science from 2011 to 2016, Associate Professor from 2016. I usually teach German, Literature, and Nordic Culture.

I study Selma Lagerlöf through text analysis and by examining the reception of her works.

Lagerlöf's works were translated into Japan, often with the original Swedish text and German translations. However, Lagerlöf seems to be received very differently in Japan and Germany: in Japan, she is regarded as a pacifist writer, while in Germany, she is considered a popular writer during the period of Nazism. My research focuses on how the images of Lagerlöf and Scandinavia were constructed in modern Japan and influenced by the cultural exchange between Germany and Japan in shaping Nordic perceptions in Japan.

You can find the list of my previous publications in Japanese on my website.

Research TEIKO NAKAMARU (biglobe.ne.jp)

Work in Progress

Teiko Nakamaru (translation and explanation), Lone Mogensen (text of the picture book), Tord Nygren (picture of the picture book). Finn the Giant. Spacetime of the Giant-Folklore in Scandinavia and in Japan. ［Kyojin Finn no monogatari. Hokuo Nihon kyojindensyo no jiku］. Tokyo: Miyaishoten. 2024. (Book in Japanese).
*This book combines the picture book Finn the Giant with an exposition on the exposition on Scandinavian folklore surrounding church-building giants and Japanese expansion.

Teiko Nakamaru: ‘Establishment of the contemporary Nordic Image in Japan: A Comparison between Uchimura Kanzō’s A Story of Denmark and Henry Leach’s Reclaiming the Heath’. In: Re-Imagining Literatures of the World: Global and Local, Mainstreams and Margins Proceedings of XXIII ICLA Congress. 2024. (Article in English)

Teiko Nakamaru, Teiko Nakamaru, Takuzo Tanaka, Rie Kaneoka, Atsuko Kato (eds.). Scandinavia and Fascism. Tokyo: Benseisya. 2025. (Book in Japanese).