Reginald Jackson is Associate Professor of premodern Japanese literature and performance at the University of Michigan. His research interests include medieval calligraphy, illustrated handscrolls, Noh dance-drama, contemporary Japanese choreography, African American literature and visual culture, queer studies, and translation.
Prior to earning tenure at the University of Michigan, he was faculty at the University of Chicago and Yale University, having earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in East Asian Studies. He has served as Director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Japanese Studies, Director of the Accelerated Master’s Degree Program in Transcultural Studies, and Director of Graduate Studies for the Center for Japanese Studies. One goal of his scholarship is to reimagine the field of Japanese Studies in generative ways that prove more open to diverse archives, questions, and contributions.
Jackson is the author of Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and the Tale of Genji Scrolls (University of Michigan Press, 2018), and A Proximate Remove: Queering Intimacy and Loss in The Tale of Genji (University of California Press, 2021). Currently he is revising a manuscript on feminist dance entitled Yasuko Yokoshi: Choreography Beyond Japanese Culture. His newest book project, Spectacular Dominion: Slavery, Performance, and the Boundaries of Personhood in Premodern Japan ventures new lines of inquiry into how personhood was defined and contested in premodern Japan, drawing from Black studies and Japanese studies to read beyond their respective disciplinary blind spots. His writing appears in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, TDR: The Drama Review, Theater Survey, boundary 2, Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters,Asian Theatre Journal, and Women and Performance: a Journal of Feminist Theory. He has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from The Fulbright Foundation, Japan Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and the Ford Foundation. His scholarly pursuits are enriched by a devotion to illustration and electric guitar.