Anne Allison | Scholars@Duke

Anne Allison
Professor of Cultural Anthropology

Anne Allison is a cultural anthropologist who researches the intersection between political economy, everyday life, and the imagination in the context of late capitalist, post-industrial Japan. Her work spans the subjects of sexuality, pornography, and maternal labor to the globalization of Japanese youth products and the precarity of irregular workers. She is the author of Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club (University of Chicago Press, 1994—an ethnography of the Japanese corporate practice of entertaining employees and customers in the sexualized atmosphere of hostess clubs; Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan (University of California Press 2000)—a collection of essays analyzing the complex desires linking motherhood, pornographic comics, and popular culture; and Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination (University of California Press, 2006)—a study of the intermeshing of fantasy, capitalism, and cultural politics in the rise of Japan's brand of "cool" youth-goods on the global marketplace. Her most recent book, Precarious Japan (forthcoming from Duke University Press, 2013) looks at the socio-economic shifts in post-corporatist Japan towards precaritization of work, sociality, and everyday security.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2005
Bass Fellow, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2011

Contact Information

230 Friedl Building, East Campus, Durham, NC 27708-0091
Box 90091, Durham, NC 27708-0091
anne.allison@duke.edu (919) 681-6257

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., The University of Chicago 1986
Duke Appointment History
- Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2017 - 2020
- Chair in the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018
- Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018
- Interim Director of the Program in Women, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2012 - 2013
- Co-chair in the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2010
- Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2006 - 2008
- Chair, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2002 - 2008
- Associate Professor of Japanese Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2002 - 2007
- Associate Professor, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1996 - 2005
- Acting Chair, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2000
- Assistant Professor, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1992 - 1996
Recognition
In the News
- OCT 31, 2014
  
  Allison Book Honored by American Ethnological Society
- FEB 19, 2014
  
  Cultural Anthropology Journal Goes Open Access
- NOV 25, 2013 The Japan Times
  
  Book Review: Anne Allison’s ‘Precarious Japan’
- NOV 20, 2013 WUNC’s “The State of Things”
  
  Anne Allison: Economic downturn creates lonely lives in Japan
Awards & Honors
- Traditional Fulbright Scholarship. Council for International Exchange of Scholars. 1999
- Society for Psychological Anthropology-Boyer Prize for Contributions to Psychoanalytic Anthropology. American Anthropological Association. 1994
Expertise
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - Japan (Country)
- Research
  - Japan (Country)
Research
Selected Grants
- Doctoral Dissertation Research: Anxious Care: Radioactive Uncertainty and the Politics of Life in Post-Nuclear Japan awarded by National Science Foundation 2019 - 2020
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Allison, A. Permitted and prohibited desires: Mothers, comics, and censorship in Japan, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429301384.
    Full Text
  - Allison, A. Precarious Japan. Duke University Press, 2013.
  - Allison, A. Kiku to Pokemon: Guro-barukasuru nihon no bunkaryouku. Shinchousha, 2010.
  - Allison, A. Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club. University of Chicago Press, 1994.
- Academic Articles
  - Allison, A. “Sailor Moon: Japanese Superherofeosr global girls,” April 8, 2015, 259–78.
  - Allison, A. “American Geishas and Oriental/ist Fantasies.” Edited by Purnima Mankekar and Louisa Schein, July 2013.
  - Allison, A. “Ordinary refugees: Social precarity and soul in 21st century Japan.” Anthropological Quarterly 85, no. 2 (June 4, 2012): 345–70. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2012.0027.
    Full Text
  - Allison, A. “The Cool Brand and Affective Activism of Japanese Youth.” Theory, Culture & Society 26, no. 3 (March 2009): 89–111.
    Open Access Copy
  - Allison, A. “La culture populaire japonaise et l'imaginaire global.” Critique Internationale 38 (December 2008): 19–35.
  - Allison, A. “The Japan Fad in Global Youth Culture and Millennial Capitalism.” Edited by Frenchy Lunning. Mechademia 1 (2006).
  - Allison, A. “Review of Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World by Theodore Bestor.” Monumenta Nipponica 60 (2005): 288–90.
  - Allison, A. “Portable Monsters and Commodity Cuteness: Pokemon as Japan’s New Global Power.” Edited by Anne Allison and Larry Grossberg. Journal of Postcolonial Studies 6 (December 2003).
  - Allison, A. “Introduction to Special Issue on Children and Globalization.” Edited by Anne Allison and Larry Grossberg. Journal of Postcolonial Studies 6 (December 2003).
  - Allison, Anne. “Cyborg Violence: Bursting Borders and Bodies with Queer Machines.” Cultural Anthropology 16, no. 2 (May 2001): 237–65. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2001.16.2.237.
    Full Text
  - Allison, A. “Carne Furente: Bambole Guerriere Attraverso il Pacifico.” Edited by Alessandro Gomarasca. La Bambola E Il Robottone, 2001, 145–78.
  - Allison, A. “Ogetti e magia come valuta di scambio: Il Gioco Globale dei Pokemon.” Edited by Alessandro Gomarasca. La Bambola E Il Robottone, 2001, 263–78.
  - Allison, Anne. “Memoirs of the Orient.” Journal of Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 381–381. https://doi.org/10.2307/3591971.
    Full Text
  - Allison, A. “Review of Karaoke Around the World: Global Technology, Local Singing.” Edited by Toru Mitsui and Shuhei Hosokawa. Journal of Japanese Studies 26 (2000): 169–73.
  - Allison, A. “A challenge to hollywood? Japanese character goods hit the us.” Japanese Studies 20, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 67–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371390050009075.
    Full Text
  - Allison, Anne, and Aviad E. Raz. “Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland.” Monumenta Nipponica 55, no. 2 (2000): 315–315. https://doi.org/10.2307/2668444.
    Full Text
  - Allison, Anne. “About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater. By Dorinne Kondo. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. 277 pp. $17.95.” The Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 3 (August 1998): 806–9. https://doi.org/10.2307/2658751.
    Full Text
  - Allison, A. “Transgressions of the Everyday: Stories of Mother-Son Incest in Japanese Popular Culture.” Positions 2 (1995): 67–499.
  - Allison, A. “A Male Gaze in Japanese Children’s Cartoons, or, Are Naked Female Bodies Always Sexual?,” 1993.
  - Allison, A. “Dominating Men: Male Dominance on Company Expense in a Tokyo Hostess Club.” Genders, no. 16 (1993): 1–16.
    Link to Item
- Book Sections
  - Allison, A. “A Sociality Of, and Beyond, ’My-Home’ in Post-Corporate Japan.” In Sociality, New Directions, edited by Henrietta Moore and Nick Long. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  - Allison, A. “The Attractions of the J-Wave for American Youth.” In Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States, edited by Watanabe Yasushi and David McConnell. M.E. Sharpe, 2009.
  - Allison, A. “Pocket Capitalism and Virtual Intimacy: Pokemon as Symptom of Postindustrial Youth Culture.” In Figuring the Future: Globalization and the Temporalities of Children and Youth, edited by Jennifer Cole and Deborah Lynn Durham. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008.
    Open Access Copy
  - Allison, A. “New-age Fetishes, Monsters, and Friends: Pokemon in the Age of Millennial Capitalism.” In Japan after Japan, edited by Tomiko Yoda and Harry Harootunian. Duke University Press, 2006.
  - Allison, A. “Tamagotchi: The Prosthetics of Presence.” In Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination, 163–91. University of California Press, 2006.
  - Allison, A. “Cuteness as Japan’s Millennial Product.” In Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon, edited by Joseph Tobin, 34–49. Duke University Press, 2004.
  - Allison, A. “Playing with Power: Morphing Toys and Transforming Heroes in Kids’ Mass Culture.” In Power and the Self, edited by Jeannette Marie Mageo, 71–92. Cambridge University, 2002.
  - Allison, A. “Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus.” In Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan, 81–104. University of California Press, 2000.
  - Allison, A. “Cyborg Heroes Populate Popular Culture.” In Popular Culture in Japan and Outside, edited by Doug Slaymaker, 25–40. University of Hawaii’i Press, 1998.
  - Allison, A. “Cutting the Fringes: Pubic Hair at the Margins of Japanese Obscenity Laws.” In Hair in Asian Cultures: Context and Change, edited by Alf Heitelbeitel and Barbara Miller, 195–218. SUNY Albany Press, 1997.
  - Allison, A. “Producing Mothers: Production, Motherhood, and Schools in Japan.” In Re-Imaging Japanese Women, edited by Anne E. Imamura, 135–55. University of California Press, 1996.
  - Allison, A. “Shakaisei no ima, kansei, kazoku, soshite nihon no kodomo ("Sociality Today: Sentiment, Family, and Japanese Youth").” In Kobougaku 4: Kibou No Hajimari: Ryuudookasuru Sekaide: The Social Sciences of Hope, Volume 4: The Beginning of Hope: In a World of Flux, edited by Todaishaken Institute of Social Sciences, Tokyo University, Genda Yuji, and Shigeki Uno, 4:129–49. Tokyo Daigaku Shuppansha, n.d.
  - Allison, A. “"Shinjidai no Fuetesshu, Monsuta-, Soshite Tomodachi: Mireniamu (Shinseki) no Pokemonshihonshugi".” In Media and Popular Culture, edited by Reiko Tsuchiyua and Yoshimi Shunya, n.d.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Duke Appointment History

In the News

Awards & Honors

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Research

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances