Biography

Rachael Hutchinson is Professor in Japanese Studies and Game Studies at the University of Delaware. She received her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in 2000, and her research addresses representations of Japanese identity in a range of narrative texts – literature, film, manga and videogames. Her major publications are Nagai Kafū's Occidentalism: Defining the Japanese Self (author, SUNY Press 2011), Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature: A Critical Approach (co-editor, Routledge 2007), Negotiating Censorship in Modern Japan (editor, Routledge 2013), and The Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature (co-editor, Routledge 2016). She has published essays in journals such as Game Studies, Japan Forum, Monumenta Nipponica, Japanese Studies, Well Played, Loading, and Games and Culture, contributing various chapters to books on Japanese games, manga, literature and film. Her most recent monograph is Japanese Culture Through Videogames (Routledge, 2019), nominated for the John Whitney Hall Book Prize at the Association for Asian Studies, and featured on the podcasts 'Meiji at 150' and 'Japan Station.' She also co-edited Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation and Liminality in the JRPG with Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon (Lexington, 2022). She is currently editing The Handbook of Japanese Games and Gameplay for Japan Documents Press and Amsterdam University Press. Rachael believes passionately in undergraduate research and writing, incorporating writing and presentation skills in all her courses. She teaches advanced Japanese language, reading and translation, as well as culture courses such as 'Issues in Japanese Film,' 'Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature,' 'Videogames and Japanese Culture.' Her students have presented academic papers at such prestigious conferences as the GEIS Student Research on Women conference (2010), the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies conference (2013, 2017, 2019) and the Greater Philadelphia Asian Studies Consortium (2014). Rachael has served as faculty liaison to the Japanese National Honor Society on campus as well as advisor to the UD Anime and Manga Club, the Kendo Club, Aikido Club, Genshiken and the UD Video Game Tournament Club.

Grants

In 2007 Rachael Hutchinson received a small Title VI grant to purchase materials for the course ‘Japanese Visual Culture,’ including two Playstation consoles and twelve game texts. The consoles formed the basis of our significant holdings in gaming hardware in the Morris Library. The game titles became the core texts for the course 'Japanese Visual Culture' in 2009, later expanded into the games-only course 'Videogames and Japanese Culture.’

As co-founder of the UD Game Studies Research Group, Rachael received a grant from the IHRC in 2013–2014 to further Game Studies on campus, through interfaculty collaboration as well as course development and expansion of library holdings. This grant funded a trip to Albuquerque for the Southwest Popular Culture Association conference in February 2015, where Rachael chaired and organized the roundtable ‘Connections and Directions: Establishing a Game Studies Research Group at the University of Delaware,’ with participants Daniel Chester (Computer Science and Informatics), Troy Richards (Art), Julie Dee (Communication), Phill Penix-Tadsen (DLLC) and Meghann Matwichuk (Morris Library). Troy later travelled to UCLA to help brainstorm ideas with faculty there, while Rachael participated in a further pedagogical symposium at Harvard for faculty interested in using game texts in courses.

In 2016 Rachael was awarded The Mae and Robert Carter Endowment Women’s Studies Faculty Research Award from the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. Funding covered conference travel and purchase of research materials, including a PlayStation Portable console and online subscription to the war game Kantai Collection. Dissemination included the public campus lecture ‘Representations of Women in Japanese War-themed Videogames’ in October 17 and the publication ‘The Body Political: Kantai Collection Media and WWII Enactment,’ in The Representation of Japanese Politics in Manga, ed. Roman Rosenbaum (Routledge 2020).

Rachael was recently named as one of the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellows for 2023-2025 with the project ‘Translating Japanese Videogame Theory.’ This ambitious project undertakes the translation of ten major essays of Japanese games scholarship, to widen accessibility and broaden the discipline of Game Studies. Funding will cover licensing fees, conference presentations, visiting speakers and an on-site translation workshop at UD involving not only the editors and translators but also students from advanced courses in Japanese translation and Game Studies & eSports.

Degrees

• D.Phil. Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, 2000
• B.A.Hon. History and Japanese, University of Newcastle, Australia, 1995

Publications

For a comprehensive view of Rachael's publications, visit her Academia profile page in Resources and Links.

Hutchinson, R. (2013). Negotiating censorship in modern Japan. 

Hutchinson, R. (2019). Japanese culture through videogames. 

Hutchinson, R. (Ed.). (2022). Japanese role-playing games: genre, representation, and liminality in the JRPG. Asian Studies Review, 48(3), 664–666. 

Hutchinson, R., & Williams, M. B. (2006). Representing the other in modern Japanese literature. In Routledge eBooks. 

Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature. (2016). In R. Hutchinson & L. D. Morton (Eds.), Routledge eBooks.