Liliane Höppe

Liliane Höppe is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna, specialising in cultural studies. During her master’s degree in Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna, she focused on Okinawa Studies and the discourse surrounding Shimao Toshio’s concept of Yaponeshia – an alternative conception of “Japan” with a focus on Okinawa.

Her current research explores questions of culture and identity in Japanese literature, with a particular emphasis on Shimao Toshio’s so-called ‘Southern Island Essays’. Using digital close reading methods, she analyses Shimao’s conception of culture and identity as well as ambivalent reflections on the cultural ties between Okinawa and mainland Japan. One of her goals is to uncover the intricate web of ideological discourses on culture and identity in Shimao’s work.

During her stay at the DIJ, she focuses on the culture and identity discourses of the 1950s to the 1980s and examines how the ideological currents of this period shaped Shimao’s literary production.