Shuichi TakebayashiTakebayashi portrait

Areas of Interest

  • American history and culture of the 20th century
  • music
  • popular culture
  • foreign policy

Biography

After earning degrees from Sophia University (BA) in Tokyo and from Penn State, Harrisburg (MA), Shuichi Takebayashi came to East Lansing in 2001. His research interests include American history and culture of the 20th century, music, popular culture, and foreign policy. He is currently working on his dissertation on the folk music revival movement.

He has presented papers at Mid-America/Great Lakes American Studies Association in 2003 (“Popularizing the Counterculture: An Analysis of The Whole Earth Catalog,”) and at Annual Meeting of Organization of American Historians in 2007 (“Tradition and Consumption: Folk Music Revival Movement in Greenwich Village”). He will be presenting his next paper on the British Invasion at International American Studies Association conference in September 2007.

Takebayashi’s first fascination with American culture was when he read Allen Ginsberg’s poetry. He quickly became a prisoner of beat literature. He attended Ginsberg’s, Gary Snyder’s, Michael McClure’s poetry readings when they came to Tokyo, and he created a radio program dealing with beat poets. He developed his interests into the postwar American culture in general and decided to become a researcher in that field.