I am an Australian citizen but only lived in that country from ages 0-3. Secondary education was in Canada, Italy and the U.S.A. After a year in Germany, I studied European languages and literatures (exclusively medieval) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I then spent a year teaching in Italy before returning to England to do graduate work at Manchester University, writing a master's thesis on a genre of medieval German poetry.
I came to Japan in 1980 at the age of 26. Apart from sabbaticals in Cambridge and Oxford, I have lived here ever since, first in Tokyo then Yokohama. Since 1986 I have been on the staff of the Faculty of International Studies at Meiji Gakuin University, where I now teach Japanese narrative literature (the Tale of the Heike, the Tale of Genji) and comparative literature (epic, drama, translation theory).
In 1997 I began work on a doctoral degree for Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University, as a member of the Queen's College, completing a D.Phil. thesis in 2003 entitled "A narrative study of the Kakuichi-bon Heike monogatari."
I have published in English and Japanese on Heike monogatari and related topics. I was also the translator for the Fujitsu Tale of the Heike CD-ROM. Elsewhere on this site there is a list of recent publications and talks. I have also been a member of a Kanze noh utai group in Yokohama for more than ten years.
Since September 1999, I have been running pmjs--a mailing list/web site in premodern Japanese studies.
More formal cv here (PDF format):
At symposium in Osaka University (March, 2002). Thanks to Professor Ii.