Lyle De Souza is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Kyoto Notre Dame University. His scholarship investigates how Nikkei literature articulates the complexities of diaspora, race, identity and belonging, offering critical insights into the lived experiences of contemporary migrant and minority communities. Informed by an interdisciplinary framework encompassing literary criticism, cultural studies, Japanese studies and sociology, his work effectively bridges traditional academic boundaries. His recent project, ‘Nikkei Global Literature: Diaspora, Race, Identity & Belonging’ (KAKENHI 21K12957), systematically explores these conceptual intersections within global diasporic texts.

News & Events

2026

FORTHCOMING Conference presentation: ‘Subverting the Portal: Kintsugi Poetics and the Reframing of Fantasy in Nikkei Youth Fiction’ at the 2027 MLA Convention, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, 7-10 January 2027. Website ↗️.

FORTHCOMING Conference presentation: ‘The Biopolitics of Erasure: Fascism and Nikkei Resistance in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being’ at the 2027 MLA Convention, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, 7-10 January 2027. Website ↗️.

FORTHCOMING Conference presentation: ‘Mapping Nikkei Identity: Historical Contingency and Belonging in Anglophone Literature’ at the Kyoto Asian Studies Group, Kyoto University, 23 October 2026.

FORTHCOMING Conference presentation: ‘The Transpacific Archive of Things: Materiality, Memory, and the Textual Recovery of the ‘Enemy Language’ in Anglophone Nikkei Literature’ at the 36th Annual Conference of The Japanese Association for Migration Studies, Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Campus (Koshinkan), 4-5 July 2026. Website ↗️.

FORTHCOMING Joint research seminar: ‘Race and Racism in Japan’ with guest speaker Yasuko Takezawa (Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University; Director Intercultural Research Institute, Kansai Gaidai University), Kyoto Notre Dame University, 20 April 2026. Poster ↗️.

2025

Conference presentation: ‘(Re)Constructing Race in Transborder Vistas: Intersectionality and Takezawa’s 3R in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go’ at 33rd AALA Forum—'(Asian) Transborder Literature and Intersectionality: Race/Gender/Sexuality’, Nihon University, Tokyo, 20-21 September 2025. Handout ↗️.

Journal article: ‘On the Messiness of Understanding Minoritarian Elliptical Lives’ in AALA Journal Special Feature: 35th Anniversary Forum—'Transborder Asian Literature and (Post-) Colonialism’, No. 30, pp.29-33 (May).

Field trip: With De Souza seminar students to 海外移住と文化の交流センター, Kobe, 16 April, 2025.

Teaching: New course added Literary Criticism, begins April 2025.

Teaching: New course added History of British Literature, begins April 2025.

Journal article: ‘Intermarriage and the Transformation of Canadian Nikkei Identity’ in Bulletin of Kyoto Notre Dame Women's University, No. 55, pp. 17-32 (March)

Research trip: JICA: Japan Overseas Migration Museum, Yokohama, 22 March, 2025. Special Exhibition: San Jose Japantown: The Passion of Immigrants' Spirit and Spirit.

Research trip: Taipei, Taiwan, 16-20 March, 2025. Visits to Japan-related historical sites, Academia Sinica, National Taiwan Museum, National Museum of History (Taiwan).

Research trip: Museum of Japanese Emigration to Hawaii, Yamaguchi, 11 March, 2025.

Media: ビデオデ・スーザゼミナール：日系ディアスポラ文学、セミナー受講希望者向け。

Research trip: National Diet Library International Library of Children's Literature, National Diet Library, Tokyo, 4 March, 2025.

Research trip: Hawaii Emigration Museum Nihojima Village, Hiroshima, 1 March, 2025.

Research trip: Nagasaki Museum of History & Culture, Nagasaki, 22-23 February, 2025.

Research trip: JICA: Japan Overseas Migration Museum, Yokohama, 20 February, 2025.

Teaching: New course added "History of British Literature", begins April 2025.

Media: Video "De Souza Seminar - Nikkei Diaspora Literature", for prospective seminar students.

Intensive course: ‘Seminar in Global Communication: Nikkei Diaspora Short Stories’, Kobe University, 6 -8 February 2025. [Kobe University students only]

Archive (news & events)

Banner photo: Speaking at the 2022 Public Lecture at Kyoto Notre Dame University.

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