Rate My Professor Rachel Thorn

Rachel Thorn is a faculty member at Kyoto Seika University, affiliated with the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of International Culture. Born in 1965 in Pennsylvania, USA, she first encountered Japanese manga while studying abroad at Konan University in 1985. She earned an M.A. from the University of Illinois East Asian Studies program, focusing on shōjo manga, and later pursued graduate studies in cultural anthropology at Columbia University, where she received M.A. and M.Phil. degrees. In 1994–1995, she was awarded a fellowship from the Japan Foundation to conduct research on manga readers in the Kansai region.

Thorn began teaching at Kyoto Seika University as a part-time lecturer in 1997 and contributed to the establishment of the manga department, becoming an associate professor in the Department of Comic Art in 2000. She has translated numerous Japanese manga into English, including works by Moto Hagio such as The Poe Clan, Barbara, and The Heart of Thomas, as well as Wandering Son by Takako Shimura. Her professional activities have included writing columns for publications such as Dokushojin, The Japan Times Weekly ST, and the Kyoto Shimbun, and serving on the selection committee for the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize from 2003 to 2005. Her research interests center on manga, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, and cultural anthropology.