Amanda Kennell is an expert writer, speaker, curator, and teacher whose research centers on Japan, media, and how media content evolves as it moves across various media environments. She is an assistant professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Kennell’s book, Alice in Japanese Wonderlands: Translation, Adaptation, Mediation, dissects Japan’s multitude of Alice in Wonderland adaptations from the 19th century to today to show how media connect to each other and how fictional worlds can maintain coherence despite being adapted by diverse people with different goals, abilities, and restrictions. Her academic work has also appeared in the International Journal of Comic Art, the Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, the Journal of Popular Culture, and the Knight Letter, as well as the exhibition catalogue for the British Museum’s Manga exhibit, on which she consulted. She co-hosts the Japanese Studies channel of the New Books Network of podcasted interviews with the authors of new scholarly books. She has written for general audiences through the Conversation, the Washington Post, and Hollywood Spotlight’s The Ultimate Guide to Dungeons & Dragons.

Dr. Kennell teaches about Asian cultures – and in particular, Japanese animation, literature, film, comics, and video games – as well as the workings of transnational industries, nuclear energy issues, and new media technologies such as robots, advances in 3D animation, and social media. She has taught about globalization, propaganda around the world, historical epidemics and pandemics, the ethics of international charities, and even screenwriting… once.

She received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Smith College. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Nippon Foundation, the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, the Modern Language Association, the Association of Asian Studies, and the Cassady Lewis Carroll Collection, among others.