Fred and Fannie Mack Professor of Humanities and Professor of Japanese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

Areas of Interest: Modern Japanese literature, film, and cultural criticism; narrative topography; city cultures; modern tragedy

Professor Anderer is writing a book tentatively titled “The Brothers Kurosawa.” It is about the famous director Akira Kurosawa and his older brother Heigo, the prodigal son turned silent film narrator or “benshi,” who committed suicide in 1933. The story of these brothers unfolds on other themes: traumatic memory; the cinematic “layering” of history; monochrome/silence as tragic medium.

Professor Anderer holds degrees from Michigan, Chicago, and Yale, and has held teaching or research appointments at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Notre Dame, and Kinki University . He joined the Columbia faculty in 1980.