German, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese Studies
Japanese Faculty
Chiaki Takagi has been teaching the Japanese Studies courses since 2000. She has designed and implemented courses including "Modern Japan" and "Women in Japanese Film and Literature." She is the organizer of the Japanese Film Series, J-Day and J-Club.
Her research focuses on comparative analysis of postwar Japan's cultural formation. She is currently writing her Ph. D dissertation on Haruki Murakami. In addition, she holds a North Carolina teaching license in Japanese with 10 years of experience in the Guilford County Schools.
Keiko Kaku-MacDonald, Ph.D
B.A. Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, Japan, 2001 Languages
M.A. University of Ottawa, Canada 2003, Linguistics
Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada 2009, Linguistics
Keiko Kaku-MacDonald, Ph.D is a visiting assistant professor of Japanese studies at the department of German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
Her research interests focus on the field of linguistics, especially second language acquisition and psycholinguistics. Her research combines theories on generative approaches of second language acquisition and probabilistic cognitive learning theory examined through psycholinguistic techniques to understand the mechanisms of second language learning. She also consults in the design of several BlackBerry apps which employ dynamic adaptive algorithms to teach languages to the end user.