Research team

Professor of Anthropology of Japan and director of the CERAO (East Asian Studies & Research Centre) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where he is also coordinator of University Master’s Degree in Global East Asian Studies. He has been a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellow (MICINN-JDC, Government of Spain) at the UAB, visiting fellow at the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan (Minpaku), postdoctoral scholar (BP-A AGAUR) in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, and visiting researcher (Monbukagakushō, Government of Japan) in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Tokyo. He coordinates the Media Studies Section of the EAJS (European Association for Japanese Studies), is a JAWS (Japan Anthropology Workshop) board member, and is the editor-in-chief and director of the book series Biblioteca de Estudios Japoneses (CERAO-UAB & Ed. Bellaterra). His publications include: “The World is a Room: Beyond Centers and Peripheries in the Global Production of Anthropological Knowledge,” Focaal, 63: 8-19 (2012), the co-edition with Shinji Yamashita of Japan in Global Circulation: Transnational Migration and Multicultural Politics, in Kokuritsu Minzokugaku Hakubutsukan Kenkyū Hōkoku, 40 (1), National Museum of Ethnology in Japan (2015), and  the books Escaping Japan: Reflections on Estrangement and Exile in the Twenty-first Century, Routledge, 2018 (with Paul Hansen, Hokkaido University) and Persistently Postwar: Media and the Politics of Memory in Japan, Berghahn Books, 2019 (with Artur Lozano-Méndez, UAB, y D.P. Martinez, University of Oxford).

blai.guarne@uab.cat
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Angélica Cabrera Torrecilla is visiting researcher at Cardiff University (2023) and a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers (SNI) (2020-2024). She has previously been a postdoctoral fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2019-2021) and Japan Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Global and Regional Studies at Ryukyus University (2018), where she was also a visiting postdoctoral researcher (2022), as well as at the Center for Asian and African Studies at the College of Mexico (2017-2018). She received her PhD degree in Literary Theory, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2017), funded by the National Science and Technology Council (CONACYT) and Secretariat of Public Education (SEP).

Her current line of research is focused on the comparative study of the uses of time and space in literary, philosophical and scientific traditions, and their reception and transformation in popular culture. Her publications include “Worshiping Ancestors: A Comparative Approach between Okinawan Kyū Bon and Mexican Día de Muertos,” The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society 11, 1 (2020): 29-47; and “Allegories of Japanese Women in Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui and Satoshi Kon,” The Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 19, 3, (2019).

cato.ang@gmail.com
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Carme Casablancas-Segura holds a PhD in Entrepreneurship and Management from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​as well as a degree in Economics and Business Science from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is currently studying the Official Master’s Degree in the Analysis and Management of Artistic Heritage at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is associate professor in the Department of Business at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she teaches Management and Cost Analysis. She has served as director of the School of Business Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​Administrator of the Bosch i Cardellach Foundation and is currently a board member at the Board of the Catalan Economists Association. In recent years her research has been focused on strategic marketing and the management of public universities. Her work has been published in journals such as Higher Education, the International Journal of Educational Management and the Spanish Journal of Marketing-ESIC. In the field of knowledge transfer, she is the co-author of Biznelis, an educational game for children based on entrepreneurship and management. The game has been developed in collaboration with the company Sabadell Shop S.L. and the Autonomous University of Barcelona and enjoys, ​​the special support of the Research Park. She is currently a research member of the Study and Research Centre in Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation, where she is working on the development of a line of research based on encouraging entrepreneurship among children through a play-based learning methodology.

Carme.Casablancas@uab.cat
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Centeno Martín, Marcos P. PhD, is a lecturer at University of Valencia, Council on East Asian Studies grant holder at Yale University (2022-23) and honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, where he was director of the Japanese Studies programme. Dr. Centeno had previously served as lecturer at SOAS, where he coordinated the MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural. He also was guest lecturer at Centre for Japanese Studies, Nanzan University en Nagoya (1st semester 2021/22), research associate at Waseda University, doctoral fellow (V-Segles) at the University of Valencia, visiting researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and the New Sorbonne University – Paris 3. He is recently leading a Project on the documentary maker Haneda Sumiko, funded by several British, Japanese and Spanish institutions. His his project “Japanese Transnational Cinema” has received grants from the Sasakawa and Daiwa foundations. He is a board member of the AEJE (Association of Japanese Studies in Spain). His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, Orientalia Parthenopea, MIRAI. Estudios Japoneses, the Irish Journal of Asian Studies (IJAS) and Global Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology. He has also co-edited, with Michael Raine, “Developments in Japanese Documentary Film,” Arts (2019) and with Norimasa Morita, “Japanese Transnational Cinema,” Arts (2019) and Japan beyond its Borders: Transnational Approaches to Film and Media, Seibunsha-Waseda, Waseda University Press. He has been awarded the Kokoro journal prize for the dissemination of Japanese culture in 2018 and 2015 for two different articles, and his full-length documentary Ainu. Pathways to Memory has won several prizes in Europe and America.

m.centeno@bbk.ac.uk
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Rebekah Clements is an ICREA at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She completed degrees in Law and Asian studies at the Australian National University where she was awarded the University Medal, before obtaining an MA in classical Japanese literature from Waseda University (2008). She completed her PhD in East Asian History from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in 2011. Following her PhD she was a research associate at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, working on the Leverhulme-funded project “Translation and vernacularisation in pre-modern East Asia” (PI: P.Kornicki), and held a junior research fellowship from Queen’s College from 2012-2015, where she completed her first monograph, A Cultural History of Translation in Early Modern Japan (Cambridge University Press). From 2015-2018, she held a lectureship and then an associate professorship at Durham University. She joined ICREA in October 2018.

rebekah.clements@icrea.cat
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Rossano Eusebio obtained a PhD Cum Laude in Economics and Business Administration from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He received two degrees, one in Economics and Trade from the University of Turin (Italy) and the other in Business Administration from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Currently, he is an associate professor (Head) of Marketing in the Department of Business at the UAB. He was Deputy Director of the Masters Programme in Marketing, Commerce and Distribution of the UAB (1998-2017) and South Director of the Master’s Degree in Euroasian International Business at the UAB (2006-2014). He has been visiting researcher at Bocconi University, University of Milan (Italy) and visiting professor at the University of Turin (Italy), SGH Warsaw School of Economics (Poland), Dublin City University (Ireland) and University of National and World Economics (Bulgaria), among others. He has extensive experience in research and consultancy projects for multinational consumer companies (Danone, General Electric, etc.), and is the author of numerous publications in national and international journals of impact (JCR), such as The European Management Journal, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management.

Rossano.Eusebio@uab.cat
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Makiko Fukuda holds a PhD in Catalan Philology from the University of Barcelona (2009) and is associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she teaches Japanese language and Japanese (socio)linguistics. She is the coordinator of the UAB exchange programme (Japanese area). She is a member of the Centre for Sociolinguistic and Communication Research (CUSC) and the East Asian Studies and Research Centre (CERAO). She was also a visiting researcher (2000-2001) and senior researcher (2015-2016) at the Keio Research Institute at SFC, Keio University (Japan). She was awarded the Jaume Camp prize for Sociolinguistics by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans/Òmnium (2010) and the Extraordinary Doctorate prize from the Faculty of Philology (2009/2010) for her doctoral thesis “The Japanese in Catalonia and the Catalan language: community, languages and ideologies,” defended at the University of Barcelona (UB).

Her recent publications include:  “Language education in a national school abroad in a bilingual society: a case of Japanese school in Catalonia,” Language and Intercultural Communication, 18(6):648-662 (2018); “La transmissió de la llengua d’herència a les famílies de l’Escola Complementària de la Llengua Japonesa de Barcelona (2004-2014)”, Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana, 27: 43-62 (2017); “Language use in the context of double minority: the case of Japanese-Catalan/Spanish families in Catalonia,” International Journal of Multilingualism 14(4): 401-418 (2017); “Double gateway to the host society? Knowledge and perceptions of Japanese people living in Catalonia regarding Language,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38 (1): 19-34 (2016).

makiko.fukuda@uab.cat
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Eduardo González de la Fuente is a “Margarita Salas” postdoctoral researcher at the School of Journalism, Media & Culture at Cardiff University, and a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of East Asian Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Previously, he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Research on North America of the National University of Mexico, at the Faculty of Global and Regional Studies of the University of Ryukyus, and at the Center for Asian and African Studies of El Colegio de México. He has also been a research fellow of the Japan Foundation and the Francisco Ayala Foundation. Eduardo’s work focuses on the cultural history of Japanese martial arts, with approaches ranging from historical sociology and folklore to cultural heritage and postmodern visual cultures. As a result of his exploration of karate culture, Eduardo also developed a deep interest in Okinawan studies. In 2021 he received the ‘Award for the Best Doctoral Dissertation by the Spanish Association of East Asian Studies’. An additional line of his academic work considers intersections between sociology and boxing literature.

Among others, his recent publications include: ‘Religion and Identity in Karate: Politics amidst Okinawan Heritage and Japanese Sport,’ in Religion and Sport in Japan, University of Hawai’i Press (2023); ‘Recentering the Cartographies of Karate: Martial Arts Tourism in Okinawa,’ Ido Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology (2021); or ‘In which Ways is Karate (dō) Japanese? A Consideration on Cultural Images of Bushidō and Nihonjinron in the Postwar Globalization of Martial Arts,’ Journal of Inter-Regional Studies: Regional and Global Perspectives of the Waseda University (2021). 

egonzalez@colmex.mx
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Tomás Grau de Pablos hold a PhD in Cultural Studies and Japanese Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His areas of interest cover the intercultural relationships between Japanese and Western popular culture, and the values and ideas that have developed from those relationships over the years. His thesis’ was focused on the creation and distribution processes of Japanese video games in Spain and their impact on the creative processes of the Spanish industry. Currently, his main area of research is centered around the impact that popular discourses around games first, and game design philosophies second, are influenced by an Orientalist vision of Japan and its culture as a whole.

Tomgradep@gmail.com
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Mihwa Jo Jeong holds a PhD in Linguistics and Semiotics (University of Franche-Comté, France) and is associate professor and coordinator on the exchange programme at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She is also the director of the King Sejong Institute in Barcelona, a member of CRL (Cellule de Recherche en Linguistique) and a Korean, French, Catalan and Spanish translation. Her research has focused on Korean syntax, linguistic typology and the translation of Korean literary texts. Her recent translations from Korean include; Corre, pare, corre! (Catalan 2016, Spanish), and La Vegetariana (2017).

mihwa.jo@uab.cat
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Antonio Loriguillo López holds a PhD in Communication Sciences and is a postdoctoral research fellow (APOSTD, Generalitat Valenciana) at Jaume I University. He also has been a predoctoral fellow (VALi+D, Generalitat Valenciana) at the same university. He has been a visiting researcher at Oxford Brookes University and participated in the first Kadokawa Media Mix Summer Programme at the University of Tokyo. He is the executive secretary of the journal L’Atalante: revista de estudios cinematográficos, assistant editor of the journal adComunica and a member of the executive editorial board of the journal Archivos de la Filmoteca. His publications include:  “Genealogía de las prácticas comunicativas de los otaku: evolución de la tecnología audiovisual y de la cultura fan en el consumo de anime,” Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, 31(4): 917-930 (2019); -“Crowdfunding Japanese Commercial Animation: Collective Financing Experiences in Anime,” International Journal on Media Management, 19(2): 182-195 (2017); “¿Cómo lo haría Haruhi? La construcción del media mix de Suzumiya Haruhi,” in Lozano-Méndez, A. (ed). El Japón contemporáneo: una aproximación desde los estudios culturales, Editorial Bellaterra, 2019 (pp. 171-192).

loriguil@uji.es
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Mario Malo is a postdoctoral researcher at the SGR within the MIRAS group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and holds a Ph.D. in Historical Sociology and Anthropology of Japan from the same institution. He also possesses a Master’s degree in Japanese Language and Culture from Takushoku University, Tokyo, and a double Master’s in East Asian Studies – specializing in Japan and Korea – from the University of Salamanca. His research sojourns include periods at SOAS (London), Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto), and he has been a recipient of scholarships from the Japanese Ministry of Culture (Takushoku University, Tokyo) and the Japan Foundation (Kansai Centre, Osaka).

Currently, he is a lecturer in the Master of Japanese Studies at UNIZAR, in the Degree of East Asian Studies at UAB, a History lecturer at UEZ, a lecturer in the Master’s Degree of International Affairs and Diplomacy at UOC-UNITAR, and in the Master of Cultural Management at the same university. He balances these academic roles with activities as a curator of art exhibitions and as an intercultural mediator.

Among his notable publications are: “Community Networks, Society 5.0, and Basic Income as Potential Elements for Population Stabilization in Empty Japan: A Socio-anthropological Approach to Discourse, Integration, and Social Impact,” in C. Tirado (Ed.), Demographic Challenges and Society 5.0 in Japan: A Legal and Social Perspective in the International Context, pp. 33-55, Thomson Reuters-Aranzadi; “Civil Society, Community, and Innovation for the Recovery of Natural Resources in the Iitatemura Area: The Madei Life Twelve Years After the Fukushima Debacle,” in D. Almazán (coord.), Japan at the Forefront, pp. 281-312, Federico Torralba Japanese Studies Collection, University of Zaragoza; “Glocalism, Localism, and Transculturation in the Periphery: Historical Trajectory of Social Movements in Okinawa,” in E. González (ed.), The Search for Okinawa, Japanese Studies Library UAB, Bellaterra Publishing, Barcelona; “Brief Socio-historical Tour of the Onto-epistemological Developments of Civil Society in Japan,” Deusto Journal of European Studies, in EU-Asia Pacific Social and Cultural Dialogue: Involving Civil Society in Interregional Relations, no. 05, pp. 75-107.

mario_malo87@hotmail.com
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Guillermo Martínez-Taberner obtained his PhD in History and his MA in World History from Pompeu Fabra University. He received his BA in East Asian Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and his BA in Contemporary History from the University of Valencia. He has been a visiting researcher at Università Ca’Forscari di Venezia (2001-2002), Venice International University (2002), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (2005-2006), the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (2011) and the Beijing Foreign Studies University (2016). He has been the coordinator of the Economic and Business Department of Casa Asia since 2007. He has been an adjunct professor in the Department of Humanities at Pompeu Fabra University since 2009, where he teaches on the BA in Global Studies and the Master’s Degree in Asian-Pacific Studies in a Global Context. Among his publications, he has been author or co-author of: Comunicación y poder en Asia oriental (EdiUOC, 2017), El Japón Meiji y las colonias asiáticas del imperio español (Ed. Bellaterra, 2017), El manga y la animación japonesa (EdiUOC, 2015), and Historia de Japón. Economía, Sociedad y Política (EdiUOC, 2012).

gmartinez@casaasia.es
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Anna Claudia Pellicelli holds a Degree in Economics from the University of Turin and a PhD in Business Administration from the “Bocconi University” in Milan. She has undertaken a research stay at the London Business School and is currently a full professor in Economics and Business Management-Strategic and International Marketing at the Department of Management of the University of Turin. In this institution she has directed the University Master’s Degree in Marketing, Sales and Digital Communication and in Marketing, Sales and Management of the Food Industry; the Degree in Business Management, Marketing and Strategies; as well as the Professional Refresher Course at the Pharma Business School. She has taught at Bocconi University, the University of Milan, the University of Eastern Piedmont, and ESCP-EAP, and has been a visiting professor at Paris Nanterre University, South Champagne Business School and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Thanks to her extensive research experience in the field of marketing and branding, her work has been published in journals such as the British Food Journal, Business Process Management Journal, Journal of Business Research, International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Business Process Management and Global Business and Economics Review.

annaclaudia.pellicelli@unito.it
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Mª Teresa Rodríguez Navarro has a BA in Law (UGR), an MA in Translation and Intercultural Studies(UAB) and a Ph. D in Translation and Interpreting. She is an associate professor at the Department of Linguistics and Theory of Literature (Japanese Studies Section UGR, since 2016). She has been a postdoctoral fellow at “The Japan Foundation” (Postdoctoral Long-Term Fellowship) and visiting researcher at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (IRCJS) of Kyoto, working on Japanese legislation as an intercultural product. She also has been a visiting scholar at Minakata Kumagusu Kenshoukan,Tanabe, a postdoctoral Scholar at DTIEAO (UAB) (2009-2012); and anassistant professor at DTIEAO (UAB) (2012-2016). Her publications include: “Patrimonio Cultural y Política en Japón: identidad cultural japonesa, diplomacia cultural y desarrollo económico,” co-authored with Ilto-Morales, K. in Japón, España e Hispanoamérica: identidades y relaciones culturales, Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2019.; (2017) “Interculturalidad, traducción y mediación en la Era Meiji: Okakura Kakuzô y El libro del Té,” Interasia Papers, Ed.(CERAO), UAB, Nº 59, p.1-20; amb Hidekatsu Sato; Barberán Francisco, (2013). Derecho Civil in “Introducción al Derecho Japonés Actual.”  Thompson- Reuters- Aranzadi, Chpt. 3. pp. 273-412.; (2010). “Censorship and self-censorship in Nitobe´s Bushido.The Soul of Japan, and four translations of the work.”  Censorship and Translation within and beyond the Western World.  Volume 23, Nº 2, pp. 53-88. Resenya de: (2018) Nana Sato et al Ed. “The Diversity of Translation Communities in Contemporary Japan.” Routledge, 2015, Nihon kenkyû, Special issue, nº 54. She is a member of: CERAO, UAB; (AEEAO); the Spanish Association of Japanese Languaje Teachers (AJPE); the European Association of Japanese Studies,  -(EAJS); Invited scholar-:(IRCJS), Kyoto and Minakata Kumagusu Kenshoukan,Japan;  Granada Lawyers Guild.

maiyurod@ugr.es
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Alba Serra-Vilella holds a PhD in Translation and intercultural Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, with the thesis “The Translation of Japanese Books in Spain (1900-2014) and the Role of The Paratexts in the Creation of Otherness,” for which she received the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize. She specialises in Japanese language and is currently an associate professor at the UAB. She graduated in Translation and Interpreting (2009), and obtained a master in Audiovisual translation (2010) and the official Master’s degree in translation, interpreting and intercultural studies, specialising in research in contemporary East Asia (2011). She obtained a FI-DGR grant for the doctorate and a Jasso scholarship to carry out a research residency at the University of Kobe, Japan (2014/09-2015/02). She also completed a teaching training course at the Japan foundation Urawa Centre, Saitama  (Short-Term Training Program for Teachers of the Japanese-Language, January to March 2019). Her main lines of research are the translation of Japanese, the reception of Japanese literature, the paratexts of translation and the didactics of the Japanese language. Her publications include the articles: “The other reflected in book covers: Japanese novel translations in Spain” (Cultura Lenguaje y Representación, 19, 2018) and “Quién traduce literatura japonesa en España: agentes en la traducción y publicación” (Onomázein, 52, Prensa); and the book chapter written jointly with Jordi Mas López, “Les traduccions literàries indirectes del japonès al català: visió retrospectiva i Estat de la Qüestió” (2014).

alba.serra@uab.cat
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PhD with Honours in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the Rovira i Virgili University (2013) with her thesis on literary exchanges between Korea and the US after the Korean War (1950 and 2000 ). She is currently an associate professor at the Department of Translation and East Asian Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Korean Language and Translation) and coordinates the Exchange Program with Korea at the UAB. She has worked as visiting professor of translation in the Department of English Studies at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2018-2021), English language and linguistics associate professor at the European University of the Atlantic (2016-7), adjunt professor at the Open University of Catalonia (2014-2020), Spanish Language Lecturer at Yonsei University (2005-06) and Visiting Professor at Chonbuk National University (2002-04). She is the current secretary of the Spanish Association for East Asian Studies (AEEAO) and a member of the terminology and Wikipedia committee of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST). She is about to publish her second book, together with researchers from U. Lisbon and UNL, on indirect translation: “Indirect Translation Explained”.

ester.torres@uab.cat
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Uhjeen Lee obtained her PhD Cum Laude in Society and Culture from the University of Barcelona. Her thesis, in 2021, was of the “Habits and Cultural Practices of the Korean Community in Catalonia”. She has specialized in Korean society and is currently an Associate Professor at the UAB.She graduated in Anthropology from the National University of Chonbuk where she received a scholarship for the highest grade for consecutive years while also obtaining the Official Masters Degree in Cultural Management from the University of Barcelona (2013). Her current lines of research, focus on the transformation of the contemporary Korean diaspora. She is about to publish an article about the configurations of the Korean Community in Barcelona and its relationship with the boom in the Korean Wave. 

UhJeen.Lee@uab.cat
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Just Castillo Iglesias holds a BA in Political Science and Administration from the Pompeu Fabra University (2005), an MA in European Studies from the University of Maastricht (2007), a Master’s in East Asian Studies from the Open University of Catalonia (2009), and a Master’s in Teaching from the National University of Distance Education (2019). In 2014, he received a Ph.D. in International Public Policy from Osaka University with a dissertation on the EU’s political and security relations with China and Japan.

Throughout his professional and academic career, he has collaborated with several internationally renowned institutions, including the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht and Barcelona, the Center for European Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, and Waseda University in Tokyo.

He currently teaches political science and international relations at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF).

just.castillo@uab.cat
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Alba Torrents holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She pursued her doctoral studies in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), where she also obtained a PhD in Social Communication. After defending her thesis, she was honored with an extraordinary doctoral award.

During her time as a doctoral student, Alba received a scholarship from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) of Argentina, where she worked as a researcher at the Center for Research and Studies in Culture and Society (CIECS) of UNC. Upon completing her doctoral phase, she obtained a grant from the Japan Foundation, which allowed her to visit Kyoto Seika University and the International Manga Museum in Kyoto as a visiting professor. Recently, she has been the recipient of a postdoctoral scholarship from the Japan Foundation to conduct research at the University of Niigata.

She has authored more than a dozen publications, many of which have appeared in indexed journals, and has contributed to four book chapters. Notably, her publications include her contributions to the books Estudios sobre cultura visual japonesa: videojuegos, manga y anime and Estudios de Anime: Aproximaciones a Neon Genesis Evangelion desde una perspectiva de medios. She has presented her work at national and international conferences and participated in various international research groups in Córdoba (Argentina) and Kyoto during her doctoral studies.

Alba.Torrents@uab.cat
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Jordi Serrano-Muñoz is a postdoctoral researcher specializing in comparative literature, reception, and transpacific connections. He teaches at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the University of Granada. He has also been a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at El Colegio de Mexico and Japan Foundation Fellow (2021-2022) at Waseda University. He holds a PhD in humanities by the Pompeu Fabra University, a Research Master in literary studies by Leiden University, and a Degree in East Asian Studies by the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

jordi@serranomunoz.com
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Associate Professor at the Open University of Catalonia and Director of the Master’s in International Affairs and Diplomacy UOC-United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Faculty of Law and Political Science, is also an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in the field of International Relations. He has been a visiting professor at Keio University (2009) and Kobe University thanks to the Japan Foundation scholarship program, sponsored by the government of Japan. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and European Integration, having written a doctoral thesis on Japanese strategy in the face of China’s rise. Additionally, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Administration from Pompeu Fabra University, a Higher Degree in International and Intercultural Studies, specializing in Asia (UAB). His research focuses on Japanese foreign policy, Sino-Japanese relations, International Relations theory, particularly the role of non-Western theory, and regional cooperation processes in the Asia-Pacific. Among his publications, notable works include the Manual of Japanese Foreign Policy (2010), “Hedging Against China: Japanese Strategy Towards a Rising Power” (2018, Asian Security, co-authored with Àngels Pelegrín), and “Beyond the gaiatsu model: Japan’s Asia-Pacific policy and Neoclassical Realism (2022, Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs).

lluc.vidal@uoc.edu