Michael Geoffrey Watson, born 1953 in Australia.
Since 1980 I have lived in Japan, a country where middle names are not used. There are so many authors called Michael Watson on Amazon that I am rather sorry that my publications do not not include "Geoffrey" as well!
I was brought up in England, Canada, and the United States, spending several years in Italy and Germany. I have now lived longer in Japan than anywhere else, first in Tokyo and then in Yokohama. My academic career began with European languages and literatures (mainly medieval) at the universities of Cambridge and Manchester. After learning Japanese, I moved over geographically without too much difference in time to Japanese medieval literature and drama, doing a doctorate at Oxford (2003) on the narrative techniques of THE TALE OF THE HEIKE (Heike monogatari) and studying noh singing with teachers of the Kanze school.
I live and work in Yokohama, teaching Japanese literature and Japanese culture at Meiji Gakuin University. My two academic interests center around THE TALE OF THE HEIKE and NOH PLAYS. These two interests are combined in the book co-edited with Elizabeth Oyler, _Like Clouds or Mists_. This phrase in the title is an expression that occurs at key moments in the description of battles in war tales like the HEIKE to describe the great numbers of warriors "like clouds or mists" (unka no gotoku 雲霞の如く).
Some of my other publications in academic books or journals are available for download at
https://meijigakuiin.academia.edu/MichaelWatson
