Jennifer Prough

Jennifer Prough ’91, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist with field research experience in Japan. Her teaching and research interests include the anthropology of media, anthropology of tourism, Japanese studies, gender studies, and globalization. At the heart of Prough’s research and teaching interests are issues of representation and the ways that cultural meanings are produced and managed, experienced and interpreted through mass culture. Her first book, Straight from the Heart: Gender, Intimacy, and the Cultural Production of Shōjo Manga (University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), examines the production of girls’ comics in Japan through ethnographic analysis. Her most recent book, Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Kyoto (University of Hawai’i Press, 2022), analyzes the ways that tradition, history, and culture are produced, packaged, promoted, and consumed in the Kyoto tourist industry.

As a Christ College and Valparaiso alumna, Jennifer is deeply devoted to the transformative experience that a cohort-based, interdisciplinary honors education delivered by a dedicated faculty can provide. She served as Interim Dean of Christ College in 2017-2018, and again in 2021 before being named Dean in 2023. Jennifer is committed to facilitating holistic educational experiences of the highest caliber to a more diverse community of honors students. 

.