He received his B.A. and M.A. in English from University of Leeds, and his Ph.D from Kyoto University, with a thesis exploring East-West encounters in Anglophone travel writing about Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan through attention to the practice and writing of “interior travel” (naichi ryokō). He has published on this and related topics in English Language Notes, Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing, the electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies and, most recently, Studies in Travel Writing. A chapter on interior travel is included in The British Abroad Since the Eighteenth Century, Volume 1: Travellers and Tourists (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Presently, he is co-editing a special edition of Japan Review (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto) on tourism, war, and modern Japan.