Maria Grajdian is Associate Professor of Media Studies & Aesthetics of Subculture(s)/Popular Culture(s) at Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences (Hiroshima/Japan). She holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Hanover University of Media, Music and Drama, Germany. Her research and teaching focus on Japanese contemporary culture, history of knowledge and the dynamics of identity in late modernity. Recent publications include a number of research articles in academic journals as well as books, e.g., After Identity: Three Essays on the Musicality of Life and Cyberspaces of Loneliness: Love, Masculinity, Japan (both 2019, Pro Universitaria Press), Takahata Isao and Post-Cold-War Japanese Animation: Five Directors and Their Visions (both forthcoming, 2021).