Dr. Tara M. McGowan specializes in Japanese storytelling and visual culture. She majored in East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Princeton, graduating in 1990, and received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education in 2012. She has written two books about kamishibai (Japanese Paper Theater): The Kamishibai Classroom: Engaging Multiple Literacies through the Art of ‘Paper Theater’ (2010) and Performing Kamishibai: An Emerging New Literacy for a Global Audience (2015).
She works as Director of the nonprofit organization NCC Japan and as a consultant for the Japanese collection in the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University. Tara illustrates her own stories and offers teacher workshops and storytelling programs in schools, museum, and libraries.