Aya Tanaka

Biography

Aya Tanaka has been teaching Commerce and Culture and Business and Society at Stern since 2011.

Prof Tanaka earned her PhD at Rutgers University, where her dissertation focused on historicism and historiography in travel accounts and fiction in eighteenth-century French literature. She taught at Rutgers New Brunswick and Paris, and she has held fellow and teaching positions at Williams College and Mount Holyoke College.

Her research focuses on the rhetorical strategies deployed in eighteenth-century business prospectuses, with special emphasis on the early history of the DuPont family and corporation.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Prof Tanaka worked as assistant equity strategist for BBVA Securities, providing political and economic analysis of Latin American markets to US institutional investors.

She also holds Masters degrees in International Finance and Business from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and in International Political Economy from American University. She received her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a double major in International Relations and French.

Research Interests

• Business in Literature
• International Trade & Cultural Exchange
• Pre-1800 Travel Literature
• Historiography and Literature

Courses Taught

• Business & Society
• Commerce & Culture

Academic Background

PhD, French / Comparative Literature, 2008
Rutgers University

MA, International Business & Finance, 1997
Columbia University

MA, International Political Economy, 1995
American University

BA, International Relation and French, 1994
Mount Holyoke College