Anna Woźny is completing her doctorate in Sociology at the University of Michigan. Before receiving her BA in East Asian Studies from the University of Tokyo, she studied Japanese Philology at the Jagiellonian University in Poland, where she’s originally from. Her research examines how cultural processes reproduce social inequality around gender and sexuality. In particular, she focuses on how states, markets, and institutions shape intimate experiences and individual sensemaking.

Anna’s research has been generously supported by the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, the Japan Foundation, and multiple centers and institutes within the University of Michigan. Her sole-authored and collaborative articles have appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, the American Sociological Review, and the Annual Review of Sociology. Her 2022 article, “Herbivorous Men, Carnivorous Women: Doing Masculinity and Femininity in Japanese ‘Marriage Hunting’” received the Sally Hacker Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sex and Gender and additional awards in Sociology, Gender Studies, and Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan.

Anna’s doctoral dissertation, Marriage-Hunting: Markets, Morals, and Marriageability in Contemporary Japan, examines the new Japanese dating industry—an area of particular interest given the Japanese government’s desire to counter population decline and boost economic growth. During her time as a UTokyo-Princeton Postdoctoral Fellow, Anna will complete a book manuscript and several articles based on this project.