Andy Astakhova is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Studies Program "History and Cultural Studies" (HCS) since October 2024, specializing in modern Japanese history. Their research at Freie Universität is focused on affirmative discourses of male homoeroticism in the Japanese Empire. Andy’s broader research interests include modern Japanese literature, East Asian sexology, historical memory, national and cultural identity, postcolonial and decolonial theory, and queer and feminist studies. Before joining HCS, they earned an MA in Global History from the University of Bayreuth with a dissertation on memory and homoerotic desire in the writings of Ozaki Shirō (1898-1964). 

In the current dissertation project, Andy Astakhova is researching affirmative discourses of male homoeroticism in the Japanese Empire under the provisional working title “(Homo)imperial Knowledges: Toward a Decolonial Understanding of Construction of Sex in Imperial Japan, 1920-1945”.

The dissertation project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Martin Lücke and Prof. Dr. Urs Matthias Zachmann and has been awarded with the Elsa Neumann Scholarship for doctoral candidates as of April 2025. 

Presentations

Andy Astakhova: Beautiful Fighting Youth: Homoerotic Temporalities in the Works of Ozaki Shirō, 1921–1963, as part of the "10. Forums für literaturwissenschaftliche Japanforschung", Trier University, 06/20/2025.