Akira Asada

Akira Asada (浅田 彰, Asada Akira, born March 23, 1957) is a Japanese postmodern critic and curator, whose interests include contemporary arts, the history of social thought, and economic philosophy. He is currently the Dean of the Graduate School at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. Until March 2008, he served as an associate professor of economics at the Institute of Economic Research at Kyoto University (KIER). Asada is widely recognized as the author of the bestselling book, "構造と力─記号論を超えて (Structure and Power--Beyond Semiotics)", which was published in 1983. (It is often translated as Structure and Force as well.) He holds a position as a member of the supervisory committee at NTT InterCommunication Center, and was a co-editor of a Japanese quarterly journal Hihyōkūkan (Critical Space) with Kojin Karatani until 2002.