Jan B. Gordon was one of a group of six foreign academics invited to professorships at National Universities in Japan when the law was changed in 1983 prohibiting non-Japanese from holding such positions. He was granted Emeritus Status in 2004 and from 2007 to 2014 was a distinguished professor at Kyoto Women's Department of English. He was therefore initially what is known as a white (affirmative action) appointment.
""In The Power of Public Opinion in the Novels of Anthony Trollope, Jan Gordon offers a fascinating account of Anthony Trollope’s fiction, which is full of compelling insights into both the dynamics of public opinion and the power of story-telling"" — James Eli Adams, Professor of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University. ""This book expands existing understanding of Trollope’s exceptional interest in the way people make up their minds and on what basis. Reading Trollope’s fiction within the history of ideas, Gordon investigates adeptly the new presence in the nineteenth century of ‘public opinion’ in shaping ideas themselves and guiding decisions"" — Professor Francis O'Gorman MA DPhil (Oxford) FSA, Saintsbury Professor of English Literature, Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh, UK. ""Richly informed and fascinatingly argued A ‘Tenth Muse’ mobilizes the concept of public opinion as a means to discuss morality, law, politics, power and knowledge across the enormous scope of Trollope’s works. Closely detailed as well as imaginatively theorized in its readings, this book will be essential reading for scholars of Trollope and the Victorian public sphere"" — Simon J. James, Professor of Victorian Literature, Department of English Studies, Durham University.