Robin LeBlanc is a political anthropologist who studies Japanese politics by joining in the activities and daily lives of her research subjects. Using the stories and the vocabulary they teach her in conversations over cups of tea, in the community activities she observes, and in formal interviews, LeBlanc writes about how ordinary men and women struggle to make sense of the limits and possibilities of democracy even as they negotiate expectations from and obligations to work, family, and neighborhood. LeBlanc grew up mostly in East Tennessee. She majored in English at Berry College in Rome, Georgia before getting her doctorate in political science from the University of Oklahoma. A professor of politics at Washington and Lee University, LeBlanc teaches courses in political philosophy, East Asian politics, and gender. Her current projects include a memoir about single motherhood in America and a study of how new urban architecture shapes community.