Dr Mika Ko

BA (Sugiyama University, Japan), MA, PhD (University of Ulster)

    Photo of Dr Mika Ko

    Email: m.ko@shef.ac.uk

      Profile and Research Interests

      Mika Ko joined the School of East-Asian Studies as a lecturer in 2006 after working as a Japanese teaching fellow at the University of Leeds. Her research interests are in the fields of Film, Media and Cultural Studies. She is particularly interested in Japanese and other East-Asian Cinema more generally. Mika Ko’s current research project focuses on gender and sexuality in Japanese cinema. Since 2008 (until August 2010), Dr. Ko is a visiting scholar at Waseda University in Tokyo as a recipient of a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) scholarship. She is currently writing about the Japanese experimental filmmaker, Idemitsu Mako. The research primarily focuses on the relationship between feminist politics and Idemitsu’s avant-garde aesthetics.

        Research Supervision

        Mika Ko welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in the fields of Japanese and other East-Asian cinema.

          Publications

          Book
          Japanese Cinema and Otherness: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem of Japaneseness (Routledge, Forthcoming)

          Journal articles
          ‘Takamine Go: A Possible Okinawan Cinema’ in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 7:1 2006, pp. 156-170.
          ‘The Break-Up of the National Body: Cosmetic Multiculturalism and the Films of Miike Takashi’, in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 2:1, 2004, pp. 29-39.

          Book Chapters
          ‘Mirroring Narcissism: Representation of Zainichi in Yukisada Isao’s GO!’ in John Hill and Kevin Rockett (eds), National Cinemas and World Cinema, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006, pp. 105-114.
          ‘Representing Okinawa: Contesting Images in Contemporary Japanese Cinema’ in John Hill and Kevin Rockett (eds), Film History and National Cinema: Studies in Irish Film II, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005, pp. 37-46.
          ‘The Break-Up of the National Body: Cosmetic Multiculturalism and the Films of Miike Takashi’ (reprint) in Paul Willemen and Valentina Vitali (eds), Theorising National Cinemas, London: BFI Publishing, 2006, pp. 129-37.