Felicity Gee
Felicity was awarded her doctoral thesis in Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London entitled “The Critical Roots of Magic Realism: Franz Roh, Alejo Carpentier, Fredric Jameson.” Her work focuses on critical texts and artistic practice within the modernist avant-garde that address the merveilleux. She gets excited about critical theory, the intersection of literature, film and the plastic arts, and is a little bit obsessed with Sergei Parajanov, Guy Maddin, Raúl Ruiz, and Werner Herzog. Most likely to be found watching ‘slow cinema’and avant-garde short films, or reading Yukio Mishima, Joris-Karl Huysmans and Djuna Barnes. A fan of: Surrealism, irrationality, French pop, and shoegaze bands. Not a fan of: Tom Hanks, reggae, or car chases.
Jennifer Coates
Jenny has recently been awarded a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London for her thesis on “National Crisis and the Female Image; Expressions of Trauma in Japanese Film 1945-1964.” She is now an Assistant Professor at the Hakubi Centre for Advanced Research at the University of Kyoto. Her research interests include gender, visual media, trauma and memory studies. She’s often up all night, so forgive her the odd typo.
Iris Haukamp
Iris Haukamp is a PhD student at the School or Oriental and African Studies, working on a thesis titled “Reassessing a German-Japanese film-project during World War 2 : Why context(s) matter(s).” Her thesis investigates the making of Japanese and German films Atarashiki Tsuchi and Die Tochter des Samurai , with a focus on film export, propaganda, and art. She intends to demonstrate the impact of the researcher’s choice of contextual frameworks for the analysis of cultural products by means of these case studies.
Lois Barnett
Lois Barnett is currently completing an MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, focusing on Japanese cinema. Following completion of her MA studies, she will undertake postgraduate research considering the role of Western-inspired fashion and costume in the Japanese cinema of the 1920s and ’30s. Her main research interests are fashion, modernity and gender representation onscreen.
Laz Carter
Laz Carter is a Film Studies academic with an interest in the theories of stardom, authorship, fandom and cyber-piracy. He has completed both a BA and an MA in Film Studies at the University of Exeter and he is currently working towards his PhD at SOAS, University of London. As well as being an avid cinema-goer and a passionate PokéManiac, he also enjoys endlessly re-watching David Attenborough documentaries.
Seán Hudson
Seán Hudson is a writer and film enthusiast interested in Deleuzian theory, queer theory, and other exciting theories about bodies and identities. He has a BA in Philosophy and Literature, an MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural, and is working towards a PhD in Media Studies. Seán started his doctoral research at the University of Kansai in 2014. He is held in thrall by polyphonic novels, extinct animals, and peanut butter of all varieties.
Irene Gonzales Lopez
After completing a BA in Media Studies with a major on Advertising and Public Relations, Irene moved to Japan in 2005. After learning Japanese for a year, she entered Tenri University and obtained her second BA in Japanese Studies. At Kyoto University she completed a MA in Film Studies and wrote her master’s dissertation on the film director Masumura Yasuzo, focusing on the representation of the female in his work. She is currently a 2nd year PhD student at SOAS, researching the representation of prostitution in postwar Japanese cinema.
Alicia Wurm
Alicia has recently completed a BA Japanese degree at SOAS. She had an interest in film and theater from an early age, including a spell in the National Youth Theater in her early teens, and is currently working on her bachelor’s thesis, focusing on the theory of Gender as Performance in film. She can usually be found under a duvet (or table) and is generally a nocturnal and party-ready creature.
Lauri Kitsnik
Lauri is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, currently completing his dissertation on the history and practices of screenwriting in Japan. He enjoys films best when they are pre-1964 and/or black-and-white and/or silent, or better yet, lost (so he can read the screenplay instead).
Matthew Airey
Matthew recently completed his MA in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural at SOAS, University of London. His research to date has explored the stylistic and thematic affinities between European modernist cinema and the New Iranian Cinema. His doctoral research will consider the representation of the mother figure in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. After two years at the London Iranian Film Festival, he is an occasional lecturer on the new Film degree at UCS.
