Overview
I am a first year PhD student, and I am researching Japanese disaster narratives from an ecocritical perspective.
I have a BA (Hons) in Japanese Studies with Anthropology from Oxford Brookes University. As part of this degree, I spent a year abroad studying at the University of Kitakyushu in Japan.
I also have an MA in Comparative Literatures and Cultures from the University of Bristol. My master's thesis was titled 'The stories we tell: How literary responses to Chernobyl and Fukushima show a disruption of time, space, and the ‘stories we live by’ after environmental crisis.'
I am a member of the British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS).
Research
Research interests
Main Research Interests
My main research interests are Japanese culture and ecocriticism, and I am currently exploring Japanese disaster narratives (in literature, films, video games etc.) from an ecocritical perspective to see the role culture plays in formulating or reinforcing ideas about disaster and the environment. I first became interested in exploring narratives from an ecocritical perspective when I took a module during my master's on literature and the environment.
Thesis
What can ecocritical analyses of Japanese apocalyptic narratives tell us about ideas of disaster and the environment?
Japan is continually affected by events such as earthquakes and tsunamis; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are to date the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict; and most recently, the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (referred to as 3/11) triggered a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Japan has therefore experienced a range of disasters, and these have been documented, written about, and dramatized in a variety of ways.
In apocalyptic narratives authors create extreme situations in which to imagine what could happen after total environmental destruction. Although it may seem that such extremes are confined to the fictional realm, apocalyptic narratives are often based on real-life events.
I am therefore exploring whether Japanese apocalyptic narratives extrapolate from real environmental disasters in Japan, and what they can tell us about ideas on environmental disaster in Japanese society; I will then analyse how these narratives might critique or renegotiate these ideas.
Funding source
The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation
