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  Title:

  Associate Professor

  Teacher Group:

  Modern Japanese Studies

Classes

The Body and Gender

Class Content

This course explores gender and sexuality in contemporary Japan.

The purpose of this course is to give a theoretical and empirical overview of gender, the body, and sexuality, primarily in contemporary Japan. We will ask: "What is the body?" "What is gender?" "What is sexuality?" "How does ‘culture’ shape the body and gender? and “How is gender and sexuality experienced in Japan?” To answer these questions, we will explore a variety of theoretical and ethnographic materials (including readings and documentary films) on how gender, sexuality and the body has been understood, constructed, and experienced in the socio-historical context of post-war Japan.
(Please note, this class – and any guidance and supervision – is provided in English).

Brief Outline of History & Achievements

I received a PhD in Social Anthropology from SOAS, University of London in 2010, and joined the Modern Japanese Studies Program at Hokkaido University in 2013. In 2016 I published my first monograph titled: Reconstructing Adult Masculinities: Part Time Work in Contemporary Japan with Routledge, followed by an edited volume in 2019 with Allison Alexy titled Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of Closeness and Conflict, published with the University of Hawai’i Press. My current research focuses on food, illness and health in Japan and the UK. For more information please see https://researchmap.jp/cook/ or my website: https://emmaecook.com

To Personal Page on Hokkaido University's Researcher Directory

Academic Society Affiliations

Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI); European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA); Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA); American Anthropological Association (AAA), Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology (JASCA)

E-mail

cook@imc.hokudai.ac.jp

Research Areas

Social and medical anthropology (relating to gender, food, health and illness)

Interests

Below is a list of selected publications from my research. Please note that I currently only work with research students who have a disciplinary background in Social/Cultural Anthropology and/or Japanese Studies and who plan to write their thesis in English. Topics I am able to supervise include aspects of gender/sexuality, food, and health/illness.

Selected Peer Reviewed Publications:
2020 “Embodied Memory, Affective Imagination and Vigilance: Navigating Food Allergies in Japan” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry. Available to read at: https://rdcu.be/b7I8O
2020 ‘Masculinity Studies in Japan’ in Jennifer Coates, Lucy Fraser and Mark Pendleton (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture, London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 50-59.
2019 (with Allison Alexy) Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of Closeness and Conflict. Edited volume. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
2019 (with Andrea De Antoni) Special Issue: “Feeling (with) Japan: Affective, Sensory and Material Entanglements in the Field.” Asian Anthropology. 18(3): 139-2482019
2018 ‘Human-Microbe Entanglements: Food Allergies in Japan and the UK’ in More-than-Human Worlds: A NatureCulture Blog Series (peer-reviewed). Published July 4th 2018 at: https://blognatureculture.wordpress.com/2018/07/