Professor Jennifer Coates

School of East Asian Studies

Professor in Japanese Studies

Photo of Jennifer Coates
Profile picture of Photo of Jennifer Coates
jennifer.coates@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Professor Jennifer Coates
School of East Asian Studies
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I am a Professor of Japanese Studies at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. My books include Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (Hong Kong University Press, 2016) and Film Viewing in Postwar Japan, 1945-1968: An Ethnographic Study (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), as well as co-edited volumes Japanese Visual Media: Politicizing the Screen (Routledge, 2021 with Ben-Ari, E.) and The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (Routledge, 2019 with Fraser, L., and Pendleton, M.).

I am an AHRC Innovation Scholar and recipient of the 2021 Philip Leverhulme Prize for Visual and Performing Arts. My wider research interests include Japanese and East Asian cinema, photography, gender studies, filmmaking, and ethnographic methods. Before joining SEAS, I studied, researched, and taught in many areas of the world: as an AHRC Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. (2012), a Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian National University (2011), Assistant Professor at the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University (2014-2018), and Senior Lecturer in Japanese Arts, Cultures, and Heritage at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures at the University of East Anglia.

Qualifications

MA (University of Glasgow), MA (SOAS, University of London), PhD (SOAS, University of London)

Research interests

My research and teaching is situated at the intersection of Japanese Studies, Film Studies, History, History of Art, and Anthropology, and can best be characterized as Japanese Cultural Studies. My work takes an interdisciplinary approach drawing from ethnography, art history, and museum studies as well as film studies. I use Japanese language and visual communications in my research practice and dissemination, with training in research-led filmmaking which resulted in a short documentary film on postwar cinema culture (When Cinema Was King, 2018). My collaborative research and editorship includes work in the fields of memory studies, gender studies, and politics, as well as pedagogy.

I am currently working on a project titled "'Japan' Outside Japan: Celebrity, Star Persona, and Curatorship in the Transmission of Japanese Arts and Cultures" funded by the Philip Leverhulme Prize. This project explores the use of a persona studies approach for understanding the perception and consumption of Japanese cultures outside Japan. Under an AHRC Innovation Scholars award I am currently partially seconded to Takero Shimazaki Architects to undertake research on "‘Japan’ in the Built Environment."

Publications

Books

  • Coates J (2022) Film viewing in postwar Japan, 1945-1968: an ethnographic study. Edinburgh University Press. View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2016) Making icons : repetition and the female image in Japanese cinema, 1945–1964. Hong Kong University Press. View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download

Edited books

Journal articles

Chapters

  • Ben-Ari E & Wah Wong H (2023) Cultural Intermediaries in East Asian Film Industries In Ben Ari E & Wong H-W (Ed.), Cultural Intermediaries in East Asian Film Industries, (pp. 52-71). London: Routledge. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J & Buchheim E (2023) Introduction: Engaging with War Memory and the Legacies of East Asian Conflicts, 1930-1945 In Coates J & Buchheim E (Ed.), War Memory and East Asian Conflicts, 1930–1945 Palgrave Macmillan RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J & Coates J (2023) Re-Presenting Sino-Japanese Relations through Flavors of Youth, TRANSNATIONAL EAST ASIAN STUDIES (pp. 169-183). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J, Hsieh H, Lee S-A & Taylor-Jones K (2023) The Pan-Asian 'Miss Granny' Phenomenon, EAST ASIAN FILM REMAKES (pp. 272-290). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2022) Female Stardom and National Identity in Postwar Japan (pp. 316-333). Wiley RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J & Ben-Ari E (2022) Japanese Visual Media Politicizing the Screen Introduction, JAPANESE VISUAL MEDIA (pp. 1-12). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2021) Audiences as cultural intermediaries, Cultural Intermediaries in East Asian Film Industries (pp. 52-71). Routledge RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2021) Politicizing the audience? Film fans’ experiences of cinema in the 1960s In Coates J (Ed.), Japanese Visual Media: Politicizing the Screen (pp. 180-200). London: Routledge. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2021) Cultural memories of occupation in the Japanese cinema theatre, 1945-52. In Taylor J (Ed.), Visual Histories of Occupation: A Transcultural Dialogue (pp. 75-96). London: Bloomsbury Academic. RIS download Bibtex download
  • (2020) Creative Context Springer Singapore View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2020) The Yakuza Film: A Genre 'Endorsed by the People' In Phillips A & Fujiki H (Ed.), The Japanese Cinema Book (pp. 348-360). London: British Film Institute. View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2020) Bodies in the Dark: The Postwar Cinema Audience and the Body as ‘Ground Zero’ In Holca I & SĂPUNARU TĂMAŞ C (Ed.), Forms of the Body in Contemporary Japanese Society, Literature, and Culture (pp. 237-257). Lexington View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2020) Creativity at the Margins in the ‘Golden Age’ of Japanese Cinema (1945–1965), Creative Context (pp. 101-117). Springer Singapore RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J, Fraser L & Pendleton M (2020) Gender and culture in Japan today INTRODUCTION, ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO GENDER AND JAPANESE CULTURE (pp. 1-7). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J, Fraser L & Pendleton M (2019) Introduction: Gender and culture in Japan today In Coates J, Fraser L & Pendleton M (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (pp. 1-7). Routledge View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J & Haapio-Kirk L (2019) Gender in digital technologies and cultures In Coates J, Pendleton M & Fraser L (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (pp. 240-250). Routledge View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2019) The Making of an Auteur: The Early Films (1958-1959), Killers, Clients and Kindred Spirits: The Taboo Cinema of Shohei Imamura (pp. 21-40). Edinburgh University Press View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2018) Alternative Viewership Practices in Kyoto, Japan, The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema (pp. 221-241). Palgrave Macmillan, London RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J & ジェニファー コーツ)( (2016) 時を超えて出会いは再び訪れる:李香蘭/山口淑子/シャーリー・ヤマ グチ In Wada I & Katsura K (Ed.), 他者との邂逅は何をもたらすのか: 「異文化接触」を再考する (pp. 18-48). Showado RIS download Bibtex download
  • Coates J (2015) Pleasures of Recognition and Mediation in the Spectacle of the Nation In Drummond P (Ed.), The London Film and Media Reader 3: The Pleasures of the Spectacle The London Symposium RIS download Bibtex download

Book reviews

Teaching activities

On leave until 2025.