Dr Alexander Jacoby
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies and Director of Europe Japan Research Centre
School of Education, Humanities and Languages
Role
Alexander Jacoby took his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before moving to Kamakura, Japan, where he lived from 2002 to 2005, teaching English at a private language school based in and around the Tokyo area. During this period he developed his interest in Japanese cinema. After returning to Britain, he worked in the media before beginning doctoral studies in Japanese film at the University of Warwick. He completed his PHD thesis and passed his Viva during 2010.
Alexander joined Oxford Brookes in September, 2009, and teaches courses at undergraduate level on Japanese cinema, manga and Anime, the classical arts of Japan, Japanese culture and society, and translation. He serves as Year Abroad Tutor, and chairs the Europe Japan Research Centre. He has curated or co-curated retrospectives of Japanese films at the British Film Institute, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, and the Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone.
Teaching and supervision
Courses
Modules taught
Undergraduate:
- Essential Japanology (as module leader)
- Manga, Anime and Contemporary Japanese Cinema (as module leader)
- Classical Arts of Japan (as module leader)
- Japanese Cinema and Contemporary History (as module leader)
- Japanese Translation: Theory and Practice (as co-teacher)
Postgraduate:
- Popular Cinema in East Asia (as module leader)
Research
Alexander’s primary research interest is the classical Japanese cinema. He is the author of A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors (2008, Stone Bridge Press), and has published numerous articles on Japanese film and other topics in both journalistic and academic contexts. His film criticism has appeared online and in print inCineAction, Senses of Cinema, Film Criticism, and the book Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts (2007, Routledge, eds. Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer). He has also written for The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Times Higher Education Supplement and The Japan Times.
Research projects
Oral Presentations
- ‘Yoshimura's Kyoto: Space and Femininity in the Postwar City’, (The Josai International Media Studies Department Media Workshop, May 2009)
- ‘Manga, Anime and the Traditions of Japanese and Western Art’ (Teesside University, April 2010)
Alexander Jacoby took his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before moving to Kamakura, Japan, where he lived from 2002 to 2005, teaching English at a private language school based in and around the Tokyo area. During this period he developed his interest in Japanese cinema. After returning to Britain, he worked in the media before beginning doctoral studies in Japanese film at the University of Warwick. He completed his PHD thesis and passed his Viva during 2010.
Alexander joined Oxford Brookes in September, 2009, and teaches courses at undergraduate level in contemporary Japanese cinema, Manga and Japanese language, as well as a master’s level course in East Asian Cinema. He will introduce a course in classical and New Wave Japanese cinema in 2011
Centres and institutes
Projects
Publications
Professional information
Conferences
- 'Hirokazu Koreeda's Family Values' (Wadham College, Oxford, 2021)
- 'Crime and Punishment in the Films of Hirokazu Koreeda' (University of East Anglia, Norwich, 2018)
- 'Female Self-Determination in Yoshimura's Kyoto' (European Association of Japanese Studies, Lisbon, 2017)
- 'Festival of Lakes and Forests: Race and Genre in Tomu Uchida's Wild North (Kinema Club XVI: Beyond the Canon: Reconsidering Japanese Cinema of the 1950s, Sainsbury Institute of Japanese Studies, Norwich, 2017)
- 'Hirokazu Koreeda's Family Values' (University College Cork, 2017)