Kyoko Omori

Kyoko Omori’s research focuses on 20th-century Japanese popular culture, with an emphasis on interwar film and magazines, as well as on post-WWII Occupation Period radio shows. She has been a core member of the Digital Humanities Initiative at Hamilton College since 2010 and has been working on a digital archive, “Benshi: Silent Film Narrators in Japan”, that ties literary and cinematic analyses together through an examination of benshi performance. 

In addition to benshi, Omori has also published numerous articles on a wide range of topics, including Japanese modernism and detective fiction, the development of Occupation-period radio shows, and the diaries of Higuchi Ichiyo, who was the first prominent woman writer in modern Japan. Her research has been supported by the Japan Foundation, SSRC/JSPS, the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), the Prange Collection of the Miller Center for Historical Studies at the University of Maryland, the Hakuhodo Foundation, the Freeman Foundation, and Hamilton’s Digital Humanities Initiative. Omori was also trained in language pedagogy, and she received the national Hamako Ito Chaplin Award for excellence in teaching Japanese.

Recent Courses Taught

Modern Selves and Ways of Seeing: Japanese Film, Animation, and Literature
Introduction to Japanese Film
Modern Japan: From A(-Bomb) to (Dragon Ball-)Z
Place, Memory, and Empathy: Japan and Its Relations to Others
Field Study in Japan: Place, Memory, and Empathy
2nd-year Japanese language
4th-year Japanese language

Distinctions

• The Hakuhodo Foundation’s Japanese Research Fellowship, 2018
• The Japan Foundation, as PI for “Performing Arts Japan” Grant, 2014
• SSRC/JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 2007-08
• The Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Research Fellowship, The Japan Foundation, 2007-08 (declined in order to accept SSRC/JSPS)
• Twentieth-Century Japan Research Award, The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies, 2006
• Hamilton College Internal Grants and Awards: The Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center’s Social Innovation and Transformational Leadership Grant, Christian A. Johnson Teaching Enhancement Award, Class of 1966 Career Development Award, Asian Studies Program Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Grant
• The Emerson Foundation and Asian Studies grants for student-faculty collaborative research, Hamilton College (2005, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020)

Selected Publications

• “‘Inter-Mediating’ Global Modernity: Benshi Film Narrators, Multisensory Performance, and Fan Culture.” Routledge Handbook of Japanese Cinema. Ed. by Joanne Bernardi and Shota T. Ogawa. Routledge: London, 2020. Chapter 12.
• “The Soundscape of Modernity: Edogawa Rampo and Voice (Rampo, koe,      modaniti no oto-fukei).” In Japanese. A book chapter in Rampo in the New Century (Edogawa Rampo Shin-seiki). Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobo, 2019. 21-58. 
• Niju no tobira,” “Nichiyo goraku-ban,” and “Hanashi no izumi,” (three entries) in 100 Keywords from the Occupation Period (Senryo-ki kiwado 100). Tanikawa Takeshi, Harada Ken’ichi, and Ishii Hitoshi, ed. Tokyo: Seikyusha, 2011. In Japanese. 166-179.
• "Mystery” (Misteri) in Volume 5, The Diversity of Occupation-Period Literature (Senyo-ki bungaku no tamen-sei). In the “Anthology of Articles from Occupation Period Magazines: Literature” Series (Senryo-ki zasshi shiryo taikei: Bungaku-hen). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2010.  9-56. In Japanese.
• “Two NHK Radio Shows from the Occupation Period: ‘Fountain of Talk’ as the Japanese Adaptation of ‘Information Please,’ and ‘Sunday Entertainment Edition’ as an Original Japanese Show of Social/Cultural Satire” (Rajio hoso no sengo: “Hanashi no izumi” to “Nichiyo goraku-ban”) in Volume 3, Adoration for America (Amerika e no shokei). In the “Anthology of Articles from Occupation Period Magazines: Popular Culture” (Senryo-ki zasshi shiryo taikei: Taishu bunka) Series. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2009. 229-273. In Japanese.
• “The Art of the Bluff: Youth Migrancy in the Pacific Rim, Interlingualism, and Japanese Vernacular Modernism,” Pacific Rim Modernisms, eds., Mary Ann Gillies, Helen Sword and Steven Yao. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. 261-293.
• “Introduction to Higuchi Ichiyo's Journal Entries,” The Modern Murasaki: Selected Works by Women Writers of Meiji Japan, 1885-1912, ed., Rebecca L. Copeland and Melek Ortabasi, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 127-135.

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College Service

Faculty Committee on Admission and Financial Aid 2019-present
Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures Department, 2014-18
Director, Asian Studies Program, 2013-15
Cinema and New Media Studies Program, 2013-present
DHi Internal Advisory Committee, member, 2010-12; chair, 2013-17
Committee on Academic Policy, 2009-12
Asian Studies Program Committee. Fall 2003-present
Cinema and New Media Studies Program, 2010-present

Professional Affiliations

Association for Asian Studies
Association of Teachers of Japanese
Association Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
Association for Japanese Literary Studies
Association for Showa Literature (Shwa Bungakukai), Japan
Shinseinen Magazine Research Group (Shinseinen Kenkyukai), Japan
Modernist Studies Association
Modern Language Association
Society for Cinema and Media Studies

Appointed to the Faculty

2002

Educational Background

Ph.D., Ohio State University
M.A., Ohio State University