SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

The Department is able to supervise MPhil and PhD degrees by research and thesis in a wide range of cultural and linguistic subjects. Intending research students should not feel constrained to limit their choice of topics to those indicated against the names of current staff members (postgraduate students have recently been working on a range of topics that include Japanese cinema, Kabuki texts, modern Japanese linguistics and literature, Meiji historical texts, Korean linguistics and literature, Korean colonial and eighteenth century history). Research undertaken at MPhil and PhD level is based on literary, documentary, and archive material available at SOAS and also gathered during fieldwork in Japan and Korea.

Academic Staff and their Research Areas

Dr John L Breen MA PHD(CANTAB)
Modern Japanese language; Japanese history, with special reference to 19th century political, social and intellectual history; Japanese religions in the pre-modern and modern eras

Dr Stephen H Dodd BA(OXON) MA PHD(COLUMBIA)
Admissions Tutor – Japanese
Modern Japanese literature, with particular interest in representations of the native place (furusato), gender/sexuality and modernity

Professor Andrew Gerstle BA(COLUMBIA) MA(WASEDA) PHD(HARVARD)
Japanese literature, drama and thought, primarily of the Tokugawa period, with particular interest in Bunraku and Kabuki theatre and the plays of Chikamatsu

Dr Anders Karlsson MA PHD(STOCKHOLM)
Postgraduate Tutor / Admissions Tutor – Korean Korean language; literature and society; history of 19th century Korea

Ms Misako Kanehisa BED(EHIME) MA(LEEDS)
Lector in Japanese

Ms Miwako Kashiwagi BA(OSAKA) MA(INDIANA)
Lector in Japanese

Dr Griseldis Kirsch MA PHD(TRIER)
Lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Culture

Dr Mika Kizu BA(NANZAN) MA(CALIFORNIA) PHD(MCGILL)
Theoretical linguistics; Syntax; Japanese linguistics; Second Language Acquisition

Dr Grace Koh BA(AMERICAN UNIV. PARIS) MST, DPhil (OXFORD)
Korean and East Asian literary traditions (prose and fiction); literary and intellectual history; travel literature and cultural encounters; critical theory and comparative literature

Ms Kyung Eun Lee BA(DONGDUK) MA(EWHA)
Lector in Korean

Dr Barbara Pizziconi BA(ROME) MA(TOKYO UNIV. FOREIGN LANGUAGES) PHD(NAPLES)
Japanese applied linguistics; language teaching methodology; second language acquisition with emphasis on pragmatic aspects; linguistic politeness

Dr Jae Hoon Yeon BA MA(SEOUL) PHD(LONDON)
Head of Department
Korean language and linguistics, especially morphosyntax and linguistic typology; structure and history of Korean language; Korean language teaching and translation; modern Korean literature