Professor Kate Taylor-Jones

I am currently the Principal Investigator on the Leverhulme-funded Women's Screen Work: Creativity, Care, and Gender in East Asian Film (website is https://womenscreenwork.com/)
Working with Dr Wikanda Promkhuntong (Mahidol University, Thailand) and Professor Louisa Wei (City University, Hong Kong), WSW seeks to chart and examine the experiences of women working in the Thai, Japanese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese screen industries. Exploring the careers of both above-the-line (directors, producers, screenwriters, etc.) and below-the-line (sound, design, hair and make-up, etc.) workers, we explore the contemporary lives and experiences of those working in Asian screen industries and how they navigate both local and global film structures and networks. Our methodology is founded on ideas of care and non-extractive methods and approaches. With a focus on care, we draw attention to the often-unequal structures of power and practices in specific societal and historical spaces within which female film-workers and their labour are embedded. My most recent monograph, Ninagawa Mika, Miyake Kyoto and Ando Momoko: Shōjo Dreams and Unruly Idols(Edinburgh University Press, 2026) and links to my work on women directors in Japan and beyond.

I have a longstanding interest in representations of East Asian girlhood in film and media. This has culminated in a series of funded events and publications including International Cinema and the Girl (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, co-edited with Fiona Handyside). I have also worked on questions of representing prostitution and sex work in visual culture. After an international conference held in collaboration with Exeter University, the edited collection Prostitution and Sex Work in Global Cinema: New Takes on Fallen Women (Palgrave Macmillan, co-edited with Danielle Hipkins) was published in 2017. My last monograph, Divine Work: Japanese Colonial Cinema and its Legacy, was published by Bloomsbury Press in 2017 and was selected for the Sheffield Authros Showcase.

I was a senior researcher on the African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies European Research Council-funded research project led by Professor Lindiwe Dovey, which ran from June 2019 to March 2025. Through producing films, edited books, articles, and toolkits, and through curating workshops, conversations, film screenings, and panel discussions, the project explored Africans' contributions to the diverse, complex screen worlds that make up audiovisual cultures today. The project focused on putting African cinemas into conversation with other regional cinemas to theorise global screen worlds in more inclusive, nuanced ways, which has resulted in the open-access Global Screen Worlds: Conversations across Cinema Cultures (Bloomsbury Press, 2026 edited with Lindiwe Dovey and Georgia Thomas-Parr).

I am also working on another project entitled Delta Cinema. This project explores the role of the delta in global cinema. Climate change is reshaping how we understand our world, yet traditional approaches to studying global cinema remain tied to national boundaries, genres, or individual directors, creating a critical gap in how we analyze film's role in processing environmental crisis. My current research proposes Delta Cinema as a framework that examines films through delta environments—the dynamic wetlands where rivers meet seas, lakes, or other water bodies. These are among the most densely populated landscapes on Earth, hosting major film industries from Nollywood in the Niger Delta to Hong Kong cinema in the Pearl River Delta, yet facing unprecedented environmental threats from rising seas, pollution, and extreme weather.

I have supervised a diverse range of doctoral projects exploring East Asian popular culture, including research on K-pop fandom, Japanese music and fashion, shojo culture's transnational appeal, and cinematic representations of urban space and cultural identity in China, Japan, and South Korea. My students have also examined cultural theory, affect, and theatrical traditions, with several securing competitive funding from organizations such as the ESRC and the Great British Sasakawa Foundation. If you're interested in pursuing research in East Asian cultural studies, Visual Culture, transnational media, or related areas, I'd be delighted to hear from prospective students—please do get in touch to discuss potential projects