Rio Otomo

Thank you for visiting my website. Before you glance at my papers, here is a brief summary of who I am…

My research interest is primarily in literature and film, but I have a tendency to diverge and engage in critical analysis of anything that constitute a narrative. I am currently teaching subjects related to queer theory and feminist literary criticism at the Japan Institute of the Moving Image.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto), a Masters in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong, and a Doctorate in Comparative Literature and Critical Theory from Monash University (Melbourne). I have held teaching positions at the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University, and prior to my current position held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Tokyo. I am a mother of three and grandmother of two. I am married to my private proof-editor who also manages this website.

If you are interested in my research, please feel free to contact me at rio.otomo@gmail.com.

Work

Education

• Ph.D. (1996–2003), Monash University – Thesis: "Reading Mishima Yukio's Map of Modernity"
• MA (1992–1994), University of Hong Kong – Thesis on confessional narratives in Japanese literature
• BA (1972–1976), Ritsumeikan University – Thesis on "At the Bay" by Katherine Mansfield

Book Reviews

• Shock and Naturalization in Contemporary Japanese Literature, Carl Cassgard, Japanese Studies, 2009
• Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America, Takayuki Tatsumi, Asian Studies Review, 2007
• In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male Sexuality in Meiji Literature, Jim Reichert, Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, 2006

Publications

• "Monpe Eroticism in Echigo Tsutsuishi Oyashirazu: Revisiting 1964 in film", in Gender, Costume, Textile, Technique: Women, Clothing, Cultural Representation and Modern Japan, ed. Barbara Hartley, Brill, 2025.
• "Unsettling Nostalgia through Cinema and Gender", co-authored with Katsuhiko Suganuma and Barbara Hartley, in Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation: Wounds, Scars, and Healing, ed. Yasuko Claremont, Routledge, 2018.
• Yamada Waka, Her Life and Love: Nation State, Care and Violence, co-authored with Masakazu Mochizuki, et. al, Gendai Shokan, 2018.
• "When a Home is not a Home: Out by Kirino Natsuo", in The Fragmented Family in Modern Japan, ed. Barbara Hartley, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 40, 01/17 (link).
• "Redrawing a Map of Motherhood", Japan Forum, Vol. 28, 2016 (DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2016.119266899).
• "Politics of Utopia: Fantasy, Pornography, and Boys Love", in Boys Love, Manga, and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan, eds. M. McLelland, et. al, University Press of Mississippi, 2015, pp.141-152.
• "The Girl with her Writing Machine", in Girl Reading Girl in Japan, eds. Tomoko Aoyama and Barbara Hartley, Routledge, 2010, pp.130-141.
• "Risk and Home: After Dark by Murakami Haruki", Japanese Studies, 2009, 29(3): 358-366.
• Japanese translation of the novel, Mr. Pip, by Lloyd Jones, Hakusuisha, 2009.
• "Mishima Yukio's ‘Sex Which is Not One'", Poetica, 2007, 67L97-114.
• "Narratives, the Body and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics", Asian Studies Review, 2007, 31(2): 117-132. (Listed as the must-read essay for the first-year student in the UK and the most quoted among my publications.)
• "A Manifestation of Modernity: The Split Gaze and the Oedipalised Space of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Mishima Yukio", Japanese Studies, 2003, 23(3): 277-92.
• "The Way of the Samurai: Ghost Dog, Mishima, and Modernity's Other", Japanese Studies, 2001, 21(1): 31-43. (To be included in the forthcoming collection of essays on films by Jim Jarmusch.)