Junko Yamazaki

Junko Yamazaki is an Assistant Professor of Japanese Media Studies at Princeton University, specializing in postwar Japanese cinema, media aesthetics, and cultural mediation. Her research interrogates the intersection of film spectatorship, sensory politics, and historical reckoning in 20th-century Japan.

• Ph.D. in Cinema & Media Studies & East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago (2016)
• M.A. in Humanities with emphasis in Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago (2013)
• B.A. in Film Studies & Cognitive Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara (2010)

Her work critically examines:

• Jidaigeki films as contested cultural artifacts in postwar Japan
• Role of film music in shaping emotional and historical consciousness
• Intellectual debates around media's capacity for social transformation
• Postwar sensory politics and democratic reconstruction

Recent publications analyze:

• 1950s Toei jidaigeki's aesthetic innovations
• Tsurumi Shunsuke's media theory through autobiographical criticism
• Ichikawa Kon's musical integration strategies in early postwar cinema

She co-founded the interdisciplinary working group Gender and Criticism Workshop: Japan in the Trans-Pacific World (2019-), fostering transnational academic collaboration.