Interested in most things dark and twisty, Emerald L King is a lecturer in humanities and an award-winning cosplayer.
Her research is divided between Japanese women's writing, cosplay as fan translation, and shōjo (girls’) manga and culture.

Biography

Emerald L King studied in Australia and Japan before receiving her PhD in Japanese literature from the University of Tasmania in 2012. In 2009/2010 Emerald completed a Japan Foundation Doctoral Fellowship to conduct research at Ochanomizu University (Tokyo, Japan) for 11 months under Dr Satako Kan and Dr Kazuko Takemura.

Before returning to UTAS as a member of staff in 2021, she worked at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) from 2013-2018 and was appointed head of Japanese in 2016. In 2017 she was a visiting researcher at UTAS before taking up a position at La Trobe University in Australia in 2018.

Emerald’s research is based in Japanese literature but includes gothic literature, popular culture, and costume.

As part of her cosplay research she has competed in and won a number of prizes, most notably winning the 2016 finals of the Madman National Cosplay Championship (MNCC) and placing second in 2018; and placing in the finals of Australian World Cosplay Summit (WCS) preliminaries in 2018 and 2019. She has worked as a volunteer translator and interpreter for the WCS finals in Japan from 2017 and in 2020 she was named a WCS Support Ambassador.

Career summary

Qualifications

• Japan Foundation Fellowship, Ochanomizu University, Japan 2009/2010.

Languages (other than English)

Japanese

Memberships

Professional practice

• Japan Studies Association Australia (JSAA)
• Australian Asian Studies Association Australia (ASAA)
• Association for Asian Studies (ASA)
• Popular Culture Research Centre AUT – advisory board
• Gothic Association Australia New Zealand (GANZA)
• New Zealand Asian Studies Association (NZ Asia)

Administrative expertise

• Head of Japanese Programme (Victoria University of Wellington 2016-2018)
• Co-convenor Women in Asia conference 2021 (with La Trobe University)
• Japanese-English interpreter and translator for the World Cosplay Summit (2017 onwards)
• Wellington Japan Festival organising committee (2014, 2016) and MC (2016)
• Cosplay guest judge Madman Anime Festival – Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney - and Overload New Zealand (2017, 2019)

Teaching

Teaching expertise

Emerald has taught courses in Japanese language (introductory to honours level), Japanese literature (intermediate to honours level, postgrad supervision), and East Asian popular culture (introductory to honours level, postgrad supervision). She has given guest lectures at universities around Australia, New Zealand and the UK on film, media studies and English literature (introductory to honours level) as well as Japanese and East Asian popular culture (all levels).

Research Invitations

Invited talks:

“Forms of the Body in Contemporary Japanese Society, Literature, and Culture” online symposium 29 May 2021

‘Gender, Fashion and Popular Culture in Japan and Korea’ Symposium, with Laura Miller (Missouri St-Louis U), Masafumi Monden (UWA) and Jo Elfving-Hwang (UWA) March 26-27 2020. Cancelled due to COVID-19.

‘“Making the supernatural” Cosplay demonstration at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 15 January 2020.

“Supernatural pop” Public talk with Adam Liaw on cosplay at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 15 January 2020. https://soundcloud.com/artgalleryofnsw/supernatural-pop-emerald-king

Japan Film Festival 2019 – Public talk following screening of Tonde Saitama: Fly me to the Saitama

“OBJECTively: Connecting Australia and Japan”, Australian National Museum presented by ANU, March 8 2019.
“Tamamo’s robe: cosplay and kimono in Australia and Japan”

Kimono de asobo (Playing with Kimono) symposium, Tokai University, January 26 2019.

Japan Film Festival 2018 - ” Public talk following screening of Manji 卍: The Goddess of Mercy

“Tokyo FRUiTS Exhibition tour”- Melbourne October 2018-January 2019
Japan Foundation and La Trobe Asia Public Lecture, State Library of Victoria, November 1 2018
“How KAWAiI Invaded Downtown Tokyo”
https://soundcloud.com/asia-rising/how-kawaii-invaded-downtown-tokyo

“Unlocking the International Possibilities of Shōjo Studies”, University of Queensland, 6-7 February 2018.
“Shojo: Past, Present, Ever, and Never.”
https://soundcloud.com/uqlanguagesandcultures/unlocking-the-international-possibilities-of-shojo-studies

Asia Institute Tasmania Public Lecture, University of Tasmania, 14 November 2017.
“Tailored Translations: Translating and Transporting Cosplay Costumes Across Texts, Cultures, and Dimensions.”