Miyuki Yonemura

Academic Visitor
Pembroke College
yonemura@isc.senshu-u.ac.jp

Position 

Visiting Academic - Professor, Department of Japanese Literature and Culture, Faculty of Letters, Senshu University

 

Current Projects

Reception of Post-Earthquake Literature

 

Biography

Miyuki Yonemura began her academic career in 2002 as a lecturer in the Department of Japanese Language and Literature at Konan Women's University in Kobe. She later taught in the Department of Media Expression at the same university. In 2009, she was appointed Associate Professor at the Department of Japanese Literature and Culture, Faculty of Literature, Senshu University in Tokyo. She was promoted to Professor in 2015 and currently holds the same position. In 2019, she served as Visiting Professor at the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia in Canada. Since 2024, she has also been teaching at the Waseda University Extension Centre.

 

Educational Background

Miyuki Yonemura conducted research at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) before earning her PhD in literature from Nagoya University in 2002. Her doctoral dissertation formed the basis of a book that received the Encouragement Prize from the Japanese Society for Children's Literature in 2004. In 2024, she was awarded the Japan Animation Society Prize for a book that examined the films of director Hayao Miyazaki as a form of 'visual literature.’

 

Research Interests

  • Contemporary and modern Japanese literature and popular culture, particularly in relation to disasters such as the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake
  • Representations of care for the elderly and people with disabilities in literary and visual media 
  • Translation and the global reception of Japanese cultural works

 

Recent Publications

Yonemura, Miyuki. “Hayao Miyazaki as a Magician of Adaptation in Kiki's Delivery Service.” In Dominic J. Nardi et al., eds., Studio Ghibli Animation as Adaptations. London: Bloomsbury, 2025, pp. 34–54.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/studio-ghibli-animation-as-adaptations-9798765127063/

Yonemura, Miyuki. The People Who Create Kenji Miyazawa. Tokyo: Shichigatsusha, 2025, 400 pp.

https://www.7gatsusha.com/books/1436/

Yonemura, Miyuki. Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki: Animation as Visual Literature. Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 2023, 256 pp.
https://www.waseda-up.co.jp/art/post-854.html

Yonemura, Miyuki and Akiko Sugawa-Shimada, eds. The Cultural Studies of Ghibli Animation. Tokyo: Shichigatsusha, 2022, 343 pp.
https://www.7gatsusha.com/books/1122/?_gl=1*1lawqsj*_ga*MTgwMzY2NzM1My4xNzUyMzcwMTAw*_ga_512DT8P44C*czE3NTIzNzAwOTkkbzEkZzEkdDE3NTIzNzAxMTUkajQ0JGwwJGgw&_ga=2.256783619.96977316.1752370100-1803667353.1752370100

Yonemura, Miyuki. “How is Yamikuro Represented?: Film Adaptation in All God's Children Can Dance.” In Hitoshi Ishida, ed., Haruki Murakami as Cultural Representation. Tokyo: Seikyusha, 2020, pp. 256–272.

https://www.seikyusha.co.jp/bd/isbn/9784787292513/

Sasaki, Akiko, Ayumi Mitsuishi, and Miyuki Yonemura, eds. The Depiction of Care: Contemporary Novels of Childcare and Nursing Care. Tokyo: Shichigatsusha, 2019, 253 pp.
https://www.7gatsusha.com/books/411/

Sugawa-Shimada, Akiko and Miyuki Yonemura, eds. Animation Culture: 55 Keywords. Kyoto: Minerva Shobo, 2019, 243 pp.
https://www.minervashobo.co.jp/book/b439594.html

Yonemura, Miyuki. “The Imagination in ‘Animal Animation’: Isao Takahata’s Animation Films and Kenji Miyazawa.” In Bungei Extra Issue: Isao Takahata – Animation Portraying ‘the World’. Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, August 2018, pp. 101–110.

https://www.kawade.co.jp/np/isbn/9784309979519/