Hi, hello, g’day, よろしく

My name is Emerald L King.

I’m a literary scholar and cosplayer with a background in Japanese literature and popular culture.

I studied in Australia and Japan before receiving my PhD on masochism in Japanese women’s literature from the University of Tasmania in 2012. From 2013-2018 I worked at Victoria University of Wellington and was appointed head of Japanese in 2016. In 2017 I was a Visiting Scholar at UTAS before taking up a position at La Trobe University in Australia. As of midyear 2021, I am Lecturer in Humanities at Universty of Tasmania. Recently I was a Visiting Scholar at Mie University in 2024.

My research interests include violence in text; masochistic theory; kimono in Japanese literature; costume representation in anime and manga; and cosplay in Japan and Australasia.

In 2009/2010 I 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.

Since 2017, I have worked as a volunteer translator and interpreter for the WCS finals in Japan, and in 2020 I was named a WCS Support Ambassador.

As part of my cosplay research I am a two time Australian national cosplay champion. I have competed in and won a number of prizes, most notably winning the 2023 World Cosplay Summit (WCS) Australia and the right to represent Australia in Japan in 2024.

I am available for media consultation on Japanese popular culture and cosplay.

I am available to supervise projects on Japanese literature and popular culture in Australia and New Zealand at Honours, Masters, and PhD level. See here for current advertised PhD projects.

I am available as a judge, MC, and workshop host at conventions and popular culture events.

Queries should be directed to emerald.king@utas.edu.au.