Dr Tomoko Tamari

Tomoko’s interests are Japanese culture & society; consumer culture; visual culture; technology and the body.

Staff details

Dr Tomoko Tamari

Position

Reader in Sociology

Department

Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship

Email

t.tamari (@gold.ac.uk)

Tomoko joined Goldsmiths in 2013 after being a research fellow at Nottingham Trent University. Her academic background is in sociology, mass communication studies and women’s studies. Her current academic interests cross over sociology, cultural studies and body studies.

Current academic activities:

Managing editor of Body & Society (Sage Publications, London)

Researcher and coordinator for the Theory Culture & Society (TCS) ‘New Encyclopaedia Project’.

Teaching and supervision

Research interests

Current working areas:

Animation and human perception - especially focusing on the different workings of affect in digital aesthetics and hand-drawing moving images.

Technology and modern architectural design - an exploration of living space design and architectural aesthetics through the Japanese modern architectural movement, Metabolism.

Food culture and lifestyles - focusing on the role of cultural intermediaries and the reformation of cuisine and ‘taste’ in 20th century Japan.

The body and medicine - exploring the medical discourse of biological immunity in relation to the probiotics food/drinks industry.

Body Image and Prosthetic Aesthetics in Paralympic Culture – an exploration of how the modern discourse of prosthesis has shifted from the functional and camouflaged body to the empowered and exhibited body which creates a new cultural sensitivity – prosthetic aesthetics.

Techno-animism - problematizing the binary divide between technology and animism and a series of other related dichotomies: nature/culture, human/non-human, body/mind and religion/secular in Japanese culture and everyday life.

Human-Machine Integration - focusing on the ‘brain interface machine (BIM)’ which was used to create a new physical and sensory (domestic) space and cognitive environment for human beings (smart home) along with the increasing use of information devices in everyday life (home robotics).

Publications and research outputs

Edited Book

Edited Journal

Book Section

Article

Conference or Workshop Item