Dr Jane Park
Dr. Jane Park, Senior Lecturer, received her doctorate in Radio-TV-Film from The University of Texas at Austin and previously taught in American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. She is affiliated with the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and is a founding member of the advisory board of the Journal of Transnational American Studies. Her research and teaching are concerned with the social uses of media technologies, the cultural impact of “minority” representations, and transnational flows of popular film, music, and television.
Her first book, Yellow Future: Oriental Style in Hollywood Cinema (University of Minnesota, 2010), examines the ideological role of East Asian imagery in Hollywood films. She has also published articles in a number of international journals such as Global Media Journal, World Literature Today, Asian Studies Review, Screening the Past, and Gender, Place and Culture and book chapters in East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture (NYU Press, 2004), Mixed Race in Film and Television (NYU Press, 2008), Complicated Currents: Media Flows and Soft Power in East Asia (Monash University E-Press, 2009), and The Blackwell Companion to Film Comedy (Blackwell, 2012).
Jane is currently working on two research projects. The first looks at the transnational production of contemporary “Asian” films, focusing on the creative and commercial roles of filmmakers, performers, and producers of East Asian descent. The second, enabled by a grant from the Academy for Korean Studies, looks at the consumption of Korean cosmetic surgeries, products, and regimes through tourism and popular media. Linking both projects is her interest in the ongoing development of Asian modernities through the circulation of cross-cultural styles, objects, and narratives.
Research Areas
- Film and popular media
- Race, ethnicity and multiculturalism
- Aesthetics and ethics
- Postcolonial theory
- Diaspora and transnationalism
Teaching
Jane does not teach these units every year. Please check the department's undergraduate and postgraduate pages for teaching plans.
Postgraduate units
- WMST6903, Gender, Media and Consumer Societies
- GCST6904, Asian Diasporic Cultural Studies (team-taught with Asian Studies)
- USSC6915, American Contemporary Media (in the United States Studies Centre)
Undergraduate units
- GCST 1601, Introduction to Cultural Studies
- GCST2606, Genres in Cultural Context
- GCST3601, Race and Australian Identities (no longer available)
- GCST2013, Race and Representation (beginning semester 2, 2013)
Selected publications
Books
Park, Jane. Yellow Future: Oriental Style in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Journal articles and review essays
Park, Jane. “The Failure of Asian American Representation in All-American Girl and The Cho Show.” Gender, Place and Culture (forthcoming 2012).
Park, Jane. "Fighting Women in Contemporary Asian Cinema: The Celebration of the Inauthentic in My Wife is a Gangster and Chocolate." Cultural Studies (forthcoming, 2012).
Park, Jane. “’The China Film’: Madam Chiang Kai-shek in Hollywood.” Screening the Past, issue 30 (2011). Translated into Chinese by Zitong Qiu in China Media Report 4, no. 40 (2011): 117-123.
Park, Jane. “The Ghosts of Globalisation: Ghostlife of Third Cinema by Glen Mimura; Chinese Connections: Critical Perspectives on Film, Identity, and Diaspora edited by Tan See-Kam, Peter X. Feng and Gina Marchetti; and Asian Gothic: Essays on Literature, Film and Anime edited by Andrew Hock Soon Ng.” Asian Studies Review 35 (1) March 2011. 105-114.
Park, Jane. “Stylistic Crossings: Cyberpunk Impulses in Anime.” World Literature Today 79, nos. 3-4 (2005): 60-63.
Park, Jane and Karin Wilkins. “Re-orienting the Oriental Gaze.” Global Media Journal, Spring 2005.
Book chapters
Park, Jane. “Tragicomic Transformations: Gender, Humor, and the Plastic Body in 200 Pounds Beauty and 301,302.” Horton, Andrew and Joanna Rapf, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Film Comedy. London: Blackwell, 2012 (forthcoming November).
Park, Jane. “Remaking the Korean RomCom: A Case Study of Yeopgijeogin geunyeo and My Sassy Girl.” Black, Daniel, Stephen Epstein and Alison Tokita, eds. Complicated Currents: Media Flows and Soft Power in East Asia. Melbourne: Monash University E-Press, 2010. 13.1-13.12.
Park, Jane. “Virtual Race: The Racially Ambiguous Action Hero in The Matrix and Pitch Black.” Beltrán, Mary and Camilla Fojas, eds. Mixed Race in Hollywood Film and Media Culture. New York: NYU Press, 2008. 182-202.
Park, Jane. “Cibo Matto’s Stereotype A: Articulating Asian American Hip Pop.” Davé, Shilpa, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha Oren, eds. East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture. New York: NYU Press, 2005. 292-312.
Beltrán, Mary, Jane Park, Henry Puente, Sharon Ross, and John Downing. “Pressurizing the Media Industry.” Downing, John and Charles Husband, Representing Race: Racisms, Ethnicity and the Media. London: Sage Publications, 2005. 160-193.
Selected invited talks
“Beyond Orientalism: Representing Asian Women in US and Transnational Media”
Korean Institute of Women
Ewha University, Seoul, April 2012
“Revisiting Oriental Style in Batman Begins, Rush Hour, and The Matrix”
Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding, Hawke Centre
University of South Australia, Adelaide, November 2011
“Asian Masculinities in Australian Cinema.”
International Workshop on Masculinities in Asia.
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore, August 2011.
“Korean War Films”
Korean Film Festival in Australia
Sydney, August 2011
“Womanhood in Korean Cinema”
Korean Film Festival in Australia
Sydney, October 2010
“Style, Visibility, Future: An Approach to the New Orientalism in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema”
Department of Radio-TV-Film
The University of Texas at Austin, March 2010
“Hollywood Does Korean Love: Re-presenting Gender, Sexuality and Romance in My Sassy Girl”
Centre for Korean Studies
The Australian National University, Canberra, September 2009
“Transnational Queer Asian Masculinities”
Glocalising Gender and Sex, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies
University of Sydney, February 2009
“Oriental Style in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema”
United States Studies Center
University of Sydney, April 2008
“Representations of the Asiatic in Hollywood Action Films”
Global Media Research Center
Southern Illinois University, Carbonale, September 2007
“Stylistic Crossings: Visions of the Techno-oriental Future in Anime and US Cyberpunk Cinema”
Traffic and Diaspora: Political, Economic, and Cultural Exchanges between Japan and Asian America
Wesleyan University, Middletown, February 2005
Selected Conferences
“Adapting Diaspora: The (Chinese) American Dream in Mao’s Last Dancer”
Pacific Triangles: Australia, China and the Reorientation of American Studies (co-convener)
University of Sydney, August 2012
“Remaking the National Body: Femininity, Modernity, and Plastic Surgery in South Korean Film”
Knowing Asia: Asian Studies in an Asian Century, Asian Studies Association of Australia
University of Western Sydney, July 2012
“Transnational Trajectories: Crossover Korean/American Stars”
Changing Boundaries and Reshaping Itineraries: An International Conference on Asian American Expressive Culture
University of California, Berkeley and Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, June 2012
“Hallyuwood and the Failure of Self-Orientalism in Blood: The Last Vampire and Ninja Assassin”
Association for Asian American Studies, Washington D.C., April 2012
“Playing with Culture and Masculinity: Martial Arts as Ironic Pastiche in My Wife is a Gangster”
Console-ing Passions, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, July 2011
Tragicomic Transformations: Gender, Humor, and the Plastic Body in 200 Pounds Beauty and 301,302”
Asian Studies Association, Honolulu, HI, April 2011
Fighting Female Otaku: The Celebration of the Inauthentic in Chocolate
Asia Pacific Symposium, Sydney University, December 2010
“What Do You Do When You Are the Stereotype? Race, Masculinity, and the Nation in the Harold & Kumar Films”
Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand
University of New South Wales, Sydney, November 2010
“Celebrating the Unruly Body: Race, Sexuality and the Politics of Pleasure in Margaret Cho’s Stand Up”
Association for Cultural Studies
Lingnan University, Hong Kong, June 2010
“Remaking the Korean Blockbuster: A Case Study of My Sassy Girl”
Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Los Angeles, March 2010
“Afro-Asian Masculinities in Contemporary Hollywood Action Films”
Association for Asian American Studies, New York, April 2007
“Virtual Race? Mixed-Race Motifs in Science Fiction Cinema”
International Communication Association Conference, Dresden, Germany, June 2006
“Techno-oriental ‘Others’ in Science Fiction Cinema”
International Communication Association, New York, May 2005
“Re-orienting Cyberpunk in Mecha Anime”
Association for Asian American Studies, Los Angeles, CA, April 2005
“Orientalism and Gender in ‘Hip Hop Kung Fu’: Ghost Dog, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Kill Bill”
American Studies Association, Atlanta, November 2004