DR Filippo Cervelli
Biography | I was born in Empoli, Italy, a town famous for artichokes and literary scholars. After a Bachelor and Master’s degree in German and English at the University of Florence, and an exchange year in the US, I came to the UK to study Japanese Literature at the University of Oxford. Having received my doctoral degree in 2018, I worked as a Teaching Fellow in Japanese at Durham University; in 2019 I joined SOAS, where I teach modern Japanese literature and popular culture. Broadly speaking, my research explores how literature and popular culture (mainly manga and anime) express personal and social struggles. My first monograph, "Immediacy in Contemporary Japanese Literature and Popular Culture" (Routledge 2025), analyses the supremacy of the present, submerging clear-cut notions of the past as a repository of memory, and of the future seen as progress. Across literature and popular culture between 1995 and 2011, characters live in an everlasting present where, without any solid ideologies by which to orient their lives, they can only survive by acting violently and repeatedly in the moment for their gratification, without considering issues outside of their localised personal spheres. Another important strand of research is on narrative representations of otaku. Defined as passionate fans of popular culture products, otaku are an important phenomenon in contemporary Japanese Studies, involving considerations about Japanese youth, consumption and pop culture. In my research I explore how otaku are used as a narrative tool for interrogating Japanese society. In this context, I have written on otaku and social malaise in the works of writer Abe Kazushige; also, with Ben Schaper I co-edited a special issue for the journal Exchanges, titled “The Lonely Nerd” (2022) on the figure of nerds and their relationship with society across cultural representations and regional areas. Recently, I have been focusing on the writings of the Nobel laureate Ōe Kenzaburō (1935-2023). Together with obituaries and retrospectives, I have written on his relationship with Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy as well as translated essays by him into Italian. I am currently exploring avenues for comparative research between Ōe and European authors. |
---|---|
Research Interests | - Modern and contemporary Japanese literature, society and popular culture (manga, anime) - Cultural representations of crises of orders of time and of meta-narratives - The literature of Ōe Kenzaburō - The reception and reworking of Dante and the Classics in Japan - Post-disaster literature - Youth cultural discourse in media theory, popular culture, and social criticism - Narrative representations of social malaise and of phenomena such as hikikomori, otaku and precariousness - Comparative literature: the relationship between centre and periphery; magical realism (Japanese, French, Greek, Italian, and German) - Literary translation (Japanese, English, Italian, French) |
PhD Supervision Availability | Yes |
PhD Topics | I welcome proposals in modern and contemporary Japanese literature and popular culture. Comparative projects involving the Japanese and other traditions are also very welcome. |