Hao Wen

Background

I was born in Jiaxing, China. I moved to the United States in 2012 and received my Bachelor's degree in economics and Japanese studies at University of California, Davis. From 2018-2020, I completed an MA degree in the Japan-in-Asia Cultural Studies program at the Nagoya University, Japan. My MA thesis is titled 'The Networked Authorship of Japanese Independent Cinema in the Post-studio Era', where I elaborate on the idea of auteur and authorship as referring to networked relations to analyze independent film culture in the 21st century Japan.

In addition to academic work, I have experience in film programming and film criticism. I have served as one of the main organizers of the Chinese-Japanese Women's Film Exhibition in Shanghai. Furthermore, I have contributed to Chinese media outlets such as DeepFocus, Southern Weekly, and World Screen, where I have written film reviews, film festival reports, conducted filmmaker interviews, and covered various cinema-related topics.

Current Research

My PhD project examines the roles cinema played in shaping Tokyo as a global city in the 1980s and 1990s. I am currently affiliated with the Nagoya University-University of Warwick Co-Tutelle PhD Programme in Global Screen Studies, where I received transnational supervision from Professor Alastair Phillips (Warwick) and Dr Ogawa Shota (Nagoya). In my PhD project, I blend urban studies methods with conventional cinema studies approaches to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the discursive and material formation of the ‘global city of Tokyo’ through cinema.

Research Output

Papers:

‘Le Cinéma Japonais Indīzu et La Fabrique Néolibérale de l’auteur et de l’autrice : L’exemple de MOOSIC LAB’, Ebisu. Études Japonaises, 59 (2022). (peer-reviewed, Originally written in English, translated into French)

‘Keyword: Independent | Independent as Affect: A Discussion of the Negotiation Scene in Bing’ai’, Chinese Independent Cinema Observer, 3, 2022. (peer-reviewed, film review)

‘Ji Dan’s Spiral Staircase of Harbin (2008) and When the Bough Break (2011): The Clash of Individuals and Worlds’, Chinese Independent Cinema Observer, 1, 2021. (peer-reviewed, film review)

Conference Presentations:

“From Kōgai to Urban Centre: Chinese Immigrants and the Liminal Space of Tokyo in Japanese Transnational Cinema of the 1990s”, REPRESENTING PASTS – VISIONING FUTURES, AMPS, Queen’s University Belfast, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, National University of Singapore, December 2022. (English)

“The Mini-Theater Boom and Gender Discourse in 1980s Tokyo”, 2022 Film and Television Studies Research Day, University of Warwick, May 2022. (English)

“Positioning Cinema in Tokyo’s Urban Cultural Policies in the 1980s – ‘cinema as culture’ at meta-policy and practical levels”, Besides the Screen: Geographies, Spaces, and Places Outside the Screen, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, June 2021. (English)

‘‘Positioning Cinema in Tokyo’s Urban Cultural Policy in the 1980s and 1990s”, Film and Television Studies Research Day, University of Warwick, May 2021. (English)

Email: samuelmorning@gmail.com

Website: https://www.methywen.com/