André Keiji Kunigami
Assistant Professor, Film & Media Studies
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Affiliated Faculty, Comparative Literature
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Affiliated Faculty, Asian American Studies
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Affiliated Faculty, Latin American Studies
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Affiliated Faculty, East Asian Studies
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Ph.D., Cornell University, 2018, Asian Studies
B.A., Rio de Janeiro Federal University, 2006, Communication
M.A., Fluminense Federal University, 2009, Communication - Film
B.A., Rio de Janeiro Federal University, 2006, Communication
M.A., Fluminense Federal University, 2009, Communication - Film
University of California, Irvine
2020 Humanities Gateway
Irvine, CA 92697
2020 Humanities Gateway
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Brazilian cinema, Japanese cinema,film and media theory, critical theory, critical race and ethnic studies, decolonial thought, cinematic embodiment, Asian-Latin American studies.
Appointments
Carolina Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Romance Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill.
Research Abstract
Keiji researches Brazilian and Japanese cinema, the relation between filmic form and the political, yellowness and raciality in Brazil, with particular interest in the intercrossing of phenomenology, historical materialism, critical race studies, and film and media theory. He has published on topics such as Brazilian Japanese and Brazilian filmic avant-gardes, Brazilian modernist photography, and critical methodologies of Asian-Latin American Studies. He is currently working on his first book manuscript, tentatively titled "Yellowness: a media theory of opacity," which proposes a “media theory of yellowness” from the perspective of the circuits of modernization that bring together post-slavery Brazil and Imperial Japan through film, film theory, and media technologies. The book analyzes a wide array of objects–modernist writing, early film theory, silent film magazines, eugenic photography, avant-garde cinema–to carve out a global perspective for the inquiry of the relations between coloniality, film, and race.
Awards and Honors
Carolina Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity, 2018–2020.
Japan Foundation Doctoral Research Fellowship, Japan Foundation, 2015–2016.
Rio de Janeiro State Research Foundation, Award for Best Thesis in Communication. (FAPERJ) 2010.
Japan Foundation Doctoral Research Fellowship, Japan Foundation, 2015–2016.
Rio de Janeiro State Research Foundation, Award for Best Thesis in Communication. (FAPERJ) 2010.
Short Biography
André Keiji Kunigami comes to UCI’s Department of Film and Media Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he was a Carolina Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Romance Studies. Keiji has also taught film history at the Fluminense Federal University, in Brazil, and he has been a researcher at PUC-RJ, in Rio de Janeiro, and a Japan Foundation Fellow at Meiji Gakuin University, in Tokyo. Keiji was born and raised in Brazil, where he earned his BA in Communication from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and his MA in Communication from the Fluminense Federal University, before receiving his PhD from Cornell University.
Publications
Forthcoming:
"Yellowness as Transpacific Technology: Cinematic Regimes of Race between Japan and Brazil" in Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies. (Duke University Press) [forthcoming, 2024]
“Asian Diasporic Cinema: a hemispheric approach” in Ajia-kei Amerika wo Shirutame no Gojyu-Sho (50 topics to know more about Asian America). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. (book chapter) [forthcoming 2024]. [In Japanese]
“Silent Film Theory in Brazil: modernity and the geopolitics of cinematic embodiment.” Oxford Handbook of Brazilian Cinema. (book chapter). [forthcoming 2024]
Articles and essays:
“The Problem with Film: Murayama Tomoyoshi’s Variations on the Visible.” ARTMargins (Cambridge, Mass.) 13.2 (2024): 26–44.
“Limite” in Filmografías Comentadas vol. II. Buenos Aires: Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (encyclopedia entry), 2023. [in Spanish]
“Limite e a Imagem que Não Vemos: uma proposta crítica.” (Limite and the Image We Don’t See: a critical proposal). Translated to English, Spanish, French. Estudos Sobre Limite de Mário Peixoto. Online, 2022. https://limite.uff.br/language/en/image-we-dont-see/ [invited essay]
“Lost Futures: Otávio de Faria and the Beginnings of Film Theory in Brazil." JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 60 no. 4, 2021, p. 134-141.
"Film and Malaria: Mário De Andrade and the Politics of Just Looking," Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/13569325.2020.1823347
"Introduction" (with Daniel Fairfax and Luca Peretti) in special issue "Cinema and Social Conflict," Zapruder World: an International Journal for the History of Social Conflict, Volume 6 (2020). DOI: 10.21431/Z3F304
“(Geo)políticas da Percepção: Limite, de Mário Peixoto, e Uma Página da Loucura, de Kinugasa Teinosuke.” ((Geo)politics of Perception: Limite, by Mário Peixoto, and A Page of Madness, by Kinugasa Teinosuke.”) in Galáxia: Comunicação e Semiótica, n.44, may-aug 2020, pp. 83–99. [Portuguese].
“Fotografia Contra Vontade: as fotografias de Dorothea Lange nos campos de concentração dos Estados Unidos.” (Photography Against Will: Dorothea Lange's photographs of the US concentration camps). Logos: Comunicação e Universidade, vol. 27, n.1, 2020, pp. 221–241. [Portuguese]
“Analogy as Exposure.” in Bachner, Andrea, et al. "Approaches between Asia and Latin America: A Critical Renga." Verge: Studies in Global Asias, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017, pp. 56–59
“Imaginação e Representação: Whose Utopia.” (Imagination and Representation: Whose Utopia) Lugar Comum, vol.1, p.185–198, 2012.
“Apontamentos: cinema, sofrimento e alteridade.” (Notes on cinema, suffering, and alterity) in Imaginários Invisíveis, XIII Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual. São Paulo : Socine, v.2, p.292-305, 2012.
Book chapters:
“O Método de Benny: olhar, mostrar e narrar a morte” (Benny´s Method: to see, to show, and to narrate death) A Imagem e o Incômodo: o Cinema de Michael Haneke. WSET, 2011, p. 167–176.
“Limiar, imagem e corpo: política e estética em Ichi, o Assassino, de Takashi Miike.” (Threshold, image, and body: politics and aesthetics in Ichi, the Killer by Takashi Miike) Imagens do Japão: pesquisas, intervenções poéticas, provocações. São Paulo: Annablume, 2011, p. 41-51.
“Naomi Kawase e o Presente.” (Naomi Kawase and the Present) O Cinema de Naomi Kawase. Rio de Janeiro: CCBB, 2011, p. 180-195.
Edited Volumes:
Daniel Fairfax, André Keiji Kunigami, and Luca Peretti, eds. "Cinema and Social Conflict." Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social Conflict, volume 6, 2020.
Translation:
Otávio de Faria, “The Scenario and the Future of the Cinema.” Research and translation from 1928 original. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 60 no. 4, 2021, p. 142-157. Portuguese to English.
"Yellowness as Transpacific Technology: Cinematic Regimes of Race between Japan and Brazil" in Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies. (Duke University Press) [forthcoming, 2024]
“Asian Diasporic Cinema: a hemispheric approach” in Ajia-kei Amerika wo Shirutame no Gojyu-Sho (50 topics to know more about Asian America). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. (book chapter) [forthcoming 2024]. [In Japanese]
“Silent Film Theory in Brazil: modernity and the geopolitics of cinematic embodiment.” Oxford Handbook of Brazilian Cinema. (book chapter). [forthcoming 2024]
Articles and essays:
“The Problem with Film: Murayama Tomoyoshi’s Variations on the Visible.” ARTMargins (Cambridge, Mass.) 13.2 (2024): 26–44.
“Limite” in Filmografías Comentadas vol. II. Buenos Aires: Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (encyclopedia entry), 2023. [in Spanish]
“Limite e a Imagem que Não Vemos: uma proposta crítica.” (Limite and the Image We Don’t See: a critical proposal). Translated to English, Spanish, French. Estudos Sobre Limite de Mário Peixoto. Online, 2022. https://limite.uff.br/language/en/image-we-dont-see/ [invited essay]
“Lost Futures: Otávio de Faria and the Beginnings of Film Theory in Brazil." JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 60 no. 4, 2021, p. 134-141.
"Film and Malaria: Mário De Andrade and the Politics of Just Looking," Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 2020. DOI: 10.1080/13569325.2020.1823347
"Introduction" (with Daniel Fairfax and Luca Peretti) in special issue "Cinema and Social Conflict," Zapruder World: an International Journal for the History of Social Conflict, Volume 6 (2020). DOI: 10.21431/Z3F304
“(Geo)políticas da Percepção: Limite, de Mário Peixoto, e Uma Página da Loucura, de Kinugasa Teinosuke.” ((Geo)politics of Perception: Limite, by Mário Peixoto, and A Page of Madness, by Kinugasa Teinosuke.”) in Galáxia: Comunicação e Semiótica, n.44, may-aug 2020, pp. 83–99. [Portuguese].
“Fotografia Contra Vontade: as fotografias de Dorothea Lange nos campos de concentração dos Estados Unidos.” (Photography Against Will: Dorothea Lange's photographs of the US concentration camps). Logos: Comunicação e Universidade, vol. 27, n.1, 2020, pp. 221–241. [Portuguese]
“Analogy as Exposure.” in Bachner, Andrea, et al. "Approaches between Asia and Latin America: A Critical Renga." Verge: Studies in Global Asias, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017, pp. 56–59
“Imaginação e Representação: Whose Utopia.” (Imagination and Representation: Whose Utopia) Lugar Comum, vol.1, p.185–198, 2012.
“Apontamentos: cinema, sofrimento e alteridade.” (Notes on cinema, suffering, and alterity) in Imaginários Invisíveis, XIII Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual. São Paulo : Socine, v.2, p.292-305, 2012.
Book chapters:
“O Método de Benny: olhar, mostrar e narrar a morte” (Benny´s Method: to see, to show, and to narrate death) A Imagem e o Incômodo: o Cinema de Michael Haneke. WSET, 2011, p. 167–176.
“Limiar, imagem e corpo: política e estética em Ichi, o Assassino, de Takashi Miike.” (Threshold, image, and body: politics and aesthetics in Ichi, the Killer by Takashi Miike) Imagens do Japão: pesquisas, intervenções poéticas, provocações. São Paulo: Annablume, 2011, p. 41-51.
“Naomi Kawase e o Presente.” (Naomi Kawase and the Present) O Cinema de Naomi Kawase. Rio de Janeiro: CCBB, 2011, p. 180-195.
Edited Volumes:
Daniel Fairfax, André Keiji Kunigami, and Luca Peretti, eds. "Cinema and Social Conflict." Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social Conflict, volume 6, 2020.
Translation:
Otávio de Faria, “The Scenario and the Future of the Cinema.” Research and translation from 1928 original. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 60 no. 4, 2021, p. 142-157. Portuguese to English.
Grants
Carolina Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity. 2018–2020.
Japan Foundation Doctoral Research Fellowship, Japan Foundation. 2015–2016.
Graduate Programs
Film and Media studies
Research Centers
Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center
Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6777
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6777
Last updated
10/16/2024
10/16/2024