KEIO RESEARCHERS INFORMATION SYSTEM

Career 【 Display / hide 】

Career 【 Display / hide 】

• 2021.04

  -

  Present

  Professor

• 2013.04

  -

  2021.03

  Associate Professor

• 2009.04

  -

  2013.03

  Assistant Profeessor

• 2023.01

  -

  2027.12

  University of Huddersfield, School of Music, Humanities and Media, Visiting Professor

• 2019.01

  -

  2022.12

  University of Huddersfield, School of Music, Humanities and Media, Visiting Research Fellow

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Academic Background 【 Display / hide 】

Academic Background 【 Display / hide 】

• 2002.04

  -

  2008.03

  The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Department of English Language and Literature

  Graduate School, Withdrawal after completion of doctoral course requirements, Doctoral course

• 2007.11

  University of Warwick, Faculty of Art, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies

  United Kingdom, Graduate School, Completed, Doctoral course

• 1999.04

  -

  2002.03

  Gakushuin University, Graduate School of Humanities, Graduate Course in English and American Literature

  Graduate School, Completed, Master's course

• 1999.03

  Gakushuin University, Faculty of Letters, Department of English and American Literature

  University, Graduated

• 2000.09

  University of Oxford, Visiting Graduate Student in English

  United Kingdom, University, Other

Academic Degrees 【 Display / hide 】

Academic Degrees 【 Display / hide 】

• PhD, University of Warwick, 2007.11

• MA, Gakushuin University, Coursework, 2002.03

Research Areas 【 Display / hide 】

Research Areas 【 Display / hide 】

• Humanities & Social Sciences / European literature (Post-war/Contemporary British Literature and Culture)

Books 【 Display / hide 】

Books 【 Display / hide 】

• 'Contemporary Narratives of Dementia in Japan.' In Paul Crawford and Paul Kadetz (eds), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Health Humanities

  Katsura Sako, Springer, 2023.10,  Page： 1-8

  , Accepted

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• ‘Ageing and Care in Contemporary Women’s Writing: Doris Lessing’s The Diary of a Good Neighbour and Margaret Drabble’s The Pure Gold Baby’ In Gina Wisker, Leanne Bibby and Heidi Yeandle (eds), Legacies and Lifespans in Contemporary Women's Writing

  Katsura Sako, Palgrave, 2023.07

  Contact page： 165-187

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• 'Dementia in Japanese Cinema: Family and Rural Nostalgia.' In Sarah Falcus, Heike Hartung and Raquel Medina (eds), Bloomsbury Handbook of Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film

  Katsura Sako, Bloomsbury, 2023.06

  Contact page： 313-324

• "A Few Good Old Men: Revising Ageing Masculinities in Last Tango in Halifax." In Sara Martín and M. Isabel Santaulària (eds), Detoxing Masculinity in Anglophone Literature and Culture: In Search of Good Men

  Maricel Oró-Piqueras and Katsura Sako, Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2023.03

  Contact page： 251-266 , Accepted

  　View Summary

  The ideal ageing masculinity is expressed in the fit able body that signifies physical and sexual functionality and productive citizenship. British TV series Last Tango in Halifax (2012–2020), however, questions this idealised configuration. Focusing on the main male protagonist, Alan Buttershaw, this chapter analyses the various ways in which the series depicts his caring personality and the vulnerable ageing masculinity that he represents, through romantic and intergenerational narratives and in relation to other characters who differently highlight and interrogate hegemonic masculinity. As the analysis demonstrates, Alan is one of the ‘few good old men’, a form of ageing masculinity characterised by caring and an openness to vulnerability, qualities that are often repressed in youth.

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• Dementia in Japanese cinema: The family and rural nostalgia

  Sako K., The Bloomsbury Handbook to Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film, 2023.01

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Papers 【 Display / hide 】

Papers 【 Display / hide 】

• 'Futurity, the life course and aging in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun'

  Katsura Sako & Sarah Falcus

  Frontiers of Narrative Studies （DeGruyter)  9 （ 1 ） 121 - 136 2023.07

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Lead author, Accepted

  • Access to Document (DOI)
  • Access to Document (DOI)

• Successful ageing and the spectre of the fourth age in the Netflix TV series Grace and Frankie

  Sako K., Oró-Piqueras M.

  Journal of Aging Studies 65 2023.06

  Research paper (scientific journal), Joint Work, Lead author, Accepted,  ISSN  08904065

  　View Summary

  With its potential to engage a large audience and mark emerging social tendencies and with the rich narrative space that the seriality can bring, TV series can be a valuable cultural site through which to explore ageing as an experience in time. The Netflix's longest-running TV series Grace and Frankie (2015–2022) exhibits such potential, bringing together ageing and friendship into the popular cultural domain. Set in the contemporary US, the show closely follows two over-70, newly divorced, female protagonists and friends, Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlin). Depicting the new opportunities and experiences they gain and drawing on the star persona of Fonda and Tomlin, the show presents an optimistic narrative of ageing into old age. This optimism, however, is more ambivalent about ageing than it appears, as it emerges from the context of the neoliberalization of ageing in the US and other Western societies. Considering friendship, entrepreneurship, the ageing woman's body and sexuality, and care in the show, we demonstrate how the show's optimism is premised on the construction of the neoliberal, successfully ageing subject in the two protagonists and on the othering of the fourth age, “‘black hole’ of ageing,” as a time and space marked by the failing of the body, vulnerability and dependency (Higgs & Gilleard, 2015, 16). While the show's explicit engagement with the bodily ageing in some ways makes it more relevant to older audience, its evocation of the fourth age reflects and reinforces the broader cultural anxiety around it. Ultimately, the show brings in the fourth age only to reiterate the two protagonists' credentials as successful agers.

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• Depicting Dementia: Representations of Cognitive Health and Illness in Ten Picturebooks for Children

  Caldwell E.F., Falcus S., Sako K.

  Children's Literature in Education （Children's Literature in Education)   2020

  ISSN  00456713

  　View Summary

  © 2020, The Author(s). It is estimated that a third of children know someone living with dementia, and there are now many picturebooks for young children that help to explain the changes dementia can bring to family life. Despite their number, there has been little examination of what these books communicate about health and illness. To address this, the current study presents a close visual and textual analysis of 10 recent picturebooks in English that aim to teach children about dementia. Our analysis reveals that in these books dementia is exclusively framed in terms of ageing, and as an illness of older adults. Furthermore, the books rely heavily on mechanistic metaphors to explain the causes of dementia. However, at the same time the “still the same person” narrative is dominant. This narrative emphasises the importance of foregrounding the unique history and personality of the person living with dementia, and offers a way to help children to continue meaningful relationships with their relatives. These books employ often ageist tropes of decline in the depiction of dementia and yet at the same time support a narrative of ongoing personhood, reflecting the complexity of broader social discourses around dementia and selfhood.

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• 'Dementia and Detection in Elizabeth Is Missing and Turn of Mind'

  Katsura Sako

  Contemporary Women's Writing 10 （ 3 ） 315 - 333 2016.05

  Single Work, Lead author, Accepted

  • Access to Document (DOI)

• 'Dementia, Care and Time in Postwar Japan: The Twilight Years, Memories of Tomorrow and Pecoross’ Mother and Her Days'

  Katsura Sako and Sarah Falcus

  Feminist Review 111   88 - 108 2015.11

  Joint Work, Lead author, Accepted

  • Access to Document (DOI)

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Papers, etc., Registered in KOARA 【 Display / hide 】

Papers, etc., Registered in KOARA 【 Display / hide 】

• Cross-cultural analysis of dementia in picturebooks for children

  Sako, Katsura

  学事振興資金研究成果実績報告書 （慶應義塾大学)  2018

• Ageing and subjectivity in contemporary British fiction and culture

  Sako, Katsura

  科学研究費補助金研究成果報告書 2016

• Ageing, the body and subjectivity in three stories by A. S. Byatt

  Sako, Katsura

  The Hiyoshi review of English studies （慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会)   （ 61 ） 107 - 155 2012.10

  ISSN  09117180

• Ageing in post-war/contemporary British fiction

  Sako, Katsura

  科学研究費補助金研究成果報告書 2012

• The Metamorphosis and Mirroring in Three Stories of A.S. Byatt

  Sako, Katsura

  The Hiyoshi review of English studies （慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会)   （ 55 ） 69 - 95 2009

  ISSN  09117180

Reviews, Commentaries, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

Reviews, Commentaries, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

• Review of Novels in English and Ageing

  Katsura Sako

  The Book Review Press (Bukyu Publishing Corporation)  3458   5 - 5 2020.08

  Book review, literature introduction, etc.

• Review of Aging and Loss: Mourning and Maturing in Contemporary Japan by Jason Danely

  Katsura Sako

  Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdiscplinary Journal (The Athenaeum Press at Coastal Carolina University)  5 2020.07

Presentations 【 Display / hide 】

Presentations 【 Display / hide 】

• “Gardens, Age and Generation in Children’s Picturebooks”  

  Sarah Falcus and Katsura Sako

  Within and Without: Representations of Ageing: International Symposium III: Special Issue (Online) , 

  2024.01

  , 

  Oral presentation (invited, special), University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies

• Ageing, Care and Death in Children’s Picturebooks from Japan and the UK

  Katsura Sako and Sarah Falcus

  Age and Care Graz 2023: Aging in a Caring Society? Theories in Conversation (University of Graz, Austria) , 

  2023.09

  , 

  Oral presentation (general)

• “The Family, Generations and the Posthuman Future in 'Years and Years'"

  Katsura Sako and Maricel Oró-Piqueras

  "Recent Approaches to the Posthuman: Cultural Reflections on the (Post-)Human Condition: 18th International Conference on Contemporary Narratives in English" (Zaragoza) , 

  2023.05

  , 

  Oral presentation (general), University of Zaragoza

• “Intergenerationality, Age, and Environment in Children’s Picturebooks”

  Katsura Sako and Sarah Falcus

  European Network in Aging Studies and North American Network in Aging Studies Joint Conference (Bucharest, Romania (online)) , 

  2022.09

  -

  2022.10

  , 

  Oral presentation (general)

• "Children, care and the posthuman future in Klara and the Sun"

  Sarah Falcus and Katsura Sako

  16th Conference of European Society for the Study of English (Mainz, Germany) , 

  2022.08

  -

  2022.09

  , 

  Oral presentation (general)

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Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

Research Projects of Competitive Funds, etc. 【 Display / hide 】

• Ageing, Time and the Future in Contemporary Fiction

  2023.04

  -

  2028.03

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research , Research grant, Principal investigator

• Ageing and Illness in British and Japanese Children's Picturebooks 1950-2000: Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

  2018.04

  -

  2023.03

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Research grant, Principal investigator

• Ageing, Dementia, Care in Contemporary Fiction

  2017.04

  -

  2023.03

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Katsura Sako, Research grant, Principal investigator

• Meanings and Experiences of Ageing and Subjectivity in Contemporary British Fiction and Culture

  2013.04

  -

  2017.03

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Research grant, Principal investigator

• Ageing in Post-war and Contemporary British Literature

  2010.04

  -

  2013.03

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Research grant, Principal investigator

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Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

Courses Taught 【 Display / hide 】

• LITERATURE 2

  2024

• LITERATURE 1

  2024

• ENGLISH SEMINAR (UPPER INTERMEDIATE)

  2024

• ENGLISH (STUDY SKILLS)

  2024

• LITERATURE 2

  2023

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Academic Activities 【 Display / hide 】

Academic Activities 【 Display / hide 】

• European Network in Aging Studies Advisory Board Member

  2022.10

  -

  Present

Memberships in Academic Societies 【 Display / hide 】

Memberships in Academic Societies 【 Display / hide 】

• European Network in Aging Studies, 

  2011.10

  -

  Present

• Contemporary Women's Writing Association, 

  2011.04

  -

  Present

• 日本英文学会, 

  2003.04

  -

  Present