Brief Introduction Top

I teach courses relating to Japanese anthropology, gender studies and cultural studies. My interest in these fields was established years ago during my work as a reporter for a Japanese news program in New York, and developed later during my fieldwork experiences at NHK and Fuji TV in Japan. Since moving to Singapore in the late 1990s, I have taken an interest in the growing popularity of Japanese mass media and pop culture in Asia and have explored this trend in my courses and research projects.

Teaching Areas Top

IF/JS3225  Japanese Mass Media
JS2228      Gender and Sexuality in Japan
JS3213      Alternative Lives in Contemporary Japan
JS4225      Social Dynamics in Modern Japan
JS2213      Popular Culture in Contemporary Japan
JS3221      Introduction to Japanese Business Management

Current Research Top

Currently I am involved in two different research projects. The first is entitled “Cosplay in Singapore: Ritual, Technology and Community Formation” and is based on interviews and fieldwork observations among Singaporean youth artists and cosplayers. This research phase of this project began in late 2003 and is set to conclude in May 2005.

My second project is an archival research program involving the translation, cataloguing, and editing of a collection of letters and assorted documents by my grandfather, Rear Admiral Matsuo Minoru (1897-1980). Matsuo was an artillery engineer in the Japanese Imperial Navy who converted to Christianity in the 1920s and served as military attaché in France and England in the 1930s. These letters were discovered two years ago and consist of over 500 personal letters and postcards; three volumes on artillery designs (for which he received an Imperial Medal of Honor); and several hundred military and family photographs.

Research Interests Top

My primary research interests are in mass media/popular culture, cultural studies, gender studies and ethnicity.

Publications Top

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

• Book Chapter

  MacLachlan, Elizabeth and Chua Geok Lian.  2008.  "Defining Asian Femininity: Chinese Viewers of Japanese TV Dramas in Singapore."  In Charlotte Brunsdon and Lynn Spigel (eds) Feminist Television Criticism.  Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp. 273-287.

  MacLachlan, Elizabeth and Thang Leng Leng.  2008.  "Importing Japanese Fan Practices: Cosplay in Singapore."  In Globalization and Asia in Transformation.  Proceedings from The Seventh Asian International Forum in Fukuoka.  Fukuoka, Japan: Asian International Forum in Fukuoka, pp. 150-161.

  Thang, L.L., M. Goda and E. MacLachlan.  2006.  "Negotiating work and self: experiences of Japanese working women in Singapore."  In N. Adachi (ed) Japanese Diasporas: unsung pasts, conflicting presents and uncertain futures.  New York: Routledge.

  MacLachlan, Elizabeth. 2005.  “Protesting the 1994 Okinawa Rape Incident: Women, democracy, and television news in Japan.” In A. Romano and M. Bromley (eds) Journalism and Democracy in Asia. New York: Routledge.

  
  MacLachlan, Elizabeth and Chua Geok Lian. 2003. アジアの恋愛か？西洋のセクスか？シンガポールにおける日本のドラマ視聴　(Asian love or Western Sex? The popularity of Japanese Dramas in Singapore). In Koichi Iwabuchi (ed,) グローバル•プリズム（アジアン•ドリーム）としての日本のテレビドラマ(Global Prism: Japanese TV Dramas as Asian Dreams). Tokyo: Heibonsha.

  
  MacLachlan, Elizabeth and Chua Geok Lian. 2003. “Defining Asian Femininity: Chinese Viewers of Japanese TV Dramas in Singapore.” In Koichi Iwabuchi (ed.) Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Dramas. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press.

  
  Thang, L.L., M. Goda and E. MacLachlan. 2003. “Challenging the Life Course: Japanese Women Working in Singapore.” In L. L. Thang and W.H. Yu (eds) Old Challenges, New Strategies? Women, Work and Family in Changing Asia.
  

  
  MacLachlan, Liz. 2001. “Turning Seeing into Believing: Producing Credibility in the Television News Coverage of the Kobe Earthquake.” In B. Moeran (ed.) Asian Media Productions. Surrey: Curzon.
  

  
  Journal article

  
  Thang, L.L., E. MacLachlan and M. Goda. 2002. “Expatriates on the Margins: A Study of Japanese Women Working in Singapore.” Geoforum. December.
  

  
  Documentary film

  Fans in New Places: Cosplay in Singapore (documentary film).  2005.  14 mins.  (Producer)

  
  The Second Wave: Japanese Women Working in Singapore (documentary film). 2001. 23 mins. (Associate-producer/writer)

  
  Under Another Sun: Japanese in Singapore (documentary film). 2001. 56 mins. (Narrator/Associate-producer)
  

  
  Miscellaneous

  
  MacLachlan, Liz. 2000. “National Television News in Japan: A production study.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.

  
  MacLachlan, Liz. 1997. “From Rape to Rally Cry: the Politicization of the Okinawa Violence Incident,” published as conference proceedings in Japan Anthropology Workshop Newsletter (26 and 27), September.