Graduate Student Directory

Biography, Education and Training

Jane Komori is a PhD candidate in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California Santa Cruz. She holds a Bachelor of Arts First Class with Distinction in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies and humanities from Simon Fraser University and is a Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada doctoral fellow. She is the Managing Editor of Critical Ethnic Studies.

Jane’s work is forthcoming or has been published in Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, Critical Ethnic Studies, Asia-Pacific Journal, Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences, Viewpoint Magazine, The Globe and Mail, Tsunagu 2.0, Ricepaper Magazine, Currents: A Ricepaper Anthology, Matrix Magazine, GUTS Canadian Feminist Magazine, and The Bulletin/Geppo. She is coauthor of a book written in collaboration with the Tonari Gumi Japanese Community Volunteers Association, Our Edible Roots: The Japanese Canadian Kitchen Garden. 

Honors, Awards and Grants

2022—Judy Yung Memorial Fellowship 

2021—Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation

2021—Specialists in Cultural and Academic Fields Fellowship, Japan Foundation

2021—Living Through Upheaval Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute 

2021—Outstanding Teaching Award, History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz 

2020—Fellow, Social Sciences and Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Program, The Humanities Institute

2019—Robert Cavooris Memorial Award for Community Activism, UC Santa Cruz 

2019—Outstanding Teaching Assistant, History of Consciousness, University of California Santa Cruz

2019—Graduate Student Travel Grant, Association of Asian American Studies

2018-2022—Doctoral Fellow, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

2018—Summer Research Fellow, The Humanities Institute

2017—Robert C. Brown Award, Simon Fraser University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences 

Selected Publications

Forthcoming: "The Canadian 'War of the Two Sugars': Homegrown Sugar Beets and the Racial Stratification of Labour.” Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory.  

Forthcoming: “‘Guilt by Association’: Japanese Canadians and the Nanjing Massacre Commemorative Day.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, June 2022.   

Forthcoming: “Unsettling Race in the Pacific.” Critical Ethnic Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, 2022.

“Art Komori: Autodidact & Grandfather.” The Bulletin/Geppo, May 2022, 8-10. 

"Hayao (Art) Komori." The Globe and Mail, April 2022. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-autodidact-art-komori-overcame-racism-and-tragedy-to-become-a-doting/ 

"The United States at the center of the action: Review of Mark Driscoll's The Whites Are Enemies of Heaven." Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 30, no. 1, 2021, 387-398. 

“Denbatsuke,” “Learning Kanji,” and “Matsutake.” Tsunagu 2.0, 2022. https://tsunagu.ca/author/jane-komori/  

“How to Run a Wildcat Strike Fund.” Viewpoint Magazine, January 26, 2021. https://viewpointmag.com/2021/01/26/how-to-run-a-wildcat-strike-fund/

“Alien Histories: Yomogi and the 70th Anniversary of Japanese Canadians’ Return to the West Coast.” The Bulletin/Geppo. December 2018, 34. 

“Matsutake, pine mushroom, or qámes?” The Bulletin/Geppo. September 2018, 20.

Our Edible Roots: The Japanese Canadian Kitchen Garden. Tonari Gumi Japanese Community Volunteers Association. 2018. https://shop.nikkeiplace.org/products/our-edible-roots-the-japanese-canadian-kitchen-garden

Selected Presentations

“‘White people would not do this:’ Labor histories of the Fraser River Fishing and Canning Industries, 1970-1950.” 2022 Association of Asian American Studies Conference. Denver, CO. 14-17 April 2022. 

“Fishing for Tin Cans: Confluences of Japanese Canadian, settler, and Indigenous histories in the Fraser River Delta.” The 2022 Harvard University Mahindra Humanities Center Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference. Boston, MA. 25-26 March 2022. 

“The place of the Asian diaspora in struggles for life and freedom.” Board sponsored panel for 2021 Association of Asian American Studies Conference. San Francisco, CA. 7-10 April 2021.  

“Foraging for ghosts: Yomogi spectrality in Steveston, British Columbia.” 2019 Society for Literature, Science, and Arts Conference. University of California Irvine. 7-9 November 2019. 

 “I Look Nature: Japanese Canadian Gardens in Settler Colonial Ecologies.” 2019 Association of Asian American Studies 39th Conference. University of Wisconsin—Madison. 25-27 April 2019.

"Yellow Vein Virus, Rhizomania, and Sugar Beets: Spectral Sweetness and Yellow Peril in Western Canadian Agricultural Histories." Pacific Ancient and Modern Languages Association 116th Annual Conference. University of Western Washington. 9-11 November 2018.

“Invasive, Indigenous, and Interstitial Species: Yomogi Spectrality on Unceded Coast Salish Terriories.” Critical Ethnic Studies Association Conference: Critical Insurrections: Decolonizing Difficulties, Activist Imaginaries, and Collective Possibilities. University of British Columbia. 21-24 June 2018. 

“Rooted Labor: Intergenerational Food Production Knowledge.” SEEDBED: A Soil Symposium. University of California Santa Cruz. 26-27 April 2018.