Leo Kadokura

Thesis title: Rewriting Englishness Across the Long Twentieth Century

Supervisor: Peter D. McDonald

Research Interests: Modern Literature, World Literature, Postcolonial Studies, the ethics and epistemology of identity

Leo Kadokura is a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford. His thesis examines how the always contested idea of Englishness has shifted as writers have developed new, or different, modes of writing across the long twentieth century. The project considers in particular the work of Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, V.S. Naipaul and Kazuo Ishiguro. The vital but often neglected two-way interaction between intellectual history and literary form is central to this project. He completed his MSt in World Literatures in English and BA in English Language and Literature at Oxford.

He has worked extensively on Olive Schreiner, John Galsworthy, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Henri Bergson, Henry Green, Paul Ricoeur, V.S. Naipaul, Charles Taylor, Kwame Anthony Appiah, J.M. Coetzee, W.G. Sebald, Kazuo Ishiguro and Kirsty Gunn.

He teaches modern and contemporary English literature at Oxford, with an emphasis upon global and postcolonial approaches to twentieth-century writing. Below is a selection of his current and former teaching:

- Modern Literature tutor at Oriel College. Prelims Paper 4 (modern literature since 1910). (ongoing)

- Modern Literature tutor at St John's College. Close reading classes to accompany Prelims Paper 4 (modern literature since 1910). (ongoing)

- Dissertation supervisor at St Hugh's College and St Catherine's College. FHS Paper 7. (ongoing)

- Admissions tutor at St John's College. (ongoing)

- Modern Literature tutor at the Queen's College. Prelims Paper 4 (modern literature since 1910). (completed)

- Graduate seminars at the English faculty. Book History, Bibliography and Palaeography, MSt in World Literatures in English. (completed)

He welcomes dissertation projects on various topics in modern and postcolonial literature, especially those interested in global and postcolonial approaches to twentieth century literature. Below is a selection of current and former FHS dissertations he supervises/has supervised: 

- Packaging Identities: Hanif Kureishi, Bernardine Evaristo, Natasha Brown and the Postcolonial Novel. (completed)

- Rewriting Voices: Sam Selvon, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Percival Everett. (ongoing)

- Terror and the Mundane: Ian McEwan, Don DeLillo and Mohsin Hamid. (ongoing)

Publications: 

- "Weak Positions: Olive Schreiner's Elusive Politics." Journal of Postcolonial Writing. (2025, forthcoming).

- "What One Is Worth: Leftovers of Identity and Value in V.S. Naipaul's Late Fiction." Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas. (2025, forthcoming).

Conference Papers:

- "Gingko Trees: Kazuo Ishiguro and the Canonisation of the World Writer." Taking a Shot at the Canon, Sorbonne University. (Paris, France. June 2025).

- [Conference Panel Chair] "Half Knowledge: Identity, Philosophical Difficulty and the Remains of Value." 55th NeMLA Convention, Modern Language Association [MLA]. (Boston, USA. March 2024).

- "What One Is Worth: Leftovers of Identity and Value in V.S. Naipaul's Late Fiction." 55th NeMLA Convention, Modern Language Association [MLA]. (Boston, USA. March 2024).

- "Distant Chimeras: The After-Effects of John Galsworthy and the Edwardian Novel." Afterlives of Empire in the Public Imagination, University of Sapienza. (Rome, Italy. September 2023).

- "Writing Doubtfully: Joseph Conrad's Nostromo." OEGC, University of Oxford. (Oxford, UK. June 2023).