Role
Hui-Ying is a Senior Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Fashion Communication and Promotion course in the Nottingham School of Art and Design. She currently teaches across the undergraduate cohort and is a PhD supervisor.
Career overview
With a multidisciplinary background in Product Design and Architecture and Critical Theory, Hui-Ying completed her PhD in History of Design at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) in 2017, exploring consumer cultures of the late 1980s Japanese Bubble Economy through lifestyle magazines. Sponsored by the AHRC-CDA program for her PhD, she was also an AHRC-IPS scholar and visiting researcher at the National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka, Japan) during her fieldwork in Japan.
Since 2016 she has held a permanent teaching position at Nottingham Trent University, first in Product Design, and more recently in Fashion Management, Marketing, and Communication. Over the years Hui-Ying has been the recipient of several awards and grants, including twice winner of the NTSU Student-Led Teaching Awards for Outstanding Teaching Staff in 2017 and 2019. Hui-Ying is also a founding member and chair of the NTU Academic Book Publishing Group.
Research areas
Hui-Ying has previously chaired the UK Design History Society’s inaugural panel at the College Arts Association (CAA) Annual Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, ‘Imagining the International: Repositioning Peripheral Narratives in Global Design Histories’. She has also led the international research networking event, ‘Renegotiating the Narrative in Global Design Histories’ supported by the NTU Global Heritage Research Fund (2018).
Hui-Ying is currently writing a monograph based on her doctoral thesis of the Japanese 1980s Bubble Economy through lifestyle magazines and is co-editing a forthcoming collection on fashion communication. She is also involved in co-organising the next national Academic Book Publishing Conference 2024 in conjunction with Nottingham Trent University and the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network.
External activity
Hui-Ying has presented her work at different institutions, including at the Tate Research Centre: Asia (London), The Japan Foundation (London), the College Arts Association (CAA) Annual Conference (Los Angeles), Leiden University (Netherlands), IASTE 2020 and the Bard Graduate Centre (New York). Hui-Ying is the external examiner for the MA History of Design and Material Cultures course at the University of Brighton.
Sponsors and collaborators
Research Grants
- Nottingham School of Art and Design Early-Career Development Fund Research Grant (2022/2023); Principal Investigator
- Nottingham Trent University Global Heritage Research Seed Corn Fund (UK) (2017/2018); Principal Investigator
- Design History Society (UK), College Art Association (CAA) Membership and Conference Fees Grant (2017); Panel Chair
- Tate Research Centre: Asia (London, UK), Travel Grant (2017)
- Royal College of Art Research Student Conference Travel Grant (2013)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council International Placement Scheme (AHRC IPS) with the National Institute of Humanities Japan (NIHU), Visiting Researcher Travel Grant (2012)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award (AHRC CDA) (2010 – 2013)
Membership and Collaborations
- British Academy Early Career Researcher Network
- NTU Academic Book Publishing Group (Chair)
- The Design History Society (UK)
- Postcolonial Studies Centre, Research Group; Nottingham Trent University
- Periodicals and Print Culture Research Group; Nottingham Trent University
Publications
Kerr, H. (Forthcoming), Health Booms and Bubbly Bodies: Hanako Magazine, Women and Beauty in the 1980s Japanese Bubble Economy; Ng, Sandy and Rajguru, Megha (eds.), (Forthcoming), Material Culture and Design in Modern Asia, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London, UK
Kerr, H. (2024), Playing the Sporting Life; Sporting Leisure Through Lifestyle Magazines in the Japanese Bubble Economy; Okura Gagné, Nana and Gagné, Isaac (eds.), (2023), Handbook of Work & Leisure in Japan, Japan Documents, MHM Ltd, Tokyo, Japan
Kerr, H., (2022), Sweet Treats and Foreign Foods: Hanako Magazine and the Internationalised Women of the Japanese Bubble Economy; Lee, Yunah and Rajguru, Megha (eds.), (Forthcoming), Design and Modernity in Asia: National and Transnational Exchange 1945-1990, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London, UK
Kerr, H. (2019), Ribbons and Rebellion: Kawaii Fashion as Cute Disruptor; Magazine Article; Kawaii, Issue 15, CRUSHFanzine, NWInc. + KSAD Publication, CRUSHfanzine, New York, USA
Kerr, H., (2017), Conference Review, Modern Living in Asia, 1945 – 1990; Blogpost
(http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/idhbrighton/2017/08/22/modern-living-in-asia-1945-1990/) ; Internationalising Design History Research, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
Kerr, H., (2016), What is kawaii – and why did the world fall for the ‘cult of cute’?; Online Article (https://theconversation.com/what-is-kawaii-and-why-did-the-world-fall-for-the-cult-of-cute-67187) ; The Conversation, UK
Press expertise
Hui-Ying's research relates to transnational design history, cultural history, Japan and East Asia, fashion communication, lifestyle magazines, and economic bubbles.
Hui-Ying’s research interests include the cultural impact of economic bubbles as materialised through lifestyle, material culture and design; magazines and zine culture; postmodernism and consumer culture; gender; work and leisure cultures; Japan and East Asia, decolonising design history; peripheralities; and the intersectionality of encounters of the local with the international.