Aaron Gerow (/ˈdʒɛroʊ/) is an American historian of Japanese cinema, and a member of the faculty of Yale University where he holds a joint position between the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Film Studies Programs.
[3] He helped found its influential Asia Program, which played a critical role in the development of independent documentary in the region.
Previous histories of prewar Japanese cinema tend to focus either on the influence of traditional culture on cinema (most notably Noel Burch's To the Distant Observer[9]), or the impact of western modernity on the local film culture.
Instead, Gerow carefully examines the struggles of defining the medium in this time of flux, particularly those around the Pure Film Movement of the 1910s.
In a published book review in the University of Southern California film journal Spectator, media scholar Annie Manion wrote "Aaron Gerow’s influence and importance in the field of Japanese film and media studies cannot be overstated.