MEMORY: SUBJECTS, OBJECTS, AND OBJECTIVES
Tiger Hunting and Long Sleeved Courtiers: Historical Memory and Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Invasions of Korea (Sebastian Peel, UC Berkeley)
Following the unsuccessful attempt by the Japanese to invade the Korean peninsula in the 1590s, the transmission of literature and ideas from China and Korea played a significant role in the construction of historical narrative and memory within Japan. During the Edo period, contact and trade between Japan and the outside world was heavily regulated by the Tokugawa bakufu, whilst unofficial foreign contact was prohibited. Nevertheless, goods and ideas made their way from China and Korea to Japan throughout the Edo period and exerted influence on Japanese culture. This paper examines the transmission of information about the Korean invasions from China and Korea into Japan, and the influence that this had on historical memory. Chinese records of the war, written in the early seventeenth century, entered Japan later in that century, which coincided with a wave of writing about the invasions. Korean accounts were transmitted to Japan in the early eighteenth century, and these exerted further influence upon Japanese accounts. The Japanese historical accounts did not focus on the failure of the invasion, rather authors crafted historical narratives to glorify the participants and their accomplishments. In conclusion, this paper suggests that not only did the transmission of ideas from China and Korea have an influence on the construction of historical narrative within Japan; the differences between Japan and continental East Asia were also related to the construction of masculinity and gender in popular culture.
Following the unsuccessful attempt by the Japanese to invade the Korean peninsula in the 1590s, the transmission of literature and ideas from China and Korea played a significant role in the construction of historical narrative and memory within Japan. During the Edo period, contact and trade between Japan and the outside world was heavily regulated by the Tokugawa bakufu, whilst unofficial foreign contact was prohibited. Nevertheless, goods and ideas made their way from China and Korea to Japan throughout the Edo period and exerted influence on Japanese culture. This paper examines the transmission of information about the Korean invasions from China and Korea into Japan, and the influence that this had on historical memory. Chinese records of the war, written in the early seventeenth century, entered Japan later in that century, which coincided with a wave of writing about the invasions. Korean accounts were transmitted to Japan in the early eighteenth century, and these exerted further influence upon Japanese accounts. The Japanese historical accounts did not focus on the failure of the invasion, rather authors crafted historical narratives to glorify the participants and their accomplishments. In conclusion, this paper suggests that not only did the transmission of ideas from China and Korea have an influence on the construction of historical narrative within Japan; the differences between Japan and continental East Asia were also related to the construction of masculinity and gender in popular culture.
Invisible Bridges and Empty City Centers: Izumi Kyōka, Komura Settai, and the Art of Nihonbashi (Pedro Bassoe, UC Berkeley)
In 1914, Izumi Kyōka (1873-1939) proposed that Komura Settai (1887-1940), a young artist and graduate from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō), illustrate the cover to his upcoming novel, Nihonbashi (Bridge of Japan). Contrary to the common practice of the time, Kyōka did not direct Settai with any particular scene or narrative point to illustrate, but provided him with only the title and location of the story, the eponymous Nihonbashi Bridge and district in central Tokyo.[1] Settai responded with a flat image of warehouses lining the Nihonbashi River and replaced the iconic bridge with the spine of the book and the title rendered in three kanji characters: 日本橋 (Nihonbashi). For the front and back endpapers he created four scenes set in the Nihonbashi district, but instead of showing a bustling city center he depicted mysteriously empty rooms and dark alleyways. The images set up a novel that treats Nihonbashi as an illusionary space—a place where images are brought to life by sleight-of-hand and the city is nothing more than a flat backdrop for a performance. Together, text and image emphasize the crafted nature of the novel and reimagine the streets and bridges of central Tokyo as a literary illusion.
In 1914, Izumi Kyōka (1873-1939) proposed that Komura Settai (1887-1940), a young artist and graduate from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō), illustrate the cover to his upcoming novel, Nihonbashi (Bridge of Japan). Contrary to the common practice of the time, Kyōka did not direct Settai with any particular scene or narrative point to illustrate, but provided him with only the title and location of the story, the eponymous Nihonbashi Bridge and district in central Tokyo.[1] Settai responded with a flat image of warehouses lining the Nihonbashi River and replaced the iconic bridge with the spine of the book and the title rendered in three kanji characters: 日本橋 (Nihonbashi). For the front and back endpapers he created four scenes set in the Nihonbashi district, but instead of showing a bustling city center he depicted mysteriously empty rooms and dark alleyways. The images set up a novel that treats Nihonbashi as an illusionary space—a place where images are brought to life by sleight-of-hand and the city is nothing more than a flat backdrop for a performance. Together, text and image emphasize the crafted nature of the novel and reimagine the streets and bridges of central Tokyo as a literary illusion.
Queerly Remembered: Historical Mediations of Mishima Yukio (Daryl Maude, UC Berkeley)
Japanese novelist Mishima Yukio is publicly commemorated in San Francisco in two locations: a mural in the LGBT centre of the San Francisco Public Library, entitled Into the Light, and a metal plaque set into the sidewalk in the Castro, San Francisco's gay district. Both of these works of media are examples of public commemoration which present Mishima as an example of a historical gay figure, and one player in a larger narrative of a struggle for LGBT rights.
In this paper I will take these incidences of memorialisation as a starting point, and ask what it means to remember an author in this way and thus transmit his memory to future generations. In order to do this, I will contrast this historicising narrative with a close reading of Mishima's Kamen no kokuhaku (“Confessions of a Mask”), and read the ways in which memory is carefully constructed and thematised in the text, looking at how it is presented as both autobiographical and fictional. In focusing on this construction, which we might also understand as a mediation of memory, I hope to present a queer reading of Mishima and his work, and ask where Mishima fits in what we might call, after Heather Love, a queer history.
Japanese novelist Mishima Yukio is publicly commemorated in San Francisco in two locations: a mural in the LGBT centre of the San Francisco Public Library, entitled Into the Light, and a metal plaque set into the sidewalk in the Castro, San Francisco's gay district. Both of these works of media are examples of public commemoration which present Mishima as an example of a historical gay figure, and one player in a larger narrative of a struggle for LGBT rights.
In this paper I will take these incidences of memorialisation as a starting point, and ask what it means to remember an author in this way and thus transmit his memory to future generations. In order to do this, I will contrast this historicising narrative with a close reading of Mishima's Kamen no kokuhaku (“Confessions of a Mask”), and read the ways in which memory is carefully constructed and thematised in the text, looking at how it is presented as both autobiographical and fictional. In focusing on this construction, which we might also understand as a mediation of memory, I hope to present a queer reading of Mishima and his work, and ask where Mishima fits in what we might call, after Heather Love, a queer history.
FAMILY AND EMPIRE
A Children’s Empire: The Club Magazines and the Prewar “Media Mix” (Andrea Horbinski, UC Berkeley)
This presentation looks at what we might call the “prewar media mix” of the three “sibling” Kodansha magazines Shonen Club, Shojo Club, and Yônen Club and the role they played in shaping mass culture in the early Showa period. While all three magazines were ostensibly marketed to different groups of children, in practice they were read and enjoyed by the whole family in predictable patterns of consumption across media, which allowed them to function as a nexus for the transmission and formation of culture and knowledge. One important such form of culture was that of (children’s) imperialism, while another centered on the first smash hit manga in Japanese history, Norakuro. Each reinforced the other in the pages of the magazines, creating a kind of children’s empire both in readers’ imaginations and in actual practices such as singing, playing board games, and reading aloud. Historians such as Louise Young have noted the role that mass media played in the popularization of empire in the 1930s; looking at these children’s magazines demonstrates just how early that popularization started and how popular it really was. It also demonstrates the outsize influence these magazines exerted on the postwar history of media—and of manga—in Japan.
This presentation looks at what we might call the “prewar media mix” of the three “sibling” Kodansha magazines Shonen Club, Shojo Club, and Yônen Club and the role they played in shaping mass culture in the early Showa period. While all three magazines were ostensibly marketed to different groups of children, in practice they were read and enjoyed by the whole family in predictable patterns of consumption across media, which allowed them to function as a nexus for the transmission and formation of culture and knowledge. One important such form of culture was that of (children’s) imperialism, while another centered on the first smash hit manga in Japanese history, Norakuro. Each reinforced the other in the pages of the magazines, creating a kind of children’s empire both in readers’ imaginations and in actual practices such as singing, playing board games, and reading aloud. Historians such as Louise Young have noted the role that mass media played in the popularization of empire in the 1930s; looking at these children’s magazines demonstrates just how early that popularization started and how popular it really was. It also demonstrates the outsize influence these magazines exerted on the postwar history of media—and of manga—in Japan.
Mass Media Monarchy: The Image of Empress Teimei in Taishō Period Newsmedia (Alison Miller, University of Kansas)
As a public figure, Empress Teimei (1884-1951) held great sway over women’s decorum in the first three decades of the twentieth century. She was, for example, the first Empress to establish monogamous modern family relations, and was the first modern Empress to give birth to the successive Emperor. Before, during, and after the rule of her husband Emperor Taishō (1879-1926; r. 1912-1926), Empress Teimei held a highly public role, and was frequently seen in a variety of visual media. As such, her image was linked with domestic, religious, and national ideas of femininity and the construct of the modern woman.
Although previously overlooked, the significance of the Empress as a media figure and a key influence for conceptions of modern femininity should not be disregarded—photographs of Empress Teimei were featured in women’s magazines and newspapers, and her actions impacted fashion, popular culture, and gender roles in 1910s and 20s Japan. Through the investigation of visual materials featuring Empress Teimei, this presentation aims to reveal the political significance of Teimei’s image as featured in news publications. In particular, I will examine photographs of Empress Teimei and Emperor Taishō published in the Asahi Shinbun (Asahi Newspaper) between 1899 and 1926, marked by the announcement of the Imperial wedding and the death of the Emperor, to determine how the Imperial image changed over the course of the Taishō monarchy.
As a public figure, Empress Teimei (1884-1951) held great sway over women’s decorum in the first three decades of the twentieth century. She was, for example, the first Empress to establish monogamous modern family relations, and was the first modern Empress to give birth to the successive Emperor. Before, during, and after the rule of her husband Emperor Taishō (1879-1926; r. 1912-1926), Empress Teimei held a highly public role, and was frequently seen in a variety of visual media. As such, her image was linked with domestic, religious, and national ideas of femininity and the construct of the modern woman.
Although previously overlooked, the significance of the Empress as a media figure and a key influence for conceptions of modern femininity should not be disregarded—photographs of Empress Teimei were featured in women’s magazines and newspapers, and her actions impacted fashion, popular culture, and gender roles in 1910s and 20s Japan. Through the investigation of visual materials featuring Empress Teimei, this presentation aims to reveal the political significance of Teimei’s image as featured in news publications. In particular, I will examine photographs of Empress Teimei and Emperor Taishō published in the Asahi Shinbun (Asahi Newspaper) between 1899 and 1926, marked by the announcement of the Imperial wedding and the death of the Emperor, to determine how the Imperial image changed over the course of the Taishō monarchy.
The Imperial Household as a Family Photographed (Emily Barrass Chapman, University of London)
The photograph was the medium through which the very matter of the Showa Emperor first came into mass view on 29 September 1945 with an image of the Emperor and General Douglas Macarthur standing side by side. Yet it was a photograph of a smartly-dressed emperor walking with one of his daughters in a garden which major newspapers printed to coincide with his Declaration of Humanity on 1 January 1946. The construction of a newly photogenic imperial family seen in and beyond this seemingly intimate photographic moment is the subject of this paper.
From this point onwards the family photograph[ed] was integral to the project of re-imagining and depoliticising the imperial household as first and foremost, a family. This familial visual turn peaked in April 1959 with the marriage of Crown Prince Akihito and Shōda Michiko. In representations of their “sweet home” (suito hōmu) the imperial family was portrayed as effortless in its profoundly staged and gendered nuclear roles, primed for consumption by the masses in whose image it was being constructed.
As sources, these mass-produced images offer insight into how the relevance of the imperial institution was repackaged. Of greater consequence, however as this paper argues, were the ways in which the imperial family as photographed was skilfully used by media and bureaucracy alike as a surface across which to inscribe ideals of what a postwar Japanese family, and most forcefully a postwar Japanese woman, might, or indeed should, look like.
The photograph was the medium through which the very matter of the Showa Emperor first came into mass view on 29 September 1945 with an image of the Emperor and General Douglas Macarthur standing side by side. Yet it was a photograph of a smartly-dressed emperor walking with one of his daughters in a garden which major newspapers printed to coincide with his Declaration of Humanity on 1 January 1946. The construction of a newly photogenic imperial family seen in and beyond this seemingly intimate photographic moment is the subject of this paper.
From this point onwards the family photograph[ed] was integral to the project of re-imagining and depoliticising the imperial household as first and foremost, a family. This familial visual turn peaked in April 1959 with the marriage of Crown Prince Akihito and Shōda Michiko. In representations of their “sweet home” (suito hōmu) the imperial family was portrayed as effortless in its profoundly staged and gendered nuclear roles, primed for consumption by the masses in whose image it was being constructed.
As sources, these mass-produced images offer insight into how the relevance of the imperial institution was repackaged. Of greater consequence, however as this paper argues, were the ways in which the imperial family as photographed was skilfully used by media and bureaucracy alike as a surface across which to inscribe ideals of what a postwar Japanese family, and most forcefully a postwar Japanese woman, might, or indeed should, look like.
BODIES
Mediating the Body: Anatomical Models and Images in Early Modern Japan (Marguerite V. Hodge, UC San Diego)
During Japan’s early modern, or Tokugawa period (1603-1868), medical knowledge and praxis underwent a profound ideological shift as practitioners and scholars of traditional, Chinese-based medicine engaged with European medicine newly introduced by the Dutch. Primary sites of this paradigmatic negotiation were the anatomical models and images used in Japan to record, explain, and disseminate theoretical and diagnostic medical knowledge. The evolution of representational strategies in these media enacted new understandings of the body, and methods of interacting medically with the body: such as transformed composition, multiple perspectival systems, bold coloration, and use of new materials.
This paper investigates the role of anatomical models and images in adjudicating the interaction of European and Japanese medical discourses in early modern Japan. I argue that these media served as key agents of knowledge production and cultural transmission by dramatizing a critical shift in medical ideology, one that imbricated medicine’s authority over the body within larger social networks of disciplinary and regulatory power. In particular, I claim that these media evinced a merging of religious, political, and scientific discourses, one that articulated a visuality whose multiple rhetorics of solicitation purveyed a reconceptualized body.
A key implication of the paper is thus a reassessment of material and visual cultures during a formative period in Japan’s modern history. By illuminating the polyvalent cultural currency of anatomical media in Japan, the paper enlarges critical awareness of the scope and power of objects and images to arbitrate knowledge practices.
During Japan’s early modern, or Tokugawa period (1603-1868), medical knowledge and praxis underwent a profound ideological shift as practitioners and scholars of traditional, Chinese-based medicine engaged with European medicine newly introduced by the Dutch. Primary sites of this paradigmatic negotiation were the anatomical models and images used in Japan to record, explain, and disseminate theoretical and diagnostic medical knowledge. The evolution of representational strategies in these media enacted new understandings of the body, and methods of interacting medically with the body: such as transformed composition, multiple perspectival systems, bold coloration, and use of new materials.
This paper investigates the role of anatomical models and images in adjudicating the interaction of European and Japanese medical discourses in early modern Japan. I argue that these media served as key agents of knowledge production and cultural transmission by dramatizing a critical shift in medical ideology, one that imbricated medicine’s authority over the body within larger social networks of disciplinary and regulatory power. In particular, I claim that these media evinced a merging of religious, political, and scientific discourses, one that articulated a visuality whose multiple rhetorics of solicitation purveyed a reconceptualized body.
A key implication of the paper is thus a reassessment of material and visual cultures during a formative period in Japan’s modern history. By illuminating the polyvalent cultural currency of anatomical media in Japan, the paper enlarges critical awareness of the scope and power of objects and images to arbitrate knowledge practices.
Encountering the War in Postwar Japan: Ōe Kenzaburō’s “Lavish Are the Dead” (Shelby Oxenford, UC Berkeley)
Historian Thomas Laqueur writes, “[T]he dead are not refuse like the other debris of life… They remain part of culture; base as they are, they do not revert back into nature easily. To the contrary, they bear witness to the historical continuity of humanity.” Ultimately, for Laqueur, “[t]he dead do the work of making civilization.” Borrowing from Laqueur and Yoshikuni Igarashi, this paper considers Ōe Kenzaburō’s 1957 short story “Lavish Are the Dead” (Shisha no ogori) and how the bodies of the dead become a medium for rendering collective traumatic histories legible and encounterable. I argue that within the text, the bodies of both the living and the dead, and the places those bodies occupy enable the transmission of memory, thus creating the conditions for continuity between past and present. For Ōe, these bodies become the only means by which history before defeat can be properly imagined and remembered. The short story posits the dead body as a manifestation of a deep, non-teleological time which stands against the linear, past-less time of the postwar. In the bodily remains of the war, Ōe argues for the need of the living to attend to the dead and the memories and histories those dead embody. If the dead can “do the work of making civilization,” then the erasure of them is the erasure of not only the witnesses of history, but also the erasure of history and civilization itself.
Historian Thomas Laqueur writes, “[T]he dead are not refuse like the other debris of life… They remain part of culture; base as they are, they do not revert back into nature easily. To the contrary, they bear witness to the historical continuity of humanity.” Ultimately, for Laqueur, “[t]he dead do the work of making civilization.” Borrowing from Laqueur and Yoshikuni Igarashi, this paper considers Ōe Kenzaburō’s 1957 short story “Lavish Are the Dead” (Shisha no ogori) and how the bodies of the dead become a medium for rendering collective traumatic histories legible and encounterable. I argue that within the text, the bodies of both the living and the dead, and the places those bodies occupy enable the transmission of memory, thus creating the conditions for continuity between past and present. For Ōe, these bodies become the only means by which history before defeat can be properly imagined and remembered. The short story posits the dead body as a manifestation of a deep, non-teleological time which stands against the linear, past-less time of the postwar. In the bodily remains of the war, Ōe argues for the need of the living to attend to the dead and the memories and histories those dead embody. If the dead can “do the work of making civilization,” then the erasure of them is the erasure of not only the witnesses of history, but also the erasure of history and civilization itself.
Drawing Sex: Pages, Bodies, and Sighs in Japanese Adult Manga (Caitlin Casiello, Harvard University)
Since the 1960s, manga and anime have formed a central part of media culture in Japan; any medium that reaches this level of saturation almost inevitably becomes a medium for pornography. Recently the question of pornographic manga/anime’s representational power as a drawn medium has come to the forefront of discussions on obscenity laws, as lawmakers and activists explore whether or not the an underage manga character counts as a child in terms of the law. As anime and manga fan culture becomes increasingly globalized, these works are often exported to legal arenas that are baffled by the conventions that seem natural to the fan. With these contemporary issues in the background, I explore the visual imaginary central to pornographic manga (“eromanga” or “adult manga”), a symbolic system stretches the boundaries of comic panel and the human body into new shapes and forms. I primarily focus on the genres considered to be aimed at heterosexual men, though women both consume and create these works. Discussing eromanga through the lens of porn studies, I argue that sexuality in eromanga is portrayed through an intensification of material on the page (more panels, more angles, more bodies, and more sound) and the artists often employ techniques and ideas that make strange the boundaries of the human body as we usually conceive of them. Because eromanga develops stylistically and culturally in conversation with mainstream manga, it is necessary to understand the world of eromanga in order to understand manga/anime and fan culture.
Since the 1960s, manga and anime have formed a central part of media culture in Japan; any medium that reaches this level of saturation almost inevitably becomes a medium for pornography. Recently the question of pornographic manga/anime’s representational power as a drawn medium has come to the forefront of discussions on obscenity laws, as lawmakers and activists explore whether or not the an underage manga character counts as a child in terms of the law. As anime and manga fan culture becomes increasingly globalized, these works are often exported to legal arenas that are baffled by the conventions that seem natural to the fan. With these contemporary issues in the background, I explore the visual imaginary central to pornographic manga (“eromanga” or “adult manga”), a symbolic system stretches the boundaries of comic panel and the human body into new shapes and forms. I primarily focus on the genres considered to be aimed at heterosexual men, though women both consume and create these works. Discussing eromanga through the lens of porn studies, I argue that sexuality in eromanga is portrayed through an intensification of material on the page (more panels, more angles, more bodies, and more sound) and the artists often employ techniques and ideas that make strange the boundaries of the human body as we usually conceive of them. Because eromanga develops stylistically and culturally in conversation with mainstream manga, it is necessary to understand the world of eromanga in order to understand manga/anime and fan culture.
IMAGINARIES AND COMMODIFICATION
Beato, Photography of Japanese Woman and Nineteenth Century Commodity Culture (Saeedeh Asadipour, University of Cincinnati)
One of the most common subjects of early Western photography of Japan was that of Japanese women, images which are often generic ethnographic images of exoticized ‘others.’ The production of photographs of Japanese women by Felice Beato and his followers was thus tied to the trans-cultural interactions and political economics specific to Japan in the third quarter of the 19th century, making Beato’s photographs in part a reflection of the changing tastes of European customers. Yet besides their obvious colonialist and ethnocentric viewpoint, there is another key factor shaping the imagery in early modern Japanese photography, namely the emergence and growth of a consumerist, commodity-oriented culture in Japan as a result of Western influence. This century witnessed the penetration of the commodity into all spheres of life, experience and consciousness, a penetration which reflected different kinds of fetishism. First, the psychic fetishism of patriarchy, grounded in the specificity of the corporeal body. Second, the commodity fetishism of Capitalism, grounded in the means of production and the social relations they engender and third, the fetishizing properties of the photograph. In this article I discuss how Beato’s photographs function as a means by which to articulate and disseminate these three forms of commodification, and the development of a modern condition of life in 19th century Japan. These processes can be seen in the dense matrix which converge in these stylized images of Japanese women still familiar to modern viewers: sexual ideology, economic and social transformation, and the inexorable expansion of commodity culture that changed the concept of "image" and "femininity" in Japan forever.
One of the most common subjects of early Western photography of Japan was that of Japanese women, images which are often generic ethnographic images of exoticized ‘others.’ The production of photographs of Japanese women by Felice Beato and his followers was thus tied to the trans-cultural interactions and political economics specific to Japan in the third quarter of the 19th century, making Beato’s photographs in part a reflection of the changing tastes of European customers. Yet besides their obvious colonialist and ethnocentric viewpoint, there is another key factor shaping the imagery in early modern Japanese photography, namely the emergence and growth of a consumerist, commodity-oriented culture in Japan as a result of Western influence. This century witnessed the penetration of the commodity into all spheres of life, experience and consciousness, a penetration which reflected different kinds of fetishism. First, the psychic fetishism of patriarchy, grounded in the specificity of the corporeal body. Second, the commodity fetishism of Capitalism, grounded in the means of production and the social relations they engender and third, the fetishizing properties of the photograph. In this article I discuss how Beato’s photographs function as a means by which to articulate and disseminate these three forms of commodification, and the development of a modern condition of life in 19th century Japan. These processes can be seen in the dense matrix which converge in these stylized images of Japanese women still familiar to modern viewers: sexual ideology, economic and social transformation, and the inexorable expansion of commodity culture that changed the concept of "image" and "femininity" in Japan forever.
Imaging Prostitution in Post-Occupation Japanese Melodrama (1952-1964) (Irene González, University of London)
In the 1950s, prostitution was being incessantly discussed in Japanese media in relation to discourses such as those of law, medicine, human rights and morality. This paper explores the position of cinema in the map of forces ‘defining’ prostitution through the comparative analysis of an array of media (e.g. literature, magazines, newspaper, illustrations). It examines the representation of prostitutes in Japanese melodramas during the first decade following the end of the Allied Occupation (1952), and elucidates the aesthetic and narratives themes through which this figure was imaged. Historically, the post-Occupation era was a period of socio-political upheaval and frenetic economic growth during which Japan attempted to redefine its national identity according to international standards, an effort symbolically culminating with the Tokyo Olympics (1964). It is no coincidence that against this background, prostitution was outlawed in 1956, bringing an end to hundreds of years of regulated, forced and glorified prostitution deeply connected to the history of Japan. Thus, I argue that, in addition of the image of prostitution being constructed by cinema, the prostitute archetype functioned as a site of both negotiation and assimilation of the radical changes Japan was experiencing. The allegories invested in the representation of prostitutes are being increasingly discussed in academia, whilst mainly focusing on Western contexts. An analysis of the case studies found throughout Japanese postwar melodrama can greatly enrich this discussion and illuminate the discourses of culture, gender and national identity that were articulated through the cinematic prostitute.
In the 1950s, prostitution was being incessantly discussed in Japanese media in relation to discourses such as those of law, medicine, human rights and morality. This paper explores the position of cinema in the map of forces ‘defining’ prostitution through the comparative analysis of an array of media (e.g. literature, magazines, newspaper, illustrations). It examines the representation of prostitutes in Japanese melodramas during the first decade following the end of the Allied Occupation (1952), and elucidates the aesthetic and narratives themes through which this figure was imaged. Historically, the post-Occupation era was a period of socio-political upheaval and frenetic economic growth during which Japan attempted to redefine its national identity according to international standards, an effort symbolically culminating with the Tokyo Olympics (1964). It is no coincidence that against this background, prostitution was outlawed in 1956, bringing an end to hundreds of years of regulated, forced and glorified prostitution deeply connected to the history of Japan. Thus, I argue that, in addition of the image of prostitution being constructed by cinema, the prostitute archetype functioned as a site of both negotiation and assimilation of the radical changes Japan was experiencing. The allegories invested in the representation of prostitutes are being increasingly discussed in academia, whilst mainly focusing on Western contexts. An analysis of the case studies found throughout Japanese postwar melodrama can greatly enrich this discussion and illuminate the discourses of culture, gender and national identity that were articulated through the cinematic prostitute.
Black Face, Bihaku Skin: Consuming Femininity and Racial Otherness in Japanese Advertising (Michelle Ho, Stony Brook University)
In 2014, ASTIGU—a Japanese pantyhose brand—launched “ashi ha kao” (literally “legs are face”), a new series of advertisements featuring a model whose face is painted black. Although cultural anthropologists John G. Russell and Ian Condry have written on practices of blackface and blackness in Japan, they have mainly focused on men’s instead of women’s blackface performances. Using women’s blackface practices as a heuristic device—a method of understanding through discovery—this essay tracks constructions of blackness and femininity in Japanese advertising. Here I use feminist and critical race theorist Alys Eve Weinbaum’s (2008) notion of “racial masquerade,” or the donning and taking off of race. I argue that women’s wearing of blackface in the Japanese media forms spaces for consumers to negotiate their national identities vis-à-vis constructions of whiteness and blackness in American consumer culture. Although women’s blackface practices in Japan originated from girl subcultures, they remain tied to women’s mass consumption. While “Japaneseness” and femininity are initially based on the bihaku (beautiful white) model, the idea of black masks alters women’s relationships to their bodies and promises them pockets of resistance in which they can experiment with sexuality and racial otherness. Drawing on and contributing to scholarship on race, femininity, and the mass media in Japan, this paper ultimately investigates the flows and imbrications between the commodification of race and that of women’s bodies.
In 2014, ASTIGU—a Japanese pantyhose brand—launched “ashi ha kao” (literally “legs are face”), a new series of advertisements featuring a model whose face is painted black. Although cultural anthropologists John G. Russell and Ian Condry have written on practices of blackface and blackness in Japan, they have mainly focused on men’s instead of women’s blackface performances. Using women’s blackface practices as a heuristic device—a method of understanding through discovery—this essay tracks constructions of blackness and femininity in Japanese advertising. Here I use feminist and critical race theorist Alys Eve Weinbaum’s (2008) notion of “racial masquerade,” or the donning and taking off of race. I argue that women’s wearing of blackface in the Japanese media forms spaces for consumers to negotiate their national identities vis-à-vis constructions of whiteness and blackness in American consumer culture. Although women’s blackface practices in Japan originated from girl subcultures, they remain tied to women’s mass consumption. While “Japaneseness” and femininity are initially based on the bihaku (beautiful white) model, the idea of black masks alters women’s relationships to their bodies and promises them pockets of resistance in which they can experiment with sexuality and racial otherness. Drawing on and contributing to scholarship on race, femininity, and the mass media in Japan, this paper ultimately investigates the flows and imbrications between the commodification of race and that of women’s bodies.
PERFORMING THE SUPERNATURAL
Hello Kitty from Hell: Vernacular Modernism in Prewar Japanese Horror Film (Michael E. Crandol, University of Minnesota)
This paper uses film scholar Miriam Hansen’s theory of “vernacular modernism” to examine the creation of popular Japanese horror cinema – or kaiki eiga – in the prewar era. The 1930s were the heyday of Universal Studios’ horror movies like Dracula and Frankenstein, which not only established horror as one of the most enduring genres of commercial cinema worldwide, but were incredibly popular and influential in Japan. While low-budget studios in Japan during the 1930s were not above shamelessly aping Hollywood horror in such pictures as King Kong Appears in Edo, I proceed from the assumption that the form of classical Hollywood cinema did not wield a top-down, hegemonic influence on other national cinemas, but rather represented a more horizontal, adaptable model onto which native traditions could be grafted and reinterpreted in a contemporary, transnational medium. Accordingly, many popular Japanese horror films (kaiki eiga) of the 1930s often take on the style and motifs of Hollywood horror while still remaining true to visual representations of the grotesque and horrific in art and theater that predate the advent of cinema. Using the case-study of Suzuki Sumiko, the nation’s first horror movie star whose popularity rivaled Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in Japan, I demonstrate how her famous performance of the bloodthirsty bakeneko or “ghost-cat” recast a well-known monster of woodblock prints and the kabuki stage in the fashion of Lugosi’s hypnotic vampire Count Dracula.
This paper uses film scholar Miriam Hansen’s theory of “vernacular modernism” to examine the creation of popular Japanese horror cinema – or kaiki eiga – in the prewar era. The 1930s were the heyday of Universal Studios’ horror movies like Dracula and Frankenstein, which not only established horror as one of the most enduring genres of commercial cinema worldwide, but were incredibly popular and influential in Japan. While low-budget studios in Japan during the 1930s were not above shamelessly aping Hollywood horror in such pictures as King Kong Appears in Edo, I proceed from the assumption that the form of classical Hollywood cinema did not wield a top-down, hegemonic influence on other national cinemas, but rather represented a more horizontal, adaptable model onto which native traditions could be grafted and reinterpreted in a contemporary, transnational medium. Accordingly, many popular Japanese horror films (kaiki eiga) of the 1930s often take on the style and motifs of Hollywood horror while still remaining true to visual representations of the grotesque and horrific in art and theater that predate the advent of cinema. Using the case-study of Suzuki Sumiko, the nation’s first horror movie star whose popularity rivaled Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in Japan, I demonstrate how her famous performance of the bloodthirsty bakeneko or “ghost-cat” recast a well-known monster of woodblock prints and the kabuki stage in the fashion of Lugosi’s hypnotic vampire Count Dracula.
Supernatural Subversions of Pre-Modern Nostalgia: Ichikawa Kon’s Taketori monogatari and Takahata Isao’s Kaguya hime no monogatari (Jon Pitt, UC Berkeley)
To film requires the interpretative mediation of source material into a modern medium. Inherent in this mediation is the tension between cultural nostalgia and contemporary culturally ideological inclinations. My paper looks at this tension in two filmic adaptations of Taketori monogatari: Ichikawa Kon’s 1987 live-action version and Takahata Isao’s 2013 animated film Kaguya hime no monogatari. Formal elements of each film underscore this tension, with Ichikawa’s use of special effects and Takahata’s use of painstakingly intricate hand-drawn animation serving separate ideological ends. While Ichikawa’s film looks to subvert the nostalgic retelling of the classical text by positing a modernity present in the source material, Takahata’s treatment revels in the nostalgic aspects of the text, introducing narrative elaborations which serve to portray a pre-modern world infused in traditional art forms. In spite of this focus on traditionality, Takahata, like Ichikawa, also makes use of the supernatural elements of the source text to subvert pure nostalgic tendencies. While Ichikawa’s film turns to his cultural moment’s interest in Science Fiction, Takahata uses Kaguya Hime’s “alien” status to critique traditional gender roles. Is there something inherent in depictions of the supernatural that necessitates cultural update upon adaptation? Or, is there something demanded in the move from pre-modern text to film that requires modern cultural touchstones for accessibility? My presentation looks to investigate these questions through these two very different interpretations of Taketori monogatari.
To film requires the interpretative mediation of source material into a modern medium. Inherent in this mediation is the tension between cultural nostalgia and contemporary culturally ideological inclinations. My paper looks at this tension in two filmic adaptations of Taketori monogatari: Ichikawa Kon’s 1987 live-action version and Takahata Isao’s 2013 animated film Kaguya hime no monogatari. Formal elements of each film underscore this tension, with Ichikawa’s use of special effects and Takahata’s use of painstakingly intricate hand-drawn animation serving separate ideological ends. While Ichikawa’s film looks to subvert the nostalgic retelling of the classical text by positing a modernity present in the source material, Takahata’s treatment revels in the nostalgic aspects of the text, introducing narrative elaborations which serve to portray a pre-modern world infused in traditional art forms. In spite of this focus on traditionality, Takahata, like Ichikawa, also makes use of the supernatural elements of the source text to subvert pure nostalgic tendencies. While Ichikawa’s film turns to his cultural moment’s interest in Science Fiction, Takahata uses Kaguya Hime’s “alien” status to critique traditional gender roles. Is there something inherent in depictions of the supernatural that necessitates cultural update upon adaptation? Or, is there something demanded in the move from pre-modern text to film that requires modern cultural touchstones for accessibility? My presentation looks to investigate these questions through these two very different interpretations of Taketori monogatari.
Female-Spirit Noh and ‘The Lotus Sutra’: ‘Tamakazura’ and ‘Bashō’ (Matthew Chudnow, UC Irvine)
In East Asia, Mahāyāna Buddhism's soteriological concepts of universal salvation influence all facets of the religion, particularly areas of textual production. This was enacted through forming the premodern sacred textual canon and also in a wide-ranging influence upon literatures in multiple medias and genres. A prime example is Noh theatre, Japan’s masked drama of the Muromachi period (1337-1557). Noh is a vector for both elite Buddhist soteriological discourse and popular ritualistic medieval shamanistic beliefs, providing a unique window into a complex gendered ethical conflict. It is presented in sharpest relief in the genre of “female-spirit Noh” (katsura mono, or “wig plays”). Featuring dense religious language, utilization of shamanic ritual, and ambiguous soteriological status for its female characters, female-spirit Noh displays an amalgam of then-contemporaneous religious concepts present at multiple levels of Muromachi society. I will examine two works attributed to playwright Komparu Zenchiku (1405-1468), “Tamakazura” and “Bashō,” through textual analysis of their utilization of critical soteriological doctrine outlined by The Lotus Sutra (Hokke-kyō) as central to each plays’ overall dramaturgical nature and structure. Through this analysis, I will demonstrate how Buddhist sacred text and religious related literatures were essential in informing and delineating essential components within the Noh dramaturgy of katsura-mono, therefore putting the issue of gendered soteriological conflict at the forefront of this specific genre.
In East Asia, Mahāyāna Buddhism's soteriological concepts of universal salvation influence all facets of the religion, particularly areas of textual production. This was enacted through forming the premodern sacred textual canon and also in a wide-ranging influence upon literatures in multiple medias and genres. A prime example is Noh theatre, Japan’s masked drama of the Muromachi period (1337-1557). Noh is a vector for both elite Buddhist soteriological discourse and popular ritualistic medieval shamanistic beliefs, providing a unique window into a complex gendered ethical conflict. It is presented in sharpest relief in the genre of “female-spirit Noh” (katsura mono, or “wig plays”). Featuring dense religious language, utilization of shamanic ritual, and ambiguous soteriological status for its female characters, female-spirit Noh displays an amalgam of then-contemporaneous religious concepts present at multiple levels of Muromachi society. I will examine two works attributed to playwright Komparu Zenchiku (1405-1468), “Tamakazura” and “Bashō,” through textual analysis of their utilization of critical soteriological doctrine outlined by The Lotus Sutra (Hokke-kyō) as central to each plays’ overall dramaturgical nature and structure. Through this analysis, I will demonstrate how Buddhist sacred text and religious related literatures were essential in informing and delineating essential components within the Noh dramaturgy of katsura-mono, therefore putting the issue of gendered soteriological conflict at the forefront of this specific genre.
SILENCE AND SOUND
Drumming Out Resistance in Japan: How the Burakumin Identity is Erased through Policy-Making and Written Back through Music (Noémie Adam, London School of Economics and Political Science)
This paper is concerned with the formation of identity and culture of the Burakumin, Japan’s only social minority. Much has been said on how ‘minorities’ are subsumed to a ‘myth’ of homogeneity which grips the Japan nation. Yet, this author goes beyond this static idea of the nation, and rather takes the ‘nation’ to be a fluid ‘narrative’ that is constructed and challenged by competing narratives. This allow us to write the ‘Other’ back into a discourse of the nation that has been silencing them. The paper is then divided in three sections. The first will be a brief on the history of the Burakumin explaining why they still face discrimination. The second will examine how two postwar policy narratives framed and tackled this discrimination. By showing that both denied Burakumin substantive emancipation, we can explain why today the government can remain silent as anti-Burakumin discrimination persists. In this context, a ’right to be different’ is hard to assert, yet in the last section, we will look at Ikari, a taiko group from the Buraku district of Naniwa, Osaka. Ikari has used its Burakumin identity in its music to resist and transform the dominant discourse of homogeneity. Although a localised manifestation of multiculturalism, Ikari can help us find alternative formations and transmissions of culture and knowledge in Japan. This paper also hopes to bring back the attention of the readers to a minority that has recently been neglected by both academia and the public.
This paper is concerned with the formation of identity and culture of the Burakumin, Japan’s only social minority. Much has been said on how ‘minorities’ are subsumed to a ‘myth’ of homogeneity which grips the Japan nation. Yet, this author goes beyond this static idea of the nation, and rather takes the ‘nation’ to be a fluid ‘narrative’ that is constructed and challenged by competing narratives. This allow us to write the ‘Other’ back into a discourse of the nation that has been silencing them. The paper is then divided in three sections. The first will be a brief on the history of the Burakumin explaining why they still face discrimination. The second will examine how two postwar policy narratives framed and tackled this discrimination. By showing that both denied Burakumin substantive emancipation, we can explain why today the government can remain silent as anti-Burakumin discrimination persists. In this context, a ’right to be different’ is hard to assert, yet in the last section, we will look at Ikari, a taiko group from the Buraku district of Naniwa, Osaka. Ikari has used its Burakumin identity in its music to resist and transform the dominant discourse of homogeneity. Although a localised manifestation of multiculturalism, Ikari can help us find alternative formations and transmissions of culture and knowledge in Japan. This paper also hopes to bring back the attention of the readers to a minority that has recently been neglected by both academia and the public.
Yamaura’s Kesen: Nation, Class, and Tōhoku Language in/as Media (Edwin K. Everhart, UCLA)
As a modern national project, Japan relies on standardized language as the normative medium (i.e. code) of communication in most media (e.g. print, television), and standard language as cultural capital also mediates access to bureaucracy and the white-collar economy. Speakers without access to the standard are restricted to the lowest class positions, and to labor that does not require them to speak. During the 20th century, dialect speakers in Tōhoku bore an especially powerful stigma; Tōhoku dialects were considered an appropriate medium for folktales, and for translating the dialogue of slave characters in Gone with the Wind, but little else. But starting in the 1970s, dialect activists in Tōhoku began to reject this system and redefine the medium of dialect, re-mediatizing it in unprecedented domains. In this paper I will analyze the career of one such activist: Yamaura Harutsugu, of the Kesen region in southeast Iwate Prefecture. Yamaura abandoned the very notion of “dialect” to redefine Kesen speech as a “language” (Kesen-go), writing a two-volume dictionary and 400-page descriptive grammar, translating foreign literature into Kesen language, giving Kesen-language lectures on medical topics, and producing a Kesen-language theater, among other activities. Based on observation and extended interviews in Ōfunato, I will first discuss why Yamaura was moved to use the medium of Kesen language in these diverse media, and what resources allowed him to pursue these goals. Second, I will explore the implications of this redefenition and re-mediatization of dialect on several scales, including the personal, local, regional, national, and international.
As a modern national project, Japan relies on standardized language as the normative medium (i.e. code) of communication in most media (e.g. print, television), and standard language as cultural capital also mediates access to bureaucracy and the white-collar economy. Speakers without access to the standard are restricted to the lowest class positions, and to labor that does not require them to speak. During the 20th century, dialect speakers in Tōhoku bore an especially powerful stigma; Tōhoku dialects were considered an appropriate medium for folktales, and for translating the dialogue of slave characters in Gone with the Wind, but little else. But starting in the 1970s, dialect activists in Tōhoku began to reject this system and redefine the medium of dialect, re-mediatizing it in unprecedented domains. In this paper I will analyze the career of one such activist: Yamaura Harutsugu, of the Kesen region in southeast Iwate Prefecture. Yamaura abandoned the very notion of “dialect” to redefine Kesen speech as a “language” (Kesen-go), writing a two-volume dictionary and 400-page descriptive grammar, translating foreign literature into Kesen language, giving Kesen-language lectures on medical topics, and producing a Kesen-language theater, among other activities. Based on observation and extended interviews in Ōfunato, I will first discuss why Yamaura was moved to use the medium of Kesen language in these diverse media, and what resources allowed him to pursue these goals. Second, I will explore the implications of this redefenition and re-mediatization of dialect on several scales, including the personal, local, regional, national, and international.
Rumble, Race, and Crash: Space and Movement through Sound Effects in Akira, American Flagg, and Tsubasa (Mia Lewis, Stanford University)
There are three sound effects in the scene in Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira where the water tower’s foundation cracks and it crashes towards the characters below: bekok, garak, and zun. By themselves they mean very little. Yet, when the meaning of the words, the image, and their pictorial representation are considered in tandem, they produce the environment, tension, and pacing of the scene as much as any of the other elements on the page. As sound effects bridge, combine, and interweave different aspects of comics, their analysis is tied to analysis of the comic as a whole. Sound effects are not simply background reverberations. They paint time across the pages as motion lines, leaving behind imprints of the past through visible sound, projecting into the future, and in the process providing a sense of depth and space.
I primarily examine how Akira exemplifies these uses of sound effects, while also examining how Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg and CLAMP’s Tsubasa utilize alternative systems of sound effects to different ends. My aim is not to provide an exhaustive list of how sound effects work in comics. Rather, I argue that sound effects can act as storytelling agents on par with and intrinsically tied to the pictorial and narrative aspects of the story; that their significance lies not just in their literal meaning, font type and size but in the often barely visible nuances of their presentation; and that their impact carries beyond the bounds of the panel through the entirety of the story.
There are three sound effects in the scene in Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira where the water tower’s foundation cracks and it crashes towards the characters below: bekok, garak, and zun. By themselves they mean very little. Yet, when the meaning of the words, the image, and their pictorial representation are considered in tandem, they produce the environment, tension, and pacing of the scene as much as any of the other elements on the page. As sound effects bridge, combine, and interweave different aspects of comics, their analysis is tied to analysis of the comic as a whole. Sound effects are not simply background reverberations. They paint time across the pages as motion lines, leaving behind imprints of the past through visible sound, projecting into the future, and in the process providing a sense of depth and space.
I primarily examine how Akira exemplifies these uses of sound effects, while also examining how Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg and CLAMP’s Tsubasa utilize alternative systems of sound effects to different ends. My aim is not to provide an exhaustive list of how sound effects work in comics. Rather, I argue that sound effects can act as storytelling agents on par with and intrinsically tied to the pictorial and narrative aspects of the story; that their significance lies not just in their literal meaning, font type and size but in the often barely visible nuances of their presentation; and that their impact carries beyond the bounds of the panel through the entirety of the story.
DICHOTOMIES AND DIALECTICS
Re-Negotiating Literary Boundaries: The Wa-Kan Dialectic in the Shinsen Man’yōshū (Margi Burge, UC Berkeley)
The late-ninth century represents an important moment in the development of classical Japanese court literature, as the late Nara-early Heian Sinophilic court culture gave way to the “vernacular renaissance” of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Shinsen Man’yōshū, a text long attributed to the renowned literatus and statesman Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), belongs to a moment in which a new understanding of the relationship between Wa (vernacular/”pure” Japanese) and Kan (Sino-Japanese) literature was emerging in the second half of the ninth century. In taking extant waka and pairing them with unique zekku (jueju), this text proposes a solution to the question of the relationship between “Wa” and “Kan” by exhibiting a number of possible ways in which waka and kanshi might work together to create a dynamic whole. Although the roles fulfilled by kanshi in this text would ultimately be assigned to nascent vernacular (Wa) literary genres, the Shinsen Man’yōshū represents one of the possible paths along which the relationship between Wa and Kan literature might have evolved. Shinsen Man’yōshū’s failure to become a model for future literary works is perhaps the product of a political and literary landscape that no longer wholeheartedly embraced continental models, but in itself it captures a particular literary moment in which the lines between “Wa” and “Kan” were not yet clearly drawn and the future of diglossic literary life in Japan not yet determined.
The late-ninth century represents an important moment in the development of classical Japanese court literature, as the late Nara-early Heian Sinophilic court culture gave way to the “vernacular renaissance” of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Shinsen Man’yōshū, a text long attributed to the renowned literatus and statesman Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), belongs to a moment in which a new understanding of the relationship between Wa (vernacular/”pure” Japanese) and Kan (Sino-Japanese) literature was emerging in the second half of the ninth century. In taking extant waka and pairing them with unique zekku (jueju), this text proposes a solution to the question of the relationship between “Wa” and “Kan” by exhibiting a number of possible ways in which waka and kanshi might work together to create a dynamic whole. Although the roles fulfilled by kanshi in this text would ultimately be assigned to nascent vernacular (Wa) literary genres, the Shinsen Man’yōshū represents one of the possible paths along which the relationship between Wa and Kan literature might have evolved. Shinsen Man’yōshū’s failure to become a model for future literary works is perhaps the product of a political and literary landscape that no longer wholeheartedly embraced continental models, but in itself it captures a particular literary moment in which the lines between “Wa” and “Kan” were not yet clearly drawn and the future of diglossic literary life in Japan not yet determined.
The Architecture of Script: Rethinking Ruby and Its Relationship to Written Japanese (Christopher Lowy, University of Washington)
John Whitman argues in “The Ubiquity of the Gloss” that the glossing of a text was necessary for the “adaptation of a non-vernacular text for oral production in the vernacular” and that this was “an important step in the adaptation of writing systems.” What happens when this “gloss” establishes itself as an actual aesthetic element of written language? Focusing on the role furigana, or ruby, play in the complimentary actions of consumption and production within the space of Japanese-language written expression, this presentation looks at the relationship between reader and writer situated within a fundamentally non-phonocentric system of discourse.
By understanding ruby as the inevitable product of the notational system known as kambun kundoku 漢文訓読, I argue that the constant existence of multiple “correct” readings for any given Chinese character readies a condition that, conversely, allows for the application of any conceivable reading to be applied to that same set of characters. Building on the work of Saitō Mareshi and Konno Shinji, this presentation explores the potential for written expression (e.g. ruby) contained within an architecture of script (e.g. written Japanese) by looking at examples of what I call radical ruby usage. I argue that such ruby usage has the potential to become a key aesthetic element to any Japanese-language work. Two vastly different texts will be examined: the 17th century Haikai dokugin shū 誹諧獨吟集 (1682) and Yokoyama Yūta’s Wagahai ha neko ni naru 吾輩ハ猫ニナル(2014).
John Whitman argues in “The Ubiquity of the Gloss” that the glossing of a text was necessary for the “adaptation of a non-vernacular text for oral production in the vernacular” and that this was “an important step in the adaptation of writing systems.” What happens when this “gloss” establishes itself as an actual aesthetic element of written language? Focusing on the role furigana, or ruby, play in the complimentary actions of consumption and production within the space of Japanese-language written expression, this presentation looks at the relationship between reader and writer situated within a fundamentally non-phonocentric system of discourse.
By understanding ruby as the inevitable product of the notational system known as kambun kundoku 漢文訓読, I argue that the constant existence of multiple “correct” readings for any given Chinese character readies a condition that, conversely, allows for the application of any conceivable reading to be applied to that same set of characters. Building on the work of Saitō Mareshi and Konno Shinji, this presentation explores the potential for written expression (e.g. ruby) contained within an architecture of script (e.g. written Japanese) by looking at examples of what I call radical ruby usage. I argue that such ruby usage has the potential to become a key aesthetic element to any Japanese-language work. Two vastly different texts will be examined: the 17th century Haikai dokugin shū 誹諧獨吟集 (1682) and Yokoyama Yūta’s Wagahai ha neko ni naru 吾輩ハ猫ニナル(2014).
The Burden of Female Talent: The Kanshi of Ema Saikō (Matthew Mewhinney, UC Berkeley)
Perhaps one burden of female talent is for a female writer to be remembered first as a woman, then as a writer. This is certainly the case in the reception of Ema Saikō (1787-1861), the talented female painter and poet of the late Edo period, who Kurokawa Yōichi has ranked as one of the three greatest women poets in all of Japanese literary history (1).Much scholarship in Japanese and English has examined Saikō’s poetry from the perspective of biography, probing her identity as a woman writing feminine kanshi (a form of classical Japanese poetry in Chinese). However, as Mari Nagase observes, “Saikō was not just a quintessentially feminine poet. . . . Her diverse poetic topics reveal that she enjoyed considerable literary and social freedom regardless of her gender (2).” This paper brackets concerns of gender for a moment to explore a question that is germane to the concerns of modern poetic production: how does Saikō use poetic language to transmit a modern self to her readers? In 1834, Saikō wrote two poems entitled, “Self Transmission,” in which she laments the passage of time and the self-alienation that comes with aging. I perform close readings of both poems and argue that Saikō uses poetry to mediate a dialectic of past and present selves, and her identities as poet, painter, reader and caregiver.
(1) Hiroaki Sato, Breeze Through Bamboo: Kanshi of Ema Saikō (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 1.
(2) Mari Nagase, “Women Writers of Chinese Poetry in Late-Edo Period Japan,” (dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2007), 119.
Perhaps one burden of female talent is for a female writer to be remembered first as a woman, then as a writer. This is certainly the case in the reception of Ema Saikō (1787-1861), the talented female painter and poet of the late Edo period, who Kurokawa Yōichi has ranked as one of the three greatest women poets in all of Japanese literary history (1).Much scholarship in Japanese and English has examined Saikō’s poetry from the perspective of biography, probing her identity as a woman writing feminine kanshi (a form of classical Japanese poetry in Chinese). However, as Mari Nagase observes, “Saikō was not just a quintessentially feminine poet. . . . Her diverse poetic topics reveal that she enjoyed considerable literary and social freedom regardless of her gender (2).” This paper brackets concerns of gender for a moment to explore a question that is germane to the concerns of modern poetic production: how does Saikō use poetic language to transmit a modern self to her readers? In 1834, Saikō wrote two poems entitled, “Self Transmission,” in which she laments the passage of time and the self-alienation that comes with aging. I perform close readings of both poems and argue that Saikō uses poetry to mediate a dialectic of past and present selves, and her identities as poet, painter, reader and caregiver.
(1) Hiroaki Sato, Breeze Through Bamboo: Kanshi of Ema Saikō (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 1.
(2) Mari Nagase, “Women Writers of Chinese Poetry in Late-Edo Period Japan,” (dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2007), 119.
PUBLIC OPINION
Impossible Allies? Korean views of Japan in a Changing World Order (Joonbum Bae, UCLA)
Do deeply socialized views regarding other nations constrain foreign policy behavior in the face of changes in the security environment? Does the rise of a common outside threat dampen previously held animosities amongst the public in rival countries, making security cooperation more likely? This paper seeks to answer these questions in the context of Japan's relations with Korea. China's steep increases in material capability and uncertain intentions toward its neighbors, along with North Korea's provocations and its development of nuclear weapons all seem to point to a convergence of security interests between the two countries. However, even modest attempts at cooperation in the security arena have met with resistance amongst the Korean public. While pundits have pointed to the legacy of colonial rule as the main reason behind such lack of cooperation between Korea and Japan, this paper investigates the extent to which such animosity based on historical experience trumps the security environment in influencing the Korean public's views of Japan. In order to assess the degree that the deterioration of the security environment can change public opinion, this paper compares current patterns in Korean public opinion data with those from the last time the two countries faced a common enemy: the last years of the Cold War (86-91). The surveys reveal that public opinion regarding Japan began to deteriorate after improvements in the security environment in the latter half of 1988, suggesting a limit to the extent that "history" trumps security.
Do deeply socialized views regarding other nations constrain foreign policy behavior in the face of changes in the security environment? Does the rise of a common outside threat dampen previously held animosities amongst the public in rival countries, making security cooperation more likely? This paper seeks to answer these questions in the context of Japan's relations with Korea. China's steep increases in material capability and uncertain intentions toward its neighbors, along with North Korea's provocations and its development of nuclear weapons all seem to point to a convergence of security interests between the two countries. However, even modest attempts at cooperation in the security arena have met with resistance amongst the Korean public. While pundits have pointed to the legacy of colonial rule as the main reason behind such lack of cooperation between Korea and Japan, this paper investigates the extent to which such animosity based on historical experience trumps the security environment in influencing the Korean public's views of Japan. In order to assess the degree that the deterioration of the security environment can change public opinion, this paper compares current patterns in Korean public opinion data with those from the last time the two countries faced a common enemy: the last years of the Cold War (86-91). The surveys reveal that public opinion regarding Japan began to deteriorate after improvements in the security environment in the latter half of 1988, suggesting a limit to the extent that "history" trumps security.
Netizens Decide 2014? A Look at Party Campaigning Online (Joshua A. Williams and Douglas Miller, University of Washington)
The December 2014 election was a digital political milestone in Japan: political parties and politicians effectively became free to campaign online for the first time in a general election. After the 2012 general election the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) quickly pushed through a much-demanded and long-anticipated revision to the Public Offices Election Law, creating specific legal provisions allowing for previously banned online campaigning activities. While the new law came in time for the 2013 House of Councillors election, all indication was that online campaigning had minimal electoral impact. Can the same be said in 2014? This study looks at how political parties attempted to take advantage of digital campaigning resources, and the effects the Internet then had on electoral outcomes. Data comes from both qualitative and quantitative information gathered online and through interviews in the months prior to, during, and after the 2014 election. Case studies emphasize strategies from the LDP, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). It the case of the JCP, they attempted to appeal to younger voters with novel ideas online like the “kakusan-bu”—a group of digital cartoon characters created to personify the parties policy stances. The JCP subsequently went from eight to twenty-one seats. Detail is also given on online activities of politicians in 2014, historical efforts to utilize the Internet for campaign purposes over two decades prior to its legalization, and implications of online use in future elections.
The December 2014 election was a digital political milestone in Japan: political parties and politicians effectively became free to campaign online for the first time in a general election. After the 2012 general election the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) quickly pushed through a much-demanded and long-anticipated revision to the Public Offices Election Law, creating specific legal provisions allowing for previously banned online campaigning activities. While the new law came in time for the 2013 House of Councillors election, all indication was that online campaigning had minimal electoral impact. Can the same be said in 2014? This study looks at how political parties attempted to take advantage of digital campaigning resources, and the effects the Internet then had on electoral outcomes. Data comes from both qualitative and quantitative information gathered online and through interviews in the months prior to, during, and after the 2014 election. Case studies emphasize strategies from the LDP, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP). It the case of the JCP, they attempted to appeal to younger voters with novel ideas online like the “kakusan-bu”—a group of digital cartoon characters created to personify the parties policy stances. The JCP subsequently went from eight to twenty-one seats. Detail is also given on online activities of politicians in 2014, historical efforts to utilize the Internet for campaign purposes over two decades prior to its legalization, and implications of online use in future elections.
ATMOSPHERE
Depicting Transport in a Transportable Medium: The Politics of Patronage in Japanese nanban byōbu (Nora Usanov-Geissler, Freie University Berlin)
My presentation addresses nanban byōbu (南蛮屏風) as transportable visualizations of Japan’s long-distance maritime trade relations in the Pre-Modern Era. The earliest of these screens were painted in the 1590s, yet after approximately 60 years of vast popularity the production of this kind of genre painting (fūzoku-ga 風俗画), nearly stopped at once. The Japanese term nanban byōbu relatesto two prominent features of these artworks: firstly, the representation of foreign merchants(nanban-jin 南蛮人) landing goods atthe Japanese coast and secondly the usage of a folding screen (byōbu 屏風) as image carrier. In fact, the iconography of maritime trade has not been elaborated in any other medium of Japanese art production. This limitation raises the question why visualizations of trade were obviously understood to be exclusively represented in the vast format of folding screens, which are mostly displayed in pairs and consequently offer a pictorial range of approximately 150 cm height and 700 cm width.
My paper pursues two aspects of the interplay between motive and medium: Firstly, it explores the paintings on nanban byōbu in their relation to various actors and factions in the realm of commerce and politics. Each of them had vested interests in foreign trade and pursued different but respectively very serious agendas. The ambitions of these patrons are mirrored in the depictions and were to be mediated to the viewers of the screens. My second point focuses on the broad distribution of these depictions facilitated by the physical characteristics of Japanese byōbu. The medium`s transportability enables a temporal display on certain occasions in varying locations where they not only determinate the spatial frame of an event but also affect its atmosphere. Their scale and sumptuous decoration make a lasting impression on their viewers. With regard to the question of how this display of wealth and power was perceived, the adjustability of the folding is another meaningful feature. The visual experience of a screen is submitted to highly variable conditions, due to its spatial position, lighting conditions and other circumstantial arrangements. Accordingly, the transportability of the nanban screens was an important means to distribute effectively specific visual statements on the patron’s engagement with foreign trade.
My presentation addresses nanban byōbu (南蛮屏風) as transportable visualizations of Japan’s long-distance maritime trade relations in the Pre-Modern Era. The earliest of these screens were painted in the 1590s, yet after approximately 60 years of vast popularity the production of this kind of genre painting (fūzoku-ga 風俗画), nearly stopped at once. The Japanese term nanban byōbu relatesto two prominent features of these artworks: firstly, the representation of foreign merchants(nanban-jin 南蛮人) landing goods atthe Japanese coast and secondly the usage of a folding screen (byōbu 屏風) as image carrier. In fact, the iconography of maritime trade has not been elaborated in any other medium of Japanese art production. This limitation raises the question why visualizations of trade were obviously understood to be exclusively represented in the vast format of folding screens, which are mostly displayed in pairs and consequently offer a pictorial range of approximately 150 cm height and 700 cm width.
My paper pursues two aspects of the interplay between motive and medium: Firstly, it explores the paintings on nanban byōbu in their relation to various actors and factions in the realm of commerce and politics. Each of them had vested interests in foreign trade and pursued different but respectively very serious agendas. The ambitions of these patrons are mirrored in the depictions and were to be mediated to the viewers of the screens. My second point focuses on the broad distribution of these depictions facilitated by the physical characteristics of Japanese byōbu. The medium`s transportability enables a temporal display on certain occasions in varying locations where they not only determinate the spatial frame of an event but also affect its atmosphere. Their scale and sumptuous decoration make a lasting impression on their viewers. With regard to the question of how this display of wealth and power was perceived, the adjustability of the folding is another meaningful feature. The visual experience of a screen is submitted to highly variable conditions, due to its spatial position, lighting conditions and other circumstantial arrangements. Accordingly, the transportability of the nanban screens was an important means to distribute effectively specific visual statements on the patron’s engagement with foreign trade.
Between Shinkyo and Tokyo: Maeda Seison’s Viewing Painting and the Fine Arts of the Japanese Empire (Magdalena Kolodziej, Duke University)
Scholars working on artistic exchanges in East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century have noted the important role played by the official fine arts exhibitions in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, and Changchun in organizing their respective modern art worlds. While this scholarship brought to light much artistic creativity across East Asia, little attention has been paid to the ways in which these four venues functioned together to address and construct imperial audiences. By examining the circumstances of production and display of a work by the established artist Maeda Seison entitled Viewing Painting (color on silk, 1936), I demonstrate how the fine arts exhibitions, in tandem with other media such as catalogues, newspapers, and art journals, precipitated the circulation of Japanese artists and artworks within and across the Japanese Empire. I argue that the imperial exhibitionary system permeating the Japanese Empire constructed an imagined imperial community. This paper contributes to the study of modern East Asian history by examining the media of painting and public exhibitions and their potential for re-imagining imperial history.
Scholars working on artistic exchanges in East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century have noted the important role played by the official fine arts exhibitions in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, and Changchun in organizing their respective modern art worlds. While this scholarship brought to light much artistic creativity across East Asia, little attention has been paid to the ways in which these four venues functioned together to address and construct imperial audiences. By examining the circumstances of production and display of a work by the established artist Maeda Seison entitled Viewing Painting (color on silk, 1936), I demonstrate how the fine arts exhibitions, in tandem with other media such as catalogues, newspapers, and art journals, precipitated the circulation of Japanese artists and artworks within and across the Japanese Empire. I argue that the imperial exhibitionary system permeating the Japanese Empire constructed an imagined imperial community. This paper contributes to the study of modern East Asian history by examining the media of painting and public exhibitions and their potential for re-imagining imperial history.
Picture-Storytelling: Heroes of Disruption in Kurama Ko-Tengu and the Postwar Japanese Public Sphere (Stephanie M. Hohlios, University of Utah)
In the popular Japanese street theater known as gaitō kamishibai a live performer elucidates narrative from and through sequential images. The painted kamishibai picture panels for Hidari Hisayoshi’s Kurama Ko-Tengu (after 1947, Osaka International Children’s Literature Collection) depict an upstart hero of childlike stature who undermines the feudal structure of the bakufu in Edo Japan, using chaos and the unexpected as devices of subversion. This paper explores how Kurama Ko-Tengu, much like the itinerant kamishibai performer who inserts performance into daily life continually disrupts quotidian rhythms. With their disruptive approach to social participation both painted hero and performer aptly mirror the heroic personas of postwar jidaigeki protagonists in film who employ surprising methods to lash out against the fabric of historical structures to bring about social change. This kamishibai, then, implicates itself in a postwar web of media discourse that privileges peculiarity and disruptiveness as traits of heroism.
Disruption as a challenge to government control is both a visual-narrative theme in this kamishibai and a characteristic of kamishibai’s historical performance context. In the postwar moment this kamishibai resonates with the political demonstrations and subversion embodied by postwar grassroots cultural circles and black market entrepreneurs who evaded Japanese and Occupational efforts for social control. And as kamishibai itself met with often futile government efforts of censorship, Kurama Ko-Tengu (re)presents the insurrectional potential of popular media and performative expression in the Japanese postwar public sphere.
In the popular Japanese street theater known as gaitō kamishibai a live performer elucidates narrative from and through sequential images. The painted kamishibai picture panels for Hidari Hisayoshi’s Kurama Ko-Tengu (after 1947, Osaka International Children’s Literature Collection) depict an upstart hero of childlike stature who undermines the feudal structure of the bakufu in Edo Japan, using chaos and the unexpected as devices of subversion. This paper explores how Kurama Ko-Tengu, much like the itinerant kamishibai performer who inserts performance into daily life continually disrupts quotidian rhythms. With their disruptive approach to social participation both painted hero and performer aptly mirror the heroic personas of postwar jidaigeki protagonists in film who employ surprising methods to lash out against the fabric of historical structures to bring about social change. This kamishibai, then, implicates itself in a postwar web of media discourse that privileges peculiarity and disruptiveness as traits of heroism.
Disruption as a challenge to government control is both a visual-narrative theme in this kamishibai and a characteristic of kamishibai’s historical performance context. In the postwar moment this kamishibai resonates with the political demonstrations and subversion embodied by postwar grassroots cultural circles and black market entrepreneurs who evaded Japanese and Occupational efforts for social control. And as kamishibai itself met with often futile government efforts of censorship, Kurama Ko-Tengu (re)presents the insurrectional potential of popular media and performative expression in the Japanese postwar public sphere.