Tag: Cool Japan

Communicating with Cool Japan (Int’l Communication Association Pre-Conference)

conf2016A few months ago, I was glad to participate in distributing the Call for Papers for Communicating with Cool Japan: New International Perspectives on Japanese Popular Culture, a one-day mini-conference that would run in Tokyo, at Waseda University, on June 8, just ahead of (and in connection with) the 66th annual conference of the International Communication Association. The preliminary schedule for this event, has now been announced.

As the schedule currently stands, it will consist of a keynote address presented by Prof. Koichi Iwabuchi (Monash University), and a total of 9 sessions, running simultaneously (2/3 at a time), each organized around a common theme.

The themes that the sessions will address are:

  • What We Live For: Women, Expression, and Empowerment in Japanese Fan Cultures
  • Methodologies of Cultural Power
  • Image/Text
  • Audience Studies, Otaku, and Fan Cultures
  • Institutionalization and Nostalgia
  • Discontented Japanization
  • The Living Popular
  • Digital Productions: Distribution, Piracy, and Globalization
  • Localization, Adaptation, and Hybridization

These sessions will feature a total of 39 individual presentations, and speakers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Given the mini-conference’s broad focus on “any area of Japanese popular culture”, not all of them address anime/manga, but, many do:

Session 1.2: Methodologies of Cultural Power
10:20 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Why hasn’t Japan banned child-porn comics?”: An Investigation into the Socio-legal Attitudes towards Yaoi Manga

Simon Turner (Chulalongkorn University)

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Meiji University “Cool Japan” Summer Program (July 20 – August 5)

Cool Japan 2016Individual classes on anime/manga offered by colleges of all types around the U.S. are nothing new. But, what kinds of options are there for students who are interested in learning about topics related to Japanese visual culture – in Japan? One such option is the Cool Japan Summer Program, which has been offered annually since 2010 by Tokyo’s Meiji University. The application period for this year’s program is now open, and applications are being accepted until February 29.

“Meiji University’s Cool Japan Summer Program is a series of lectures and field trips on a wide variety of subjects relating to Japan’s contemporary images – from manga, anime and music, to fashion, craftsmanship and cuisine. We invite you to discuss many issues of “Japan” with some of the leading researchers and professionals of each field. Let us look into the essence of Japanese pop culture while exploring is current social context and future potential. We will investigate diverse aspects of Japanese society and uncover their underlying traditional elements.”

The program itself will run from Wednesday, July 20, to Friday, August 5, with a total of over 50 hours of content. Particular highlights will include a tour of the J.C. Staff animation studio (Azumanga Daioh, Ikki Tousen, Nodame Cantable, Ano Natsu de Matteru/Waiting in the Summer, among others), and a three-day trip outside Tokyo. It will be limited to 30 participants, who must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program at the time. Participating speakers will include faculty members from several Japanese universities, journalists, translators, and industry professionals. Although Meiji University will not award students any credit for participation, their own individual “home” institutions may. No knowledge of Japanese is required to participate.

Further addition information about the Cool Japan Summer Program, including a brochure and promotional video, is available on the program website.

[Ed.: For the last two years, Tokyo University has offered a similar summer program. Both years, the program’s schedule was focused around a common theme (2014 – “Media Mix“; 2015 – “Mediated Worlds“), and participants in the programs were not charged for their participation, and received reimbursement for their travel expenses and a stipend for accommodations and personal expenses. However, the 2015 program was specifically designed for graduate students. A 2016 program has not been announced as of yet.)

Annual Bibliography of Anime and Manga Studies – 2002 Ed.

In an earlier post, I made the case that 2001 marked the beginning of a new period in the development of anime/manga studies as an academic field or area. And while it was certainly possible that one year was just a quirk, the English-language academic publications on Japanese animation and comics that appeared in 2002 point strongly towards the development of a trend. Two particular highlights this year were the publication of a Japanese animation special issue, containing 7 individual articles, of Japan Forum, “the leading European journal in the multidisciplinary field of Japanese Studies”, and a “Japanese science fiction” one of Science Fiction Studies, with individual articles by Susan Napier on Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain, Christopher Bolton on Patlabor 2, and Mari Kotani on “Japanese women’s science fiction”, among others. (Interestingly, including the ones in the special issue Japan Forum has published a total of 18 articles on anime/manga, from 1996’s Change in the social status, form and content of adult manga, 1986-1996 to the four in last year’s Japanese Popular Culture and Contents Tourism special issue. Of the 16 journals with a subject focus on Asian/East Asian/Japanese Studies that have published more than one article on anime/manga, it ranks at no. 2, after only the online-only/open-access The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan FocusScience Fiction Studies published 4 articles on anime before 2002, but only 1 since.)

Between them, these two special issues, and a special section in an issue of the Japan Economic Foundation’s English-language Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry carried 17 articles on anime/manga. A further 29 appeared in other journals – for a total of 46 individual articles, an increase of more than 100% from the previous year. Many of these journals, such as the Animation Journal, Asian Studies Review, Education About Asia, Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, the International Journal of Comic Art and the Journal of Popular Culture could be expected to publish on anime/manga – and in fact, had already published articles on anime/manga in the past. But, once again, 2002 made it clear that as long as the specific matter of a particular article was appropriate for a journal’s overall theme, it would be welcomed – as could be seen in Baby can you drive my bed: Technology and old age in Japanese animated film – a study of “tensions between the experience of old age and high technology [that]…draws attention to how technologies of care are not always socially and culturally attuned to personal biographies” – as depicted in Hiroyuki Kitakubo’s OVA Roujin Z – and published in the Journal of Aging and Identity.

Finally, 2002 also saw the publication of an article that, although it did not run in a peer-reviewed academic journal, was possibly the single most important piece of English-language writing on Japanese popular culture that appeared in the first half of the 2000’s – Japan’s Gross National Cool, written for the the influential “journal of opinion” Foreign Policy, by recent Japan Society media fellow Douglas McGray. The article highlighted Japan’s “cultural reach” abroad, as expressed in music, fashion, “character goods”, and anime/manga, and presented a fairly straight-forward question (as restated in a NeoJaponisme comment on it): “Can Japan revive its economic outlook by becoming a content-providing cultural superpower?” Since its publication, the article has shown itself to be extraordinarily influential, with over 300 citations in all kinds of academic publications. Even more importantly – and certainly unusually for a publication of any kind – it ended up playing a major role as a driver for the development of the Japanese government’s “Cool Japan” policy.

English-language books, book chapters, and journal articles on anime/manga – 2002

As usual, this list is also archived as a separate page. Any additions or corrections will be reflected on that page only.

Book Chapters
(Total published: 7)

Allison, Anne. Playing with power: Morphing toys and transforming heroes in kids’ mass culture. In Jeannette Marie Mageo (Ed.), Power and the self (pp. 71-92). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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University of Michigan Lecture/Workshop: More Information

Later this week, the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies will be hosting two programs on aspects of Japanese popular culture and its reception both in Japan and around the world. On Thursday, April 3, Mark McLelland will present a lecture on ‘debates around fictional child characters in Japanese popular culture’. As announced earlier this month, following this, on Saturday, April 5, a group of leading scholars will participate in a one-day workshop on specific ethical, legal, political, cultural and other challenges that Japanese popular culture as a field or area of inquiry presents for teachers at all levels, researchers, and students.

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The End of “Cool” Japan? (University of Michigan, Apr. 5)

The End of “Cool” Japan?: Ethical, Legal, Political and Cultural Challenges for Japanese Popular Culture Teachers, Researchers and Students

Organizers: University of Michigan Department of Screen Arts & Cultures and Center for Japanese Studies

Location: University of Michigan, North Quad Space 2435 (Ann Arbor, MI)

Date: April 5, 2014

This workshop addresses some pressing concerns for all those with an investment in teaching and learning about Japan via its popular culture. It brings together Japan specialists, both educators and researchers, in order to identify key challenges in research and pedagogy and to develop a framework for a code of ethics that can serve as a guideline for Japan Studies professionals. (more…)