"I Don\u27t Mind Being Poor" : Capitalism, Music, and Youth Culture in 21st Century Japan

失われた20年と日本研究のこれから（京都 : 2015年6月30日-7月2日）・失われた20年と日本社会の変容（ハーバード : 2015年11月13日

Japanese Literature and Cinema

This course includes surveys for both cinematic and literary representations of diverse eras and aspects of Japanese culture such as the classical era, the samurai age, wartime Japan and the atomic bombings, social change in the postwar period, and the appropriation of foreign cultural themes, with an emphasis on the modern period. The directors include Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Teshigahara. The authors include Kobo Abe and Yukio Mishima. The films are shown with subtitles in English. The course is taught in English

Review of E. Taylor Atkins. 2001. Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press

“Thank God for Japan! It’s turning out to be a second Nevada” (209). These words of an American booking agent in the 1960s capture some of the paradoxes of jazz in Japan. On one hand, it is a jazz paradise-where else can one find jazz coffee shops (jazu kissa) that prohibit talking, but offer patrons the opportunity to listen to extensive record collections over state-of-the-art speakers? And the Japanese are not only fans. Some of japan’s jazz musicians have achieved success in the international jazz world, notably pianist Akiyoshi Toshiko, who in 1980 received three top awards from Down Beat magazine. But still, for many musicians and commentators in the West (and for some in Japan as well) there persists the enduring image that Japanese jazzers, both the fans and the musicians alike, are somewhat akin to the faux Venetian canals in Las Vegas. Aren’t they trying to be something they cannot be

Japanese Popular Culture

This course examines Japanese popular culture as a way of understanding the changing character of media, capitalism, fan communities and culture. Topics include manga (comic books), hip-hop and other popular music in Japan, anime (Japanese animated films) and feature films, sports (sumo, soccer, baseball), and online communication. Emphasis will be on contemporary popular culture and theories of gender, sexuality, race, and the workings of power in global culture industries

The Social in Media: Race, History, and the Visualizing Cultures Controversy at MIT

Online communication has a tendency to operate without clear contextual cues. What does the Visualizing Cultures controversy say about the contexts in which race, Asians, and history intersect? The website All Look Same offers an intriguing example of the difficulties of combating racism. As we come into contact with images online, we expand our awareness but also simultaneously move into realms where we have only a limited grasp of the contexts in which things are made, and the goals to which they aspire

Book review of: China with a Cut: Globalisation, Urban Youth and Popular Music. Jeroen de Kloet. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010. 264 pp.

Jeroen de Kloet’s ethnographic monograph, China with a Cut, presents fascinating insights into the complexity and diversity of rock music in China, focusing on the 1990s until around 2008. Through fieldwork, interviews, and historical comparisons, the author takes us on a journey, from dingy Beijing clubs featuring in-your-face punks to the coffee houses of folk-rock balladeers to the stadiums of pop-rock mega stars. We hear the longing in fan letters and complaining of record-company capitalists. Along the way, de Kloet adds his own theoretical and critical perspectives so that we get a unique and nuanced portrait of youth, politics, and globalization in contemporary China. A pleasure to read, this book would be great for undergraduate or graduate students because it is accessible, theoretically rich, and appropriately controversial