Programming /Ch. TASHIRO

[Livia Monnet]

Since Aaron encouraged list members to draw attention to new publications,I
would like to mention a special issue of JAPAN FORUM,Volume 11,Number
1,1999,published by Routledge for the British Association for Japanese
Studies,and also serving as journal for the European Association of
Japanese Studies.The issue may be of interest to list members examining the
formation of modern subjectivity  in the context of mass and visual culture
in Taisho Japan.The essays look at the intersections of
literature,theatre,cinema and photography.Subscription
inquiries:USA/Canada: Routledge Journals,Taylor and Francis Inc.,47 Runway
Road,Levittown,PA 19057,USA,phone 1-215-269-0400,fax 1-215-269 0363.Japan :
Routledge Journals,Kinokuniya Co.Ltd,PO Box 55,Chitose,Tokyo 156.EU/Rest of
the World : Routledge Journals,Taylor and Francis,Customer services
department,Rankine Road ,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG24 8PR,UK,phone 44-1256
813 000,fax 44-1256 330 245.Editor: The Editors,Japan Forum,British
Association for Japanese Studies,Contemporary Japan Centre,University of
Essex,Wivenhoe Park,Colchester,CO4 3SQ,UK.The title and contents of the
volume are as follows: Special issue:Visuality in Modern Japan.Contents
:Joe Murphy and Thomas Lamarre,Introduction;Joseph Murphy,Economies of
culture:the Taisho bundan dallies with the movies;Thomas Lamarre,The
deformation of the modern spectator;synaesthesia,cinema,and the spectre of
race in Tanizaki;Ayako Kano:Visuality and gender in modern Japanese
theater:looking at Salome;Livia Monnet,Montage,cinematic subjectivity and
feminism in Ozaki Midori's Drifting in the World of the Seventh
Sense;Jean-Jacques Tschudin,Danjuro's katsurekigeki and the Meiji Theatre
Reform movement;Eric Cazdyn,A short history of visuality in modern
Japan:crisis,money,perception.A few excerpts from the introduction:"While
it continued an interdisciplinary trajectory within the humanities with its
attention to art history,cinema,philosophy and literature,(visuality)
seemed to hold forth as well the possibility of a disciplinary framework
around visual culture and theories of vision -- almost as if the
anti-disciplinary questioning implicit in poststructuralist theories of
textuality and subjectivity had to be disavowed or displaced.Yet the
promise of a disciplinary framework for visuality has never been
fulfilled....: although one can find inspiration in Foucault's account of
surveillance,Lacan's regard or Benjamin's dialectical image,these are
actually theories of power,knowledge,subject formation and modernity.As a
mode of inquiry,then,the strength of visuality lies in its ability to play
between disciplines,media and genres,while at once displacing and
continuing some of the central concerns of poststructuralist
theory......Within Japan studies,inquiry into visuality has had important
effects.On the one hand,the visual turn has called atention to a whole
range of mass cultural materials;recently,studies of cinema,manga or anime
have become as central to the field as literary studies...On the other
hand,the visual turn also presents a crisis, a point of no return....it
extends Japan studies to the point where it seems that no traditional
notion of "Japan" can encompass the objects of scholarly inquiry....The
essays in the present volume,while concentrating on a fairly narrow
period,tend to work in this critical space between more traditional
linguistic materials(literature,theatre) and visual
culture(cinema,photography).And it is no surprise that the essays center on
Taisho Japan--not so much as an origin of modern Japan,but as the site of
emergence of a modern subjectivity linked to the formation of mass
culture,a subjectivity formed as much linguistically as visually.Each
article plays over this territory in its own way."
With apologies for the immodesty of blowing our own trumpet,I hope that the
issue will interest some of the participants in the list's discussions.I
also wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate the list owners and
its members for the productive exchange and collaborative spirit,the
enthusiasm and collegiality,which is inspiring to us all.Ganbatte. LM
                         At 03:04 99-07-17 -0400, you wrote:
>On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 08:29:57 -0500 Abe-Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu> wrote:
> The idea of
>>a slate of films devoted to production design is brilliant. In fact,
>>outside of a recent book by Charles Tashiro there is very little criticism
>>or scholarship on the subject. 
>
>Could you please tell more about that book ?
>Thank you. antoine kilian from kyoto.
>
>Signup for your FREE ZenSearch E-MAIL account at http://www.zensearch.net
and win a Notebook PC
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>
Livia Monnet

University of Montreal
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