KINEJAPAN digest 1044

[catherine russell]

Hi folks,

	Before the Kinejapan conference recedes any more into a distant memory, I
will try to offer some kind of report, given the clamoring for it. First of
all, let me say that it was a very relaxed, friendly and intimate
conference with a total number of participants around 24 I think. Mitsuhiro
Yoshimoto and Markus Nornes not only organized the academic part of the
conference, but also some excellent social events that enabled everyone to
get to know each other and enjoy the relaxed Hawaii evenings. Lots of night
swimming, mai-tais etc..

	The conference brought together Japanese film scholars from a variety of
disciplines, including not only film studies and Japanese studies, but
anthropology, literature and history as well. People came from Europe, the
States and Canada, with Montreal the strongest representative with 5
participants. 

	Panels and papers were offered on all kinds of things, from television to
early cinema; prewar, postwar cinema, and anime. I was surprised that there
were so few papers on contemporary Japanese cinema, although I think some
people who had planned to attend but couldn't make it, had intended to talk
about contemporary cinema. In any case, the papers really suggested the
diversity of Japanese studies, and it was great to see how dynamic this
field has become. 

	I especially enjoyed the papers given by Michael Raines, Chika Kinoshita,
Junji Yoshida and Naomi Ginoza on the prewar and wartime cinema. In many
ways, the study of Japanese film has been revitalized by the ongoing work
on Japanese modernity and it's great to see so much interesting historical
research and analysis. Papers by Mark Anderson, Christine Marran and Anne
McKnight also addressed the cinema of the  40s and 50s with new terms of
analysis. 

	Michael Raine offered a workshop on subtitling DVDs which was really
interesting, if somewhat intimidating to the luddites in the room. However,
it's nice to know that it's possible, if not strictly legal, to subtitle
disks for classroom use. 

	Makino Mamoru attended the entire conference and offered some remarks at
the end, along with the conference organizers who had some interesting
perspectives on the state of the field. It was certainly interesting that
the conference was conducted almost entirely in English, and that there
were few if any scholars from Japanese universities. It was also suggested
in the conference wrap up that maybe the study of Japanese cinema has
become too diversified and may have lost its focus. Certainly it has become
an interdisciplinary realm, and as we gain access to more and more
material, from early cinema to anime and television, there is a kind of
splintering going on. Maybe other list members have ideas on this issue, as
it is an important one.

	In any case, the conference was a great success, and many thanks are due
to Mitsuhiro and Markus for putting it together. I don't know of any plans
to publish the conference proceedings, but it may be an idea for Kinema
Club III to try to collect papers that would indicate the state of the
discipline. 

So much for my brief report. Maybe other participants can fill in anything
I might have left out.

Katie



	

At 12:06 AM 7/3/03 -0400, you wrote:
>
>			    KINEJAPAN Digest 1044
>
>Topics covered in this issue include:
>
>  1) japanese silent movies on dvd ?
>	by "Cyril Descans" <descan at noos.fr>
>  2) Re: japanese silent movies on dvd ?
>	by "Delorese Harrington" <dharring at mail.ucf.edu>
>  3) Takashi Miike book
>	by "Tom Mes" <china_crisis at hotmail.com>
>  4) LA Times: Anime Expo
>	by Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu>
>  5) unsubscribe
>	by Atahualpa Lichy <atalichy at noos.fr>
>  6) Re: unsubscribe
>	by gregb at brandeis.edu
>
>
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_________________________________
Catherine Russell, Associate Professor
Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8
tel: (514) 848 4657 fax: (514) 848 4255
http://cinema.concordia.ca/russell/