Self-introduction

[Nohchool Park]

Hajimemasite...

My name is Nohchool Park, a doctoral film study student at the University of 
Kansas, USA. I am a 31-year-old Korean guy. I have enjoyed watching many 
Japanese films, but I had never thought to carry out a serious academic 
research on Japanese cinema. But I recently decided to write my doctorate 
dissertation about the early Japanese cinema and its cultural reception in 
Japanese society. The research methodologies that I'm thinking now are 
social semiotics and postcolonialism. Why semiotics? Aside from Roland 
Barthes's naming of Japan as Empire of Sign (if I remember correctly...), I 
believe that the introduction of film medium from the West to Japanese 
society could be explained as an exchange of two big Sign-Systems. Why 
postcolonialism? The exchange of cultural signs could also be a struggle 
between them acquire a hegemonic status in the early modern Japan. I suppose 
cinema was at the center of this Sign play between Japan and Western 
modernity.

I have written one paper about Japanese stereotype in Hollywood cinema in 
which I argued the stereotypical representation of Japanese in Hollywood 
cinema has its root in Western imperialism during the 19th century. I tried 
to show that one could find the early forms of Japanese visual stereotypes 
in Japonisme paintings and novels written by European authors.

However, the general education concering film study I have had so far is 
mainly about American cinema. I'm a sort of novice in the field of Japanese 
cinema and Japanese popular culture (But I can read Japanese very well).  I 
used to have much interest in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and 
French structuralism in general. But I came to think that those disciplines 
were also culturally bound. For example, Lacan's Symbolic Order, Foucault's 
Epistemic discourse, Althusser's Ideology..., and all of the "structures" 
are cultural products. Therefore, my present interest is "what's gonna 
happen when two different "structures" meet?" My interest in the early 
cinema in Japan was a natural consequence of this theoretical question.

I sincerely hope to learn about Japanese cinema and culture from other 
colleagues in Kinema Club. And I will do my best to make a contribution to 
my club friends. I also welcome any personal letters and messages concerning 
academic study about Japanese cinema and cultural theories.

Email: quaigon at ku.edu

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