SCMS/AAS

[stephanie deboer]

Greetings.

I just checked back into the list after a bit of absence, and though the thread on this discussion is a little cold, I thought I'd offer my own thoughts as well.

Speaking as a Ph.D. candidate with limited funds, the reason I chose to apply for the AAS over the SCMS this year is simple - its location was closer to my own present location (and thus easier on my budget).  One observation I would make, however, is that while film may be absent from the AAS this year, television isn't entirely sight unseen.  In addition to a few individual papers here and there, there will be one (full!) panel devoted to Chinese television, and the panel I am on includes papers on both film and television.  Though its title indicates inter-regional questions of "media" audiences, the individual papers themselves are specific to questions of film or television.  (Of course, both panels are being offered at the same time period, as is another interesting one on Japanese popular culture 
- they always seem to fall in the same time slot!)  

There are no panels on Japanese television per se at the SCMS this year, though I wouldn't cite this to conclude that the conference is on principle hostile to it - the recent change of the conference title (to include not just "cinema" but also "media") would of course contradict such a conclusion, and speaking on a personal level, I've presented on Japanese/Chinese TV co-productions there in the recent past (though I've never seen a panel there devoted only to Japanese or Chinese television - TV panels seem to be more often linked by theory or approach rather than nation, which is an interesting comparison to the cinema panels as well).

Still, as someone who is working on (or, rather, struggling with) a project that includes both film and television, I still find this particular year's conference division interesting.  Call it a bit of food for thought, and I hope the list doesn't mind my thinking through this on a more
 personal level as well.  Speaking to Markus' observation regarding the use of the term "media" at the AAS, it can be (as I think it is in this case) a convenient term to use when you are working on a project or searching for a panel title that addresses and includes multiple forms of visual media (film, television, etc.).  Of course, such "convenient" terms for labeling risk being too vague, or of misrepresenting the kinds of theories one is addressing.  

And actually, I do think that, less than the question of "medium" (film, television, etc.), what may be more at stake here is the question of theory or methodology.  For example, while this is simply conjecture, I wonder if this particular year's AAS line-up reflects less a hostility to film per se, rather than an organizational preference for approaches to studies of film and television that are more comfortable with terms such as "mass communications" or "popular culture" - approaches that developed in adjacent, yet ofte
n separate, tracks to that of cinema and television departments during the 1970s and 80s (in fact, I would say that the development of feminist and "critical" television studies was a direct reaction to certain "mass" trends in the field at this time).  Would anyone on the list have something to say to the strength or weakness of the former (perhaps more sociologically informed) media approaches within North American Asian Studies?  I've certainly found that in my own explanation of my own project to Asian studies circles, there is often an assumption that I am speaking from a "mass communications" point of view, rather then the cinema studies informed address of film and television that I'm more comfortable in speaking to (concerned with film and television texts, and closely linked to critical theory and the centrality of feminist criticism within the field).  Not that they're unrelated, but there are definitely differences in concerns for theory (by which I mean the vocabu
lary and methodology that is deemed significant) among these approaches.

Other thoughts: In terms of scholarship within E. Asia, my sense is that within Asian scholarship on film and television, communications studies may have a stronger presence - cite the small (yet growing) number of cinema studies programs within Japan in comparison to programs linked to "communications" or "information studies," and the ways in which the (rather booming) increased number of media studies programs in mainland China in the past few years have more often chosen to (at least in title) link to themselves to "communications" studies.  If I'm not mistaken, Taiwanese departments reflect a similar landscape.  

For North American scholarship, at the very least, what it may come down to in the end is questions of training, and thus to our abilities (or willingness) to allow for discussion across disciplinary divides, both in terms of conference organization (what organizers accept into a conferen
ce), as well as individual scholarship (how one chooses to address and speak to a conference).  In my opinion, the wider the variety of approaches to film and television out there, the better (this is why I got into academic cinema studies in the first place - what could make for a more interesting discussion?), but this demands a community of critics/viewers/conference organizers who are really invested in providing *productive* opportunities for talking to and addressing each other across boundaries of discipline and training. And that, in my opinion, is always where the difficulties lie. 

Thoughts anyone?


Stephanie DeBoer

(for the time being, I'll just let the bio that accompanies my emails (which should be below) introduce me to the list, as I don't think I've ever publicly introduced myself)


***************************************************
Fulbright-Hays Graduate Research Fellow (2003-2004)
Tokyo University, Japan
Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Ph.D. Candidate
C
ritical Studies
School of Cinema-Television
University of Southern California

M.A.  Comparative Literature
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Indiana University, Bloomington


----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu>
Date: Saturday, January 3, 2004 1:19 am

> I noticed something very curious in the recent announcement of panels 
> at our major conferences. SCMS (formerly SCS, the main academic 
> conference for film and television studies) has three, count 'em, three 
> panels on Japanese cinema, all stocked with Kinema Clubbers. This, 
> despite the fact that it has been years since Japanese cinema has had a 
> strong presence there. There are also a couple on Chinese cinema as 
> well.
> 
> On the other hand, I've only seen the panel titles in the newsletter, 
> but I was surprised to find that film and television have virtually 
> disappeared at AAS. I'm talking about the entire conference, every 
> region. They seem to have been supplanted by "m
edia" and "popular 
> culture."
> 
> This is a curious situation,  and it will be interesting to see what 
> happens in the next year or two. Are the scholars populating these 
> panels seeing SCMS as a more stimulating or accommodating space? Or are 
> the organizations themselves expressing (something?) by their 
> selections?
> 
> One of many factors behind the organization of Kinema Club III at NYU 
> was the rejection of a Japanese film panel by AAS. Any thoughts or 
> comments?
> 
> Markus
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> Here are the panels at SCMS (full schedule: 
> http://www.cinemastudies.org/04conf/SCMS04Prelim.htm).
> 
> E2: Japanese Anime: History, Theory, and Practice
> 
> Room: Birch
> 
> Chair: Kumiko Sato (Earlham College)
> 
> Steve Fore (City University of Hong Kong), "Realism, Hybridity, and the 
> Question of Representation in Contemporary Animation"
> 
> Eija Niskanen (University of Wisconsin, Madison), "Ghibli-The Last Film 
>
 Studio in Japan"
> 
> Satomi Saito (University of Iowa), "The Evolution of Anime Languages: 
> ?From 'moe-anime' to 'garu-ge'"
> 
> Kumiko Sato (Earlham College), "Anime's Displacement Effect"
> 
> 5: Cultural Exchanges: Stars and National Identity
> 
> Room: Maple B/C
> 
> Chair: Daisuke Miyao (Columbia University)
> 
> Hideaki Fujiki (University of Wisconsin, Madison/Nagoya University), 
> "American Cinema Stars Reshaping Japanese Culture, 1914-1920"
> 
> Misa Oyama (University of California, Berkeley), "The Secret Asian Man 
> is No Longer a Secret: Sessue Hayakawa's Films After The Cheat "
> 
> Daisuke Miyao (Columbia University), "Madame Butterfly to Ideal Wife: 
> Exoticism, Americanization, Nationalism, and Tsuru Aoki's Silent 
> Stardom"
> 
> O8: Perverts, Politics, and Japanese Cinema
> 
> Room: Hazelnut
> 
> Chair: Jonathan M. Hall (University of California, Irvine)
> 
> Akiko Mizoguchi (University of Rochester/National Film Center, Japan), 
> "Gay Boom for Women?:
 Male Homosexual Films as Agents for 
> ?Homo-&Heterosexual Women in Japan"
> 
> Hikari Hori (Gakushuin University, Tokyo), "Two Castration Narratives: 
> Obscenity Trials, Directorship, and the Female Pornographer in 
> ?Japanese Film History"
> 
> Jonathan M. Hall (University of California, Irvine), "Experimental 
> Oedipus: Matsumoto Toshio's Secret Language of Flowers"
> 
> Respondent: Margherita Long (University of California, Riverside)