Moga

[anne mcknight]

Hi Irene,

I'm another person who can't answer your questions straightaway, but there
was an interesting conference re: your moga last year that might be
interesting to follow up on. It was on the moga in east asia. Below is the
post from H-Japan.

I think there is some new work (new to me, anyway, maybe more familiar to
people dealing with 'modernity' in other fields) that traces how the moga
phenomenon was not diffused from the west (abstracted as such), but in fact
drew quite a bit on J-colonial interactions in Seoul, Dailen, other colonial
urban places. What this gets you in terms of shifting the argument is that
Japan wasn't just a mirror site (so to speak) for incoming culture from that
abstracted west, working to turn it outwards as an export commodity to Korea
and China. 

I think this is how the argument goes--there were many places, media venues
and networks where the moga alighted, was transported, and picked up speed.
That there were places of (co)production outside of the beaux arts of the
Parisian gaze and the Sahara of the Bozarts (as Anita Loos used to refer to
it) of the interwar US.

Anyway, there seem to be a couple of websites about the conference & working
groups associated with it--


Special event: Symposium - "Modern Girl Asia and Beyond: Global Capital,
Colonial Modernities and Media Representations", Tokyo, September 25, 2004
*************************************************************************
From: Angelina Chin <aychin at ucsc.edu>


International Symposium
Colonial Modernity and the Modern Girl in Asia Research Group, the
Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University
(http://www.igs.ocha.ac.jp/igs/indexE.html)
Modern Girl Around the World  Research Group, the University of Washington
(http://depts.washington.edu/its/moderngirl.htm)

Co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation, the University of Washington
Modern Girl Asia and Beyond: Global Capital, Colonial Modernities and
Media Representations

Time & Date: 13:30-17:00 (Open: 13:00) September 25, 2004

Venue: Tokyo Women's Plaza Hall

5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001

   Tel: 03-5467-1711

Moderators: Ruri Ito (Ochanomizu University) and Tachi Kaoru (Ochanomizu
University)

Language: Japanese-English, as well as  Japanese-Korean simultaneous
interpretations will be provided.

Modern girl, also known as moga in Japan, is seen as one of the social
phenomena that might enhance our understanding of the formation of urban
mass consumerism in the 1920s and 1930s.  This symposium aims at exploring
the idea of modern girl, not only as an urban phenomenon within one
country, but also as a multifaceted social process which transfigured
modernities globally.  Through this process, it triggered the exchanges of
international consumer products and culture and shaped hierarchies of
gender, race, ethnicity and class.

This symposium focuses on the internationality and globality of the modern
girl phenomenon, with an emphasis on colonial modernities in Asia.  This
symposium is made possible by the collaboration and support of the Modern
Girl Around the World Research Group at the University of Washington, as
well as other scholars and researchers inside and outside Japan.


Part 1: Collaborative Presentation, The Modern Girl Around the World

Speakers: Tani Barlow, Madeleine Yue Dong, Uta Poiger, Lynn Thomas, Priti
Ramamurthy, Alys Eve Weinbaum (University of Washington)

Part 2: Panel Discussion on Modern Girl and Asia

Panelists: Adachi Mariko(Osaka Women's University), Hung Yuru(Meisei
University), Kim Eunsil (Ewha Women's University), Kohiyama Rui (Tokyo
Woman's Christian University ), Vera Mackie (University of Melbourne)

Co-organized by "The Modern Girl and Colonial Modernity in East Asia"
Research Group and the Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University,
with the collaboration of "Modern Girl Around the World" Research Group, the
University of Washington

Co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation
  Simpson Center for Humanities, The Graduate School, College of Arts and
Sciences, the Institute for Transnational Studies, and Jackson School of
International Studies, all The University of Washington, Seattle.

Admission is free. Please register by fax or e-mail.

Transport: Subway (Tokyo Metro) Ginza Line, Hanzomon Line, Chiyoda Line 7
minutes walk from Omote Sando Station. JR Yamanote Line, Tokyu Toyoko Line,
Keio Inokashira line 12 minutes walk from Shibuya Station.

Registration for the symposium: Please complete the registration form
[format: MS-WORD, http://www.igs.ocha.ac.jp/igs/indexE.html] and send it to
the following address by fax or e-mail. If you would like to register by
e-mail, please follow this fax format and write "Moga Symposium" as the
subject of your e-mail. The registration should be submitted by 5 pm,
September 18, 2004. No reconfirmation will be made regarding your
registration.

For more information, contact the "Moga Symposium"
Secretariat: Fax: 03-5978-5845, E-mail: igs-ev at cc.ocha.ac.jp.

On 3/16/05 11:29 PM, "Alex Bates" <batesa at umich.edu> wrote:

> Hi Irene,
> I am currently working on a dissertation on the Great Kanto Earthquake
> at the U of M.  Unfortunately there aren't many films that are
> accessible, in any case I'll send you more info off list.
> As for other films- Naruse has some good things on the Moga in the
> early 30s. I think some are here too.
> Alex
> 
> 
> On Mar 15, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Irene Hahn wrote:
> 
>> Dear everyone,
>> 
>> My name is Irene Hahn, and I'm a Lecturer in English at the University
>> of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am also a fiction
>> writer at work on my first novel, a historical novel that takes place
>> mostly in Korea during the Japanese Occupation and the Korean War, but
>> which also includes a segment that takes place in Japan between the
>> years 1922 and 1924. The first portion of the novel won several
>> literary awards while I was a Master's student, and with luck I will
>> finish it in the next year. As part of my research, I am trying to
>> find films that try to re-create the early 1920s in Japan (or as close
>> to that time period as possible), and was hoping to enlist your
>> suggestions regarding films that might be helpful.
>> 
>> By way of plot summary, the portion of my novel that takes place in
>> Japan follows the travels of a young Korean man named Juho, who is a
>> member of the landowning aristocracy in Korea. He wants desperately to
>> be a painter and goes to Japan to study at the Tokyo School of Fine
>> Arts and paint 100 views of Mount Fuji, following the model of
>> Hokusai. I suppose if I had to itemize the main areas that I am
>> interested in, they would fall along these lines:
>> 
>> 1. Most of this portion of the novel takes place in Tokyo, and I would
>> like to learn more about student life (preferably among student
>> painters, although I imagine it'll be tough to find films on that
>> specifically), particularly student radicalism in the
>> universities--I've read that quite a few student intellectuals
>> advocated Communism, and I am trying to get a sense of what their
>> lives might have been like on a day to day basis, the conversations
>> they might have had, and whether they actually acted upon their ideas
>> and demonstrated or just talked about them.
>> 2. I am trying to find out what the interactions between Koreans and
>> Japanese were like in Japan, especially Korean and Japanese students.
>> 3. While in Tokyo, Juho falls in love with a "modern" woman. I've read
>> about the westernized Japanese girl of the 20s and 30s but would like
>> to see a moving representation of her, and so I am interested in any
>> film that illuminates gender relations and the opportunities that were
>> available to young women.
>> 4. I am trying to learn more about the lives of Japanese painters in
>> this time period, particularly those who went to Paris and came back
>> wanting to incorporate Impressionism and Post-Impressionism into their
>> work.
>> 5. Because Juho also travels throughout Japan to see Mount Fuji from
>> different parts of the country, I am very interested in the scenery of
>> the time, modes of transportation, places a traveler might have stayed
>> and things they might have done, any sorts of visual details that
>> might help me re-create the atmosphere of the early 1920s.
>> 6. One of Juho's childhood friends spends a year as a miner in Kyushu.
>> I'd like to know more about the conditions there.
>> 7. Juho's plans are interrupted by the Great Kanto Earthquake. In the
>> aftermath of the massacre of Koreans that took place after the
>> earthquake, he goes home. With this in mind, I was wondering whether
>> any films have tried to recreate the experience of the earthquake.
>> 
>> As you can see, the areas I am researching are unfortunately quite
>> varied. All of my research has been literary thus far, and while books
>> are helpful I would like to try and see and hear the times via film,
>> even if only fictive. In case anyone had suggestions based on the
>> above I would be deeply grateful. Thank you very much for your time
>> and consideration--
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Irene Hahn
>> 
>>