Fw: Nichibunken Evening Seminar

[AARON GEROW]

Upcoming event at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies,
Kyoto, Japan:


Nichibunken Evening Seminar on Japanese Studies (134th Meeting)
January 15, 2009 (Thursday), 4:30 P.M.-6:00 P.M.

Speaker: Thomas LAMARRE
Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, McGill University, Canada

Topic: “The Theatre of Species: Race and Animals in Wartime Animation”
Language: English
Place: Seminar Room 2, International Research Center for Japanese Studies,
3-2 Oeyama-cho, Goryo, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 610-1192

URL: http://www.nichibun.ac.jp/

Abstract:
In the manga and manga films of prewar Japan, especially in those animations
that fell under the rubric of ‘national policy film’ (kokusaku eiga) or
‘educational film’ (kyiku eiga) of the 1930s and 1940s, relations among
human peoples are often translated into relations among animal species. Prime
examples are the Norakuro series and the Momotar series. Central to such manga
and manga films is an exploration of the dynamics of cooperation/competition in
the context of animal interactions. Manga and animation construct a theater of
operations in which the cuteness of animals serves to ground a sense of
cooperation in the midst of military and economic competition. This parallels
the wartime effort to imagine multiethnic empire and co-prosperity. Both entail
a critique of social Darwinism and classical liberalism.
Manga and animations, however, afford a very particular perspective on the
politics of Japanese empire, on Pan-Asianism and multiethnic empire: they
respond to the question of racial conflict and rivalry by evoking
‘plasmaticity’  a primordial plasticity inherent in animals  and maybe in
life itself. The talk will focus on the dynamics and implications of the
translation of racial, ethnic and national relations into animal or species
relations, with an emphasis on the specificity of the theatre of operations
implicit in prewar manga and manga films.

About the speaker :
Thomas LaMarre is a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies and the
Department of Art History and Communications Studies, McGill University.
Research interests include Japanese literature, comparative philosophy and
cultural theory, media and mass culture, and cultural and intellectual history.
Among his many publications are The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation
(2009), Shadows on the Screen: Tanizaki Jun'ichir on Cinema and Oriental
Aesthetics (2005), and Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and
Inscription (2000).


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