[KineJapan] End of "Cool" Japan Workshop; Ann Arbor

Rob Buscher robbuscher at hotmail.com
Fri Apr 4 17:11:22 EDT 2014


I'm glad you brought this up Michael - I was also quite interested by the force with which the Japanese academic responded to the panel at AAS. I was rather surprised by the panel myself, since the title "End of 'Cool' Japan" had very little to do with the overall theme of the panel, in my opinion at least. 
For those of you who were not at AAS, this panel dealt primarily with the legal issues surrounding the use of sexually risque materials in class such as the study of BL or lolicon manga. Straying from cinema, although we do have similar issues of navigating appropriateness in the study of Pinku Eiga. 
The difference in my mind is that while there are several Japanese academics who are involved in the scholarly study of Pinku Eiga, I am unfamiliar with any such work being conducted in Japanese on the manga that this panel addressed. I wouldn't say that I agree with the criticism of the academic at AAS, but it certainly raises some questions about what influences non-Japanese to take interest in such topics. I would be curious to hear input from other folks on the list. 
Best,Rob 
Rob BuscherProgramming DirectorPhiladelphia Asian American Film Festivalwww.paaff.org


Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2014 15:52:51 -0500
From: raine.michael.j at gmail.com
To: kinejapan at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] End of "Cool" Japan Workshop; Ann Arbor

I thought this panel was one of the most interesting at AAS last weekend. I enjoyed the presentations but I was also struck by the forceful objection by an audience member. If I understand it correctly, she was not happy that a panel of non-Japanese was choosing deliberately "outre" material to show in a university classroom setting. I'm not sure if the objection was more cultural (there is better work to study) or nationalist (foreigners shouldn't be exposing the underside of Japan).


Also, I think the panel tended to characterize the restrictions on content as stemming from a "conservative backlash," right-wing and drawing on the power of the State. I certainly agree that there is such a thing and, teaching in Canada, I've experienced it first-hand. However, I'm not sure that objections to the kind of material under discussion come only from the Right: in Canada the law against non-photographic pornography depends on a "harms discourse" that is often used by progressives. In general, there are many voices on "the Left" calling for censorship of pornography and limits to the kind of material that students can be made to study. For example, the recent rise in calls for "trigger warnings" and the provision of a "safe space" for education. 


In any case, I would be very interested he hear how the discussion goes and whether these questions are addressed in the panel. Wish I could be there!

Michael

Michael Raine, Film Studies
Western University, Canada



On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Markus Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu> wrote:

I wish you all could come. At least you'll know what's up. This will eventually be a book, it seems.


Markus


=================================================




End of "Cool" Japan Workshop








A one-day workshop hosted by the Center for Japanese Studies and the Department of Screen Arts & Cultures at the University of Michigan

Organizers: Mark McLelland and Markus Nornes

Saturday 5 April 2014



Program

9.30 Welcome
Markus Nornes

9.45-10.30 Opening Address
Mark McLelland

10.30-10:45 Coffee

10.45-12.00 Panel One: Negotiating Student Expectations
Alisa Freedman
Laura Miller



12.00-1.00 Lunch

1.00-3.00 Panel Two: Sex and Violence In and Beyond the Classroom
Sabine Fruhstuck
Kirsten Cather
Patrick Galbraith

3.00-3.15 Coffee

3.15-4.00 Future Directions: "The End of Cool Japan?" Roundtable Discussion


____________________________________________________

About the Event

This workshop addresses some pressing concerns for all those with an investment in teaching and learning about Japan via its popular culture. It brings together Japan specialists, both educators and researchers, in order to identify key challenges in research and pedagogy and to develop a framework for a code of ethics that can serve as a guideline for Japan Studies professionals.



Since the early 2000s, interest in "cool Japan," particularly young people's engagement with animation, comics and gaming (ACG), has been the driving factor in recruitment to undergraduate Japanese language and studies courses. Tertiary institutions and the Japanese foreign office alike have sought to capitalize on this interest to boost enrolments in Japanese courses. Young people's interest in and contact with Japanese popular culture now often begins in school and continues into undergraduate life. An increasing number of faculty and graduate students are also focusing on aspects of Japanese popular culture across a range of disciplines including anthropology, screen studies, literary studies, cultural studies and sociology. Today's convergent media environment offers unprecedented opportunities for sourcing and disseminating previously obscure or hard to find pop culture content from Japan. However alongside this convenience are heightened ethical and legal concerns surrounding the sourcing of content that bypasses national licensing and ratings systems.



Today's students occupy multiple roles as fans, students and "produsers" of Japanese cultural content that is available via the Internet. Most Japanese pop culture students are young and tech-savvy and are involved in some form of online fannish interaction. In addition to mainstream ACG titles that have been licensed to overseas companies, translated into English, given appropriate ratings and conventionally distributed, students access an enormous amount of unofficially translated and transmitted Japanese material on the internet. Original Japanese titles are dubbed and subtitled into English and other languages by circles of fans and distributed via fan sites and peer-to-peer networks. Fans themselves have taken on active roles as mediators and distributors and facilitated the bottom-up spread of Japanese pop culture across geographical and linguistic borders, thus circumventing traditional distribution and ratings systems.



The ease of manipulating digital content in today's "remix culture" has also resulted in an equally voluminous amount of fan-generated content based on Japanese originals. Known in Japanese as dōjin (coterie) products, these "transformative works" that appropriate existing titles and characters and develop new story lines are also widely available online and popular among student fans who both consume and produce them. Yet, despite the fact that "fansubbers" evince a strong desire to support the local animation industry by promoting anime culture and widening anime's accessibility, given that these circuits of production and redistribution are illegal in terms of international copyright law, they have at times resulted in the Japanese ACG industries and local licensees taking legal action.



In addition to these concerns over copyright, there are problems to do with the increased flow of Japanese cultural materials that are treated differently by various national ratings systems as well as different audiences and interest groups. While many librarians and literacy experts have welcomed the upsurge of interest in graphic novels among young readers, an alternative narrative points to the "dark side" of Japanese popular culture, with its emphasis on adult-themes, violence, sexual fetishes and seemingly under-age characters. Recently, the violent and sexualized content of some Japanese media, particularly in regard to representations of characters who may only "appear to be" minors, has caused considerable concern among international agencies such as UNICEF. In some countries, notably the US, the UK, Canada, Sweden, and Australia, fictional depictions of child characters have been included in the definition of "child-abuse publications." Japan itself has been affected by this new global scrutiny of pop culture representations as evidenced in 2010 by the successful passing of the Tokyo Metropolitan Authority's Bill number 156 (the so-called "Non-Existent Youth Bill") placing enhanced sales restrictions on ACG deemed "harmful to youth."



The ever expanding scope of this legislation has led to serious charges being laid against some manga and anime collectors in the US and elsewhere. A very large number of Japanese pop culture students have encountered or even actively sought out such material which is ubiquitous in the fandom. Furthermore, dōjin works, which might have received a PG rating for their official versions, are often "sexed up" in fan creations to an extent that they would receive adult-only ratings or be banned altogether in some jurisdictions. The fact that young readers can move seamlessly from searching out official content on the internet to fandoms circulating these niche products is cited as a cause for concern among educators.



Concerns about copyright, ratings and exposure to potentially illegal content are serious issues for those teaching and researching Japanese popular culture, although to date the literature discussing these issues is scant. This workshop brings together leading experts in the study of Japanese popular culture who have faced ethical and legal challenges in pursuing their own research and in teaching about Japan to undergraduate students. Speakers from the US, Australia and Japan address the different ways in which their academic practices are challenged by local regulations and the difficulties they face when sourcing, researching and teaching about pop culture content in an increasingly "deterritorialized" media environment.



Topics addressed include:

. Copyright in the classroom: teaching fan appropriations of Japanese popular culture.
. Japanese and American culture industry responses to dōjin culture.
. The impact of "child-abuse material" legislation on research and teaching about manga and anime.


. Recent trends in ACG censorship and legislation in Japan.
. Cultural resistance among students to learning about aspects of Japanese popular culture.
. Challenges from ethics committees for researchers into sexualized subcultures.


. The range of gatekeepers who control, censure or mediate access to Japanese popular culture
____________________________________________________

Presentation Abstracts



9.45-10.30 Opening Address

Ethical and Legal Issues in Teaching Japanese Popular Culture to Undergraduate Students

Mark McLelland

Interest in Japanese popular culture, particularly young people's engagement with manga and animation, is widely acknowledged to be a driving factor in recruitment to undergraduate Japanese language and studies courses at universities around the world. Contemporary students live in a convergent media culture where they often occupy multiple roles as fans, students and "producers" of Japanese cultural content. Students' easy access to and manipulation of Japanese cultural content through sites that offer "scanlation" and "fansubbing" services as well as sites that enable the production and dissemination of dōjin works raise a number of ethical and legal issues, not least infringement of copyright. However equally important are issues to do with the transnational consumption and production of Japanese cultural materials that are subject to different ratings systems and censorship. The sexualised content of some Japanese media, particularly in regard to representations of characters who may "appear to be" minors, has become the site of increased concern in some countries, notably Canada and Australia where fictional depictions of child characters have been included in the definition of "child-abuse publications". The ever expanding scope of this legislation has led to the recent arrest and prosecution of manga and anime fans in both these countries and in the US. In this presentation I ask what role, if any, do we as educators have in alerting students to the problematic nature of studying, consuming, producing and disseminating images of a sexualized nature? How do we negotiate students' interest in potentially problematic Japanese genres such as BL, hentai and rori in the classroom? How do we support students who wish to pursue their interest in these genres, balancing the need for academic freedom against requirements to live by the ethical and legal frameworks set by local authorities?



Mark McLelland is Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Wollongong and author or editor of seven books focusing on issues to do with the history of sexuality, popular culture and new media in Japan, most recently, Love, Sex and Democracy in Japan during the American Occupation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012




10.45-12.00 Panel One: Negotiating Student Expectations

Student Sensibilities and Gatekeeper Protests: Teaching and Presenting Research on Unwelcome Japan Studies Topics

Laura Miller

Increasingly, many of us with academic specializations in Japan Studies are pressured to include popular culture in our teaching menus in order to entice the growing ranks of animation, comics and gaming (ACG) fans. However, many students take our courses because they fulfil a diversity or multicultural requirement. For these students, course material might be met with responses ranging from disdain to active protest. In the state of Missouri, a newly passed state amendment gives students the power to reject any part of their academic assignments (including reading assignments) that contradict or offend their religious beliefs. How do we negotiate protests from students who object to aspects of our course content? Similarly, although academic institutions, local Japanese societies, and community groups claim they want more AEG as part of their programming, what they envision is Miyazaki Hayao and Hello Kitty rather than Mizuno Junko or Matō Sanami, and kimono dress-up rather than maid café enactments. This presentation will focus on types of cultural resistance from those around us (students, community members, and colleagues). What happens when our students object to the sexual, religious or violent content found in our lectures and research? How do we respond to colleagues, native Japanese observers, and other gatekeepers who protest that our material or programming on contemporary Japan is presenting a negative or tainted image of the nation and its people? How do we deal with attempts to censure or control the nature of our research programming and presentations on Japan?



Laura Miller is Ei'ichi Shibusawa-Seigo Arai Endowed Professor of Japanese Studies and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has published widely on Japanese culture and language, including topics such as English loanwords in Japanese, the beauty industry, girls' slang, self-photography, and divination. She teaches courses on Japan and linguistic anthropology and works to promote Japan Studies through a variety of campus and community programming.




Death Note and Crimes in the Classroom: Issues in Teaching Japanese Popular Culture to the Ne(x)t Generation

Alisa Freedman

My talk explores moral, ethical, and cultural issues of teaching and researching Japanese popular culture and the fandoms it inspires through the trans-medial example of Death Note (Desu nōto). Death Note - manga series written by Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi (2003-2006), television anime (2006-2007), three films (2006, 2008), light novels (2006, 2009), and videogames (2007, 2008), all commercially available in several languages - is the story of bored male student who kills criminals with an old notebook dropped by a death god and the characters who pursue him. Death Note has attracted fans worldwide because of its genre-bending narrative, multifaceted beautiful boy (bishōnen) characters, commentary on justice and surveillance, and advocacy of the power of youth, among other reasons. Yet Death Note has been cited as a source of real-life crimes, implicating it in debates about the morality of manga. Importantly, the global popularity of Death Note has been thanks to fans, who have extended its meanings and turned it into more than a niche fad. Death Note was marketed at a time when Internet developments were making manga and anime more immediately accessible. Death Note fan appropriations represent primary ways fans have used digital media to personalize popular culture, including fanfiction, slash, scanlations, and fansubs. I argue that Death Note is an instructive text to make students aware of how they have collaborated in the global domination of Japanese popular culture and how they have challenged copyrights and other laws governing the dissemination of texts.



Alisa Freedman is an Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Film at the University of Oregon. Her current research explores issues concerning globalization, gender, and urbanization in twentieth and twenty-first-century Japanese literature and popular culture. Her major publications include Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (Stanford University Press, 2010), an annotated translation of Kawabata Yasunari's The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (University of California Press, 2005), and a co-edited volume on Modern Girls on the Go: Gender, Mobility, and Labor in Japan (Stanford University Press, 2013). She has authored articles on Japanese modernism, urban studies, youth culture, media discourses about gender norms, television history, humor as social critique, and intersections of literature and digital media, along with translations of Japanese novels and short stories.




1.00-3.00 Panel Two: Sex and Violence in and Beyond the Classroom

"Every Picture Tells a Lie:" Teaching the Popular Culture of Sexuality and Violence

Sabine Frühstück

In this paper I would like to briefly describe my use of (visual) popular culture materials in two of my undergraduate courses, 'Representations of Sexuality in Modern Japan' and 'Violence and the State in Japan.' In each course, I have integrated one or more sessions that take up the popular cultural treatment of the core topics, sexuality in one case, violence in the other. Materials in these sessions range widely from pornographic ukiyoe to over-the-top violent Yakuza films. I will also describe and speculate about students' responses to such materials.



I propose that the analysis of popular cultural materials in the classroom - if done well - can go a long way in accomplishing a number of important teaching goals: Such materials allow me to "pick up" the students where they are most "at home," namely in current-day popular culture, much of which in California is Japanese. Such materials also help to irritate students' sensibilities and thus allow me to more effectively convey the specific cultural conditions of Japanese (and their own) beliefs and attitudes. In addition, they allow me to fully exploit the potential of such materials for the purposes of entertainment and humor (After all, some representations of both sex and violence, in Japan at least, are supposed to be funny!).



Sabine Frühstück is a professor of Modern Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is mostly concerned with the history and ethnography of modern Japanese culture and its relations to the rest of the world. Her current book project examines the various relations between childhood and militarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Frühstück is the author of Colonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan (2003) and Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army (2007). Both monographs were translated into Japanese.




Trying Obscene Manga in the Courtroom and Classroom:

Ethical and legal issues in teaching Japanese popular culture to undergraduate students

Kirsten Cather

In 2002, a half-century after the first of a series of sensational, high-profile obscenity trials of literature, film, and photography in Japan and after a lull of almost twenty years, a new medium became the target of government prosecution: manga. As some feared and others hoped, the publisher of the adult erotic manga Honey Room was convicted in a verdict that was upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2007. Both inside and outside the courtroom, lawyers, witnesses, judges, and a wide array of commentators from legal and cultural spheres offered their competing arguments about the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of the manga. This unprecedented trial paved the way for the increased regulation of pop culture media, including a subsequent conviction of another ero-manga publisher by the lower courts in the fall of 2013. What can we learn by studying such judicial proceedings? They suggest the high stakes of policing Japan's pop cultural sphere for authorities today and offer a window into Japan's contemporary legal and cultural standards of censorship. Might these trials also help us navigate the potentially murky ethical and legal terrain of handling these "obscene" materials in our lives as researchers, teachers, students, or readers? By dissecting the rationale behind the externally-imposed standards of a censorship regime, we can probe our own deeply held, yet oft-unexamined standards about what we feel is acceptable to create, teach, learn, and consume and what we designate as beyond the pale. In other words, the solution may be to "try" an obscene manga in the classroom that has been tried in the courtroom.



Kirsten Cather is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian "Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. Her interests include Japanese literature and film; censorship; fictional and non-fictional representations of suicide; literary and filmic adaptations. She is author of The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan, University of Hawaii Press (2o12).




Is There Room for Lolicon in Cool Japan?

Patrick Galbraith

This paper considers possible limitations in Japan Studies through the case of lolicon, or desire for girl characters from manga and anime. Looking back at the so-called "lolicon boom" in Japan in the early 1980s, it is apparent that one cannot discuss otaku, or manga and anime fandom, without addressing lolicon in some way. Indeed, lolicon has been the subject of academic inquiry for over two decades in Japan. Despite this, the study of lolicon has been severely retarded in the United States by its conflation with "virtual child pornography." Conservative backlash leads to the suspension of lolicon manga localization; private individuals face potential jail time for importing it. Further, even critical writing on lolicon is stifled because of the fear of inciting a "moral firestorm." This inability to discuss lolicon, or posses or show images of the works so categorized, leads to serious misperceptions about manga, history and fan culture in Japan. Academic inquiry, which should rise above the concerns of popularity, is similarly limited. Much of the funding for the study of Japan comes from the Japanese government, whichis still deeply invested in the Cool Japan project and wary of topics such as lolicon. Further, relevant materials are not archived in the Diet Library, and private collectors risk imprisonment. The paper asks if there is room in Cool Japan for lolicon, or, to put it another way, is there room in the study of popular culture for unpopular topics? What are the ethical implications of such a study?



Patrick W. Galbraith received his first Ph.D. in Information Studies from the University of Tokyo, and is currently pursuing a second Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. He is the author of The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan (Kodansha International, 2009), Tokyo Realtime: Akihabara (White Rabbit Press, 2010), Otaku Spaces (Chin Music Press, 2012) and The Moe Manifesto: An Insider's Look at the Worlds of Manga, Anime and Gaming (Tuttle, forthcoming), and the co-editor of Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture (Palgrave, 2012). <patrick.galbraith at duke.edu>


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