Capture Japan: Visual Culture and the Global Imagination from 1952 to the Present

Description

Capture Japan investigates the formation of visual tropes and how these have contributed to perceptions of Japan in the global imagination. The book proposes that images are not incidental in the formation of such perceptions, but central to notions about identity, history and memory. From a tentative western ally in 1952 to a ‘soft power’ superpower with a huge global influence in the 21st century, the book locates questions about Japan in the global imagination to the country’s transforming geopolitical position. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, with a multiplicity of perspectives from around the world, Capture Japan goes beyond binarisms to uncover how images can also produce discourses that challenge, subvert or even contradict each other. The word ‘capture’ in the title of the book recognises both the deeply problematic role that images have played in relation to colonialism, as well as the potential dominance that visual spectacles can wield in a contemporary context. Diverse essays from a wide range of perspectives investigate the institutional framework that has allowed certain types of images of Japan to be promoted, while others have been suppressed. In doing so, the book points to a vast network of images, each contributing how Japan is represented to others as well as itself, and thus draws out how these images are inextricably linked to wider ideological, political, cultural or economic agendas. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Figures Contributors Acknowledgements Note on text and translation Introduction Part I: Signs Introduction to Part I: Signs Chapter 1: Le Samouraï: Jean-Pierre Melville’s cinematic Japan Chapter 2: Dreaming of Mexico: Japanese artists discover the Other Chapter 3: Re/placing Barthes in the post-bubble era: Youthful disaffection, online fandom and the reoriented visions of ‘Japan’ in Iwai Shunji’s All about Lily Chou-Chou Part II: Myths Introduction to Part II: Myths Chapter 4: The ‘Last Japanese Soldier’: Putting the nation into play Chapter 5: Sugimoto Hiroshi and the emergence of a geopolitical ‘Japanese style’ Chapter 6: Japan as an ‘erotic paradise’ in the Sino-Japanese mobility context: Ethnographic encounters Part III: Ruins Introduction to Part III: Ruins Chapter 7: Shadows of the atomic bombings in The Family of Man: The American photographic exhibition tour of Japan in the post-occupation period Chapter 8: Fractured land, then and now: The resurgence of ruins in the 1996 Japan Pavilion of the Venice Biennale Chapter 9: Burnt dresses left for the future: Ishiuchi Miyako’s photographic series ひろしま/hiroshima (2007–present) Part IV: Transformations Introduction to Part IV: Transformations Chapter 10: Representing Japan: Stereotyping and self-stereotyping in the many careers of Yamaguchi Yoshiko Chapter 11: Myth, manga, technology and gender: Chobits and the post-war Pygmalion Chapter 12: Personal connections and global relations: Staging ‘Japan of the imagination’ in the 1980s Index