- THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Registrar)
Level 6, Jane Foss Russell Building– KG02 | Darlington | NSW | 2006
Roman Rosenbaum
The University of Sydney, School of Languages and Cultures, Faculty Member
- Roman Rosenbaum, PhD is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney Australia. He specialises in Postwar Japane... moreRoman Rosenbaum, PhD is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney Australia. He specialises in Postwar Japanese Literature and Popular Cultural Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Japanese Literature at the University of Sydney. In 2008 he received the Inoue Yasushi Award for best refereed journal article on Japanese literature in Australia. In 2010/11, he spent one year as a Visiting Research Professor at the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) to complete a monograph on the social activist Oda Makoto. His Japanese to English translations include: ‘A Translation of Oda Makoto‘s “Aboji” wo fumu,’ in Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia (JOSA), Vol.36-7, 2004-05, pp.86-103. He is the editor of Representation of Japanese History in Manga (Routledge 2013). His latest edited book is entitled Visions of precarity in Japanese popular culture and literature (Routledge 2015). His latest translation is ISHIBUMI: A memorial to the atomic annihilation of 321 students of Hiroshima Second Middle School. Tokyo: Poplar Press (ポプラ社), 2016.edit
This paper traces the long history of the mercurial U.S. - Japan alliance from its infancy to the contemporary multilateral relationship via its representation in the graphic manga discourse. This paper was first presented as Seminar at... more
This paper traces the long history of the mercurial U.S. - Japan alliance from its infancy to the contemporary multilateral relationship via its representation in the graphic manga discourse. This paper was first presented as Seminar at the College of Liberal Arts for the Scholarly Intersections Lecture: February 25, 2020. Anatol Center at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).
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The discourse analysis of Adolf demonstrates how Tezuka represents the nation as a set of narratives, for example, by the postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha and thus reveals the layers of postcolonial discourse within Japan's graphic-novel... more
The discourse analysis of Adolf demonstrates how Tezuka represents the nation as a set of narratives, for example, by the postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha and thus reveals the layers of postcolonial discourse within Japan's graphic-novel tradition. Bhabha's suggestion that 'it is in the emergence of the interstices, the overlap and displacement of domains of difference, that the intersubjective and collective experiences of nationness, community interest, or cultural values are negotiated' is played out in the hybridity and interstitial elements of Adolf. The graphic novel reveals repeatedly that supposedly stable entities like nation, culture, and identity are volatile and, through giving voice to those absent from these narratives, like women, war orphans, and migrants, Tezuka challenges officially sanctioned national history. Thus postcolonial reading of Tezuka's Adolf is plausible and highlights the vital contribution of the literary discourse of Tezuka's graphic novels to the study of diasporic cultures during the Asia-Pacific War and, in particular, their cultural contextualization during the postwar era.
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<jats:p>Ai-Mitsu, born Nichiro Ishimura, was the second son of a landowning family in Hiroshima. As an artist he was known for his Western-style paintings, his eschewing of the hieratic of sensō-ga (painting, 戦争画), and his pursuit... more
<jats:p>Ai-Mitsu, born Nichiro Ishimura, was the second son of a landowning family in Hiroshima. As an artist he was known for his Western-style paintings, his eschewing of the hieratic of sensō-ga (painting, 戦争画), and his pursuit of a variety of styles ranging from sōgen-ga (Chinese-style painting, 宋元画), to self-portraits and Surrealism. During the war he joined a group of self-portrait painters called the Shinjin Gakai (Association of New Painters, 新人画会), which was established in 1943. He was conscripted in 1944 and sent to the front in Manchuria. He died in 1946 in a hospital in Shanghai, following the surrender of Japan. While many of his works were destroyed in the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima, his most famous work, Me no aru fūkei (目のある風景, Landscape with an Eye, 1938), is currently held in the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. In this painting of a shapeless landscape with an embedded eye, he succeeded in giving form to the thoughts and feelings that were generally suppressed during Japan's Asia-Pacific war.</jats:p>
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Prior to World War II, Constructivism attracted little interest from British artists apart from the few involved with Circle in 1937. Circle consisted of a publication and accompanying exhibition and was the first comprehensive... more
Prior to World War II, Constructivism attracted little interest from British artists apart from the few involved with Circle in 1937. Circle consisted of a publication and accompanying exhibition and was the first comprehensive presentation of constructivist work in London. It was organized jointly by Ben Nicholson (1894–1982), the Russian émigré sculptor Naum Gabo, and the architect Lesley Martin, and was publicized as an international survey of constructive art.
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This paper focuses in detail on the concept of grassroots activism (草の根の直接行動) in relation to peace movements. Special emphasis is placed on the Japanese case of Oda Makoto’s (小田実) protracted involvement with the anti-Vietnam War citizen... more
This paper focuses in detail on the concept of grassroots activism (草の根の直接行動) in relation to peace movements. Special emphasis is placed on the Japanese case of Oda Makoto’s (小田実) protracted involvement with the anti-Vietnam War citizen protests and its indirect relation to Japanese attempts to come to terms with its past. One of Japan’s most successful postwar social movements known as Beheiren (ベ平連, short for ベトナムに平和を！市民連合), fought for peace in Vietnam and was instigated by Japanese intellectuals spearheaded by Oda and his peers. Issues such as American dassōhei (脱走兵, deserters) who were cared for by members of Beheiren’s anti-Vietnam movement supporters are key elements for understanding the social repercussions of this era and by extension address the issues of reconciliation and contemporary grassroots diplomacy.
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The National Cultural Policy was supposed to set the framework for Australian Government support for arts, culture and the creative industries for the next ten years. The objective of the policy was to increase the social and economic... more
The National Cultural Policy was supposed to set the framework for Australian Government support for arts, culture and the creative industries for the next ten years. The objective of the policy was to increase the social and economic dividend from the arts, culture and the creative industries. A strong artistic sector producing the highest quality work results in positive social and economic impacts for the nation. The funding delivered to the arts through the Australia Council ensures that high calibre artistic product is made for Australian audiences. However the desired outcome ended in disaster. Huge amounts of taxpayers money were wasted and the policy ultimately never saw the light of day. This is the history of a failed opportunity to acknowledge and promote Australia's place in Asia.
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Foreword: Liberty and equality in Japan's unequal society, Suzuki Sadami 1. Towards an introduction: Japan's literature of precarity, Roman Rosenbaum 2. Kirino Natsuo's Metabola, or the Okinawan stage, fractured selves and the... more
Foreword: Liberty and equality in Japan's unequal society, Suzuki Sadami 1. Towards an introduction: Japan's literature of precarity, Roman Rosenbaum 2. Kirino Natsuo's Metabola, or the Okinawan stage, fractured selves and the precarity of contemporary existence, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt 3. Precarity, kawaii (cuteness), and their impact on environmental discourse in Japan, W. Puck Brecher 4. Part-timer, buy a house. Middle-class precarity, sentimentality and learning the meaning of work, Christopher Perkins 5. Precarious attraction: Abe Kazushige's Individual Projection post-bubble, Maria Roemer 6. Hirabayashi Eiko and the projection of a viable proletarian vision, Mats Karlsson 7.The Precarious Self: Love, melancholia and the eradication of adolescence in Makoto Shinkai's anime works, Maria Grajdian 8. Graphic representation of the precariat in popular culture, Roman Rosenbaum 9.Towards new literary trend: Contemporary Japanese society mirrored in literature, Yasuko Claremont 10. Cinematic Narratives of Precarity: Gender and Affect in Contemporary Japan, Ritu Vij 11. Precarity beyond 3/11 or 'Living Fukushima'--Power, politics, and space in Wago Ryoichi's poetry of disaster, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt
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... the burnt-out ruins. The most celebrated literary record of the yakeato generation is arguably Nosaka Akiyuki&#x27;s novel Grave of the Fireflies 11 11Published as Nosaka Akiyuki, Amerika hijiki, Hotaru no haka. View all notes.... more
... the burnt-out ruins. The most celebrated literary record of the yakeato generation is arguably Nosaka Akiyuki&#x27;s novel Grave of the Fireflies 11 11Published as Nosaka Akiyuki, Amerika hijiki, Hotaru no haka. View all notes. which ...
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This paper includes oral presentations delivered on 29 September 2015 during the conference: "Wounds, Scars and Healing: Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation," held at the University of Sydney from 29 September to 2... more
This paper includes oral presentations delivered on 29 September 2015 during the conference: "Wounds, Scars and Healing: Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation," held at the University of Sydney from 29 September to 2 October 2015 to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Asia-Pacific War. Each presentation is framed with a research paper addressing the larger issues of reconciliation and commemorative events via civil grassroots movements.
The grassroots workshop presenters were Martin Flanagan (Melbourne, Editor,
TheAge); Fr Paul Glynn (A Song for Nagasaki); Rosemary Gower (Loveday, South
Australia); Fuyuko Nishisato (POW Research Network Japan); Peter Phillips (RSL
President, 1997-2003); Hyun Soon-Hye (constitutional revision issues, zainichi
activist); Yoshiko Tamura (POW Research Network Japan); Mina Watanabe
(WAM Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, Tokyo); Yosuke Watanabe
(POW Research Network Japan).
The grassroots workshop presenters were Martin Flanagan (Melbourne, Editor,
TheAge); Fr Paul Glynn (A Song for Nagasaki); Rosemary Gower (Loveday, South
Australia); Fuyuko Nishisato (POW Research Network Japan); Peter Phillips (RSL
President, 1997-2003); Hyun Soon-Hye (constitutional revision issues, zainichi
activist); Yoshiko Tamura (POW Research Network Japan); Mina Watanabe
(WAM Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, Tokyo); Yosuke Watanabe
(POW Research Network Japan).
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Whereas the passing of Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989) is eulogised with a frequency unrivalled in Western academic and scholarly discourse; the passing of Ishinomori Shōtarō (1938–1998), who is equally celebrated in Japan, hardly receives any... more
Whereas the passing of Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989) is eulogised with a frequency unrivalled in Western academic and scholarly discourse; the passing of Ishinomori Shōtarō (1938–1998), who is equally celebrated in Japan, hardly receives any mention at all. Yet, the relationship between arguably two of the greatest graphic artists in postwar Japan is so close that Ishinomori’s drawing style and overall artistry closely resembles that of Tezuka. This is hardly surprising since in 1955 Ishinomori began to submit drawings to regular contests designed to discover new talents for the magazine Manga Shōnen. It is said that Tezuka was so moved by what he saw that he invited Ishinomori to work for him as an assistant on Astro Boy. From there on their relationship deepened and after his graduation from high school in 1956 Ishinomori moved to what was then the hub of young budding artists, the apartment building Tokiwa-sō, where he lived and worked with Tezuka until 1961. In one of their many recorded round-table talks the two grandmasters discuss their contribution to the Japanese graphic art media:
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Why talk about gekiga now? Gekiga (劇画) is still a key word for the avant-garde dramatic-realistic style of manga that emerged in 1959 and became popular throughout the Japanese graphic art industry from the 1960s onwards. Although some... more
Why talk about gekiga now? Gekiga (劇画) is still a key word for the avant-garde dramatic-realistic style of manga that emerged in 1959 and became popular throughout the Japanese graphic art industry from the 1960s onwards. Although some have felt that the term has now been superseded by the all-encompassing behemoth that is "manga,' several excellent English translations of the early works of gekiga artists have now been made available in English. Tatsumi Yoshihiro's work pioneered the genre and put pressure on the early narrative style of Tezuka Osamu, compelling him to also pursue a more realistic graphic style that would come to dominate the pop-cultural industry.
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Recent natural as well as man-made cataclysmic events have dramatically changed the status quo of contemporary Japanese society, and following the Asia-Pacific war’s never-ending ‘postwar’ period, Japan has been dramatically forced into a... more
Recent natural as well as man-made cataclysmic events have dramatically changed the status quo of contemporary Japanese society, and following the Asia-Pacific war’s never-ending ‘postwar’ period, Japan has been dramatically forced into a zeitgeist of saigo or ‘post-disaster.’ This radically new worldview has significantly altered the socio-political as well as literary perception of one of the world’s potential superpowers, and in this book the contributors closely examine how Japan’s new paradigm of precarious existence is expressed through a variety of pop-cultural as well as literary media. Addressing the transition from post-war to post-disaster literature, this book examines the rise of precarity consciousness in Japanese socio-cultural discourse. The chapters investigate the extent to which we can talk about the emergence of a new literary paradigm of precarity in the world of Japanese popular culture. Through careful examination of a variety of contemporary texts ranging fro...
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... symbol.42 42Ibid., 218. View all notes. However, when they started shouting &#x27;death to the merchants of death&#x27;, professional trouble-makers called sōkaiya roughed up the demonstrators and averted the protest. Another... more
... symbol.42 42Ibid., 218. View all notes. However, when they started shouting &#x27;death to the merchants of death&#x27;, professional trouble-makers called sōkaiya roughed up the demonstrators and averted the protest. Another example ...
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Memorial diplomacy like its cousin cultural diplomacy engage the mobilization of historical memory as a resource for diplomatic negotiations through a variety of competing media like museum, film, theatre, literary productions and most... more
Memorial diplomacy like its cousin cultural diplomacy engage the mobilization of historical memory as a resource for diplomatic negotiations through a variety of competing media like museum, film, theatre, literary productions and most importantly socio political channels. In postwar historical paradigms memory has not only become a contested site but also a conscious object of socio-political dynamics that competes with historical reinterpretations in the global amphitheater. Papers in this collection investigate the complexity of historical memory and associated political connotations in relation to the sixty-fifth anniversary of the end of the Asia-Pacific Conflict with specific reference to Australian-Japan relations.
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... symbol.42 42Ibid., 218. View all notes. However, when they started shouting &#x27;death to the merchants of death&#x27;, professional trouble-makers called sōkaiya roughed up the demonstrators and averted the protest. Another... more
... symbol.42 42Ibid., 218. View all notes. However, when they started shouting &#x27;death to the merchants of death&#x27;, professional trouble-makers called sōkaiya roughed up the demonstrators and averted the protest. Another example ...
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This paper presents a historical overview of the 'yakeato generation.' Commonly referred to as the generation of those Japanese who have experienced the 'burnt-out ruins' of the Asia-Pacific conflict and the associated trauma - nowadays... more
This paper presents a historical overview of the 'yakeato generation.' Commonly referred to as the generation of those Japanese who have experienced the 'burnt-out ruins' of the Asia-Pacific conflict and the associated trauma - nowadays referred to as Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After investigating the occurrences of yakeato themes in contemporary Japanese literature a working definition of the yakeato generation is suggested and the paper will answer the question of whether the yakeato generation is still relevant in contemporary Japanese society. This historically pivotal Japanese generation will be analysed with general references to the criticism and literature of Oda Makoto, Nosaka Akiyuki, Oe Kenzaburo and Ishihara Shintaro.
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This paper investigates the historical implication of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's gekiga movement in Japan. The research focuses specifically on the contemporary significance of the recent transliteration of Tatsumi’s oeuvre in English by... more
This paper investigates the historical implication of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's gekiga movement in Japan. The research focuses specifically on the contemporary significance of the recent transliteration of Tatsumi’s oeuvre in English by Canadian based Drawn & Quarterly. To what extent does the gekiga group’s manifesto and Tatsumi’s work contextualize what graphic novels bring to our understanding of history? Most recently Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life, although written over the course of some ten years in Japan, has been awarded two Eisner awards in 2010 for Best Reality-Based Work and Best U.S. Edition of International Material in Asia. Gekiga in Japan was a counter-cultural discourse that eventuated in response to the perception of the stereotypical drawing of manga developed by Tezuka Osamu in his mimesis of Walt Disney comics. Yet, as David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu have argued in Transcultural Japan, the West is preoccupied with conceptual dichotomies and dialectical oppositions and has therefore overlooked the historical similarities in Japan that have created a contemporary society with fluid boundaries and innovative cultural formations. Thus, is Tatsumi’s gekiga genuinely similar to the American counter-cultural movement of the 1960s, where R. Crumb, Kim Deitch and Art Spiegelman discarded the old funny page format and themes and started a new way of graphical representation, or does it manifest an entirely different historical approach? What are the differences and similarities between the American underground comic movement and Japanese gekiga; considering that both eventuated in the early 1960s as part of a larger social transformation in society?
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Oda Makoto (小田 実 ) was Japan’s preeminent writer and peace activist of the postwar period. His life was strongly influenced by his experience of the firebombing of major Japanese cities at the end of the Asia-Pacific War. This made him a... more
Oda Makoto (小田 実 ) was Japan’s preeminent writer and peace activist of the postwar period. His life was strongly influenced by his experience of the firebombing of major Japanese cities at the end of the Asia-Pacific War. This made him a member of the yakeato (焼け跡) generation or those youths who experience the ‘burnt-out ruins’ of the war during a time in their lives when their psyche was not yet fully formed. Like many of his peers this post-traumatic inscape found expression in his artistic output in extremely long narrative fiction as well as short stories. Yet in contrast to his contemporaries for Oda, it was lifelong activism via the anti-Vietnam movement knows as Beheiren (ベ平連) that defined his raison d'être. After his marriage to a resident Korean writer activist Hyun Soon Hie, he penned a tribute to his Korean father-in-law, for which he was awarded the Kawabata Yasunari Prize in 1998.
This paper provides an introduction and translation of the acclaimed short story Aboji o Fumu (「アボジ」を踏む; Stomping Father) - one of two short-stories written by Oda Makoto in response to the Great Hanshin Earthquake on 17January 1995. This autobiographical short relates to Oda's Korean father-in-law and is brimming with innuendo about the inadequate social circumstances of Korean residents in Japan.
This paper provides an introduction and translation of the acclaimed short story Aboji o Fumu (「アボジ」を踏む; Stomping Father) - one of two short-stories written by Oda Makoto in response to the Great Hanshin Earthquake on 17January 1995. This autobiographical short relates to Oda's Korean father-in-law and is brimming with innuendo about the inadequate social circumstances of Korean residents in Japan.
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Motomiya Hiroshi 本宮 ひろ志 has established himself as one of Japan's most famous and successful contemporary comic artists. A member of the first wave of the country's postwar baby boomer generation, he became a household name after his... more
Motomiya Hiroshi 本宮 ひろ志 has established himself as one of Japan's most famous and successful contemporary comic artists. A member of the first wave of the country's postwar baby boomer generation, he became a household name after his successful manga Salaryman Kintaro (サラリーマン金太郎). In 2002 Motomiya experienced domestic criticism and censorship, following the publication of the historical manga Kuni ga Moeru (国が燃える; The Country Is Burning) through his depiction of the Nanking Massacre (南京虐殺; nankin gyakusatsu) and the Sino-Japanese War. The comic serialized from 2002-2005 in the popular magazine Weekly Young Jump and sparked heavy criticism for adopting pictures based on a famous photograph that allegedly shows a Japanese soldier posing for a souvenir shot with a woman he has rape based on Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. The paper discusses Japanese censorship in popular culture, the art of writing historical graphic novels and revisionism in popular culture.
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This paper focuses in detail on the concept of grassroots activism (草の根の直接行動) in relation to peace movements. Special emphasis is placed on the Japanese case of Oda Makoto’s (小田実) protracted involvement with the anti-Vietnam War citizen... more
This paper focuses in detail on the concept of grassroots activism (草の根の直接行動) in relation to peace movements. Special emphasis is placed on the Japanese case of Oda Makoto’s (小田実) protracted involvement with the anti-Vietnam War citizen protests and its indirect relation to Japanese attempts to come to terms with its past. One of Japan’s most successful postwar social movements known as Beheiren (ベ平連, short for ベトナムに平和を！市民連合), fought for peace in Vietnam and was instigated by Japanese intellectuals spearheaded by Oda and his peers. Issues such as American dassōhei (脱走兵, deserters) who were cared for by members of Beheiren’s anti-Vietnam movement supporters are key elements for understanding the social repercussions of this era and by extension address the issues of reconciliation and contemporary grassroots diplomacy.
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Ishinomori Shōtarō (石ノ森 章太郎) provided the blueprint for the rewriting of history in Japanese graphic art. In Japan the hyperbole of his name ‘forest of stone’ is also synonymous with a plethora of other superlatives. Ishinomori not only... more
Ishinomori Shōtarō (石ノ森 章太郎) provided the blueprint for the rewriting of history in Japanese graphic art. In Japan the hyperbole of his name ‘forest of stone’ is also synonymous with a plethora of other superlatives. Ishinomori not only wrote the prototype for the first gakushū (学習) manga on economics , defined a new graphic genre in the process and thus paved the way for ‘serious’ manga to enter the educational discourse in Japan, but also holds the Guinness Book World Record for the most pages drawn by a single artist; totaling more than 128,000 pages. As if this was not enough, Ishinomori raised the bar by almost single-handedly penning the first comprehensive history of the Japanese Archipelago in his magnum opus Manga Nihon no Rekishi (マンガ日本の歴史; Manga A History of Japan). This voluminous compendium marks an attempt at historiographical analysis of Japanese history from its ancient ancestral roots right up to the contemporary world. Despite the transcultural renaissance of manga on a global scale the neglect of his work from the discourse of Japanese cultural representation is somewhat surprising.
Whereas books on the likes of Tezuka Osamu and the lesser known but still influential Yoshihiro Tatsumi have been highly appraised recently, Ishinomori, - usually labelled as a science fiction manga artist - as one of the founding fathers of the modern manga media is hardly discussed in the Western press. With this contradiction in mind this paper will evaluate the position of Ishinomori’s graphic analects of Japan in comparison to several other archetypes of graphic histories such as Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s Sangokushi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 1971-1986), Tezuka Osamu’s Hi no tori (Phoenix, 1978-1995) and Mizuki Shigeru’s Comikku Showa-Shi (Hereafter: Comic History of Shōwa, 1988-1989). The paper will demonstrate how Ishinomori’s representation of Japanese history in manga constitutes a new form of literacy that enables the visualisation of historical artefacts in relation to contentious issues of Japanese identity and memory formation.
Whereas books on the likes of Tezuka Osamu and the lesser known but still influential Yoshihiro Tatsumi have been highly appraised recently, Ishinomori, - usually labelled as a science fiction manga artist - as one of the founding fathers of the modern manga media is hardly discussed in the Western press. With this contradiction in mind this paper will evaluate the position of Ishinomori’s graphic analects of Japan in comparison to several other archetypes of graphic histories such as Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s Sangokushi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 1971-1986), Tezuka Osamu’s Hi no tori (Phoenix, 1978-1995) and Mizuki Shigeru’s Comikku Showa-Shi (Hereafter: Comic History of Shōwa, 1988-1989). The paper will demonstrate how Ishinomori’s representation of Japanese history in manga constitutes a new form of literacy that enables the visualisation of historical artefacts in relation to contentious issues of Japanese identity and memory formation.
Research Interests: Japanese Studies, Japanese Language And Culture, Popular Culture, Japanese History, Japanese Popular Culture, and 2 moreEnglish Literature, Graphic Novels, Comics Studies, Manga Studies, Popular Culture, Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Visual Culture and Japanese culture. Anime and manga.
Throughout Japan's period of modernization, graphic art in its varied manifestations played a critical role in enlivening the narration of Japanese history. In comparison to the global popularity of contemporary manga, the Taishō period... more
Throughout Japan's period of modernization, graphic art in its varied manifestations played a critical role in enlivening the narration of Japanese history. In comparison to the global popularity of contemporary manga, the Taishō period had its own graphic mode known as jiji manga (時事漫画、 satirical social cartoons), which drew on the pop-cultural legacy of Kitazawa Rakuten (北澤 楽天), Okamoto Ippei (岡本 一平) and Shimokawa Ōten (下川凹天). Influenced by these superstars of graphic art at the time, many magazines and journals began to espouse graphic literacy by means of satirical socio-political cartoons in order to attract a broader readership. This examination of the graphical representation of Taishō history and society focuses specifically on the first six examples of jiji manga published after the inauguration of the journal Shinseinen (新青年)in monthly installments from January to June 1920. The discussion of Shinseinen is usually limited to its pioneering work in the genre of tantei shosetsu (探偵小説, detective novel), but as the following examination of the journal's graphic material reveals, it also functioned as a vehicle for the propagation of a variety of sometimes conflicting discursive formations, such as imperialism vis-a-vis Taishō modernism and militarism versus democracy. Drawn by the relatively unknown artist Tsutsumi Kanzo, the jiji manga in Shinseinen contain important contextual information about one of the most controversial periods of Japanese history, where a staggering variety of trans-cultural modes of representation clashed to reveal a composite picture of modernity.
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This paper examines the breach of aniconism in Western popular culture and how the violation of this representational taboo led to cultural clashes resulting in violence. The humble cartoon's loss of innocence has been a long time coming... more
This paper examines the breach of aniconism in Western popular culture and how the violation of this representational taboo led to cultural clashes resulting in violence. The humble cartoon's loss of innocence has been a long time coming but its recent escalation has much deeper sociopolitical and cultural implications. This paper focuses on the Australian repercussions of the 9/11 cartoons and the publication of the satirical Muhammad cartoons by Jylland Posten. Michael Leunig is one of Australia's most renown cartoonist and his criticism of Israel in the aftermath of the Muhammad cartoons sparked its own antipodean crisis.
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A translation of one of Oda Makoto's (小田実) short story that belongs to the oeuvre of the holistic short story (全体短編小説), where he attempts to combine Korean myths, the legacy of Pacific Island nuclear contamination with the Kobe earthquake... more
A translation of one of Oda Makoto's (小田実) short story that belongs to the oeuvre of the holistic short story (全体短編小説), where he attempts to combine Korean myths, the legacy of Pacific Island nuclear contamination with the Kobe earthquake in Japan to create a fictional international theater populated with a multinational cast in an attempt to move towards a transnational literary space that crosses multiple national discourses. The translation of this short story is accompanied with an explanatory introductory essay.
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Ishibumi - literally 'stone monument' or stele, is the documentary account of the deaths of 321 students and four teachers of the Hiroshima Middle School, who had assembled for demolition work near ground zero on August 6th, 1945, the day... more
Ishibumi - literally 'stone monument' or stele, is the documentary account of the deaths of 321 students and four teachers of the Hiroshima Middle School, who had assembled for demolition work near ground zero on August 6th, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was detonated over Hiroshima. Originally a television documentary, the book records the oral and written traces of the students final days as a memorial of their deaths and as a petition for the elimination of nuclear weapons of war. It is one of the canonical classics of memorial literature, well-known by ever high school student in Japan. this is the first English translation that delves into the home front of Japanese nuclear history.
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This paper includes oral presentations delivered on 29 September 2015 during the conference Wounds, Scars and Healing: Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation, held at the University of Sydney from 29 September to 2 October... more
This paper includes oral presentations delivered on 29 September 2015 during the conference Wounds, Scars and Healing: Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation, held at the University of Sydney from 29 September to 2 October 2015 to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Asia–Pacific War.1 Each presentation is framed with a research paper addressing the larger issues of reconciliation and commemorative events via civil grassroots movements.
Content:
1. ‘70 Years Later, the World Is Still Fighting World War II’
2. Beyond Cowra: The Loveday Detention Centre
3. RSL Drive Towards Reconciliation with Japan
4. Religions in Japan: A Review of Catholicism
5. Japanese Pacifism and the Revision of Article 9 in the Japanese Constitution
6.Japanese Pacifism: Personal Recollections
7. POW Trauma and Grassroots Reconciliation Movements
8. Postwar Grassroots Workshop: Towards Truth and Reconciliation
7. Conclusion: The Need for Reconciliation, Workshops and
Commemorative Memorial Diplomacy
Content:
1. ‘70 Years Later, the World Is Still Fighting World War II’
2. Beyond Cowra: The Loveday Detention Centre
3. RSL Drive Towards Reconciliation with Japan
4. Religions in Japan: A Review of Catholicism
5. Japanese Pacifism and the Revision of Article 9 in the Japanese Constitution
6.Japanese Pacifism: Personal Recollections
7. POW Trauma and Grassroots Reconciliation Movements
8. Postwar Grassroots Workshop: Towards Truth and Reconciliation
7. Conclusion: The Need for Reconciliation, Workshops and
Commemorative Memorial Diplomacy
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Commemorating Oda's passing in 2007 this paper was published in the Korean magazine ASIAN as a special collection of essay and translation of the author activist. This review of Oda's oeuvre was originally published under the title... more
Commemorating Oda's passing in 2007 this paper was published in the Korean magazine ASIAN as a special collection of essay and translation of the author activist. This review of Oda's oeuvre was originally published under the title ‘Defamiliarising the Postwar: The Enigma of Oda Makoto’ in Japanese Studies, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, Vol.25, No.2, September 2005. For the purpose of this re-publication I have revised the text and added a preface and an afterword in addition to a new section entitled ‘Longinus: On the Sublime.’
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This paper is a translation of Jirou Yamamoto's original article published in German in the war-time journal 'Japan to-day' published by Bungei shunju as an oversea supplement. The article is part of a collection of German, French,... more
This paper is a translation of Jirou Yamamoto's original article published in German in the war-time journal 'Japan to-day' published by Bungei shunju as an oversea supplement. The article is part of a collection of German, French, English and Japanese translations of Japanese propaganda material published during the Asia-Pacific conflict in Japan sent overseas. All articles are also translated into Japanese and come with a critical introduction.
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This article investigates the popular cultural implications of the “gap-wid- ening society” (格差社会, kakusa shakai) as identified by Yamada Masahiro. A re-cent revival of sociological terms like freeter and NEET in popular cultural... more
This article investigates the popular cultural implications of the “gap-wid-
ening society” (格差社会, kakusa shakai) as identified by Yamada Masahiro. A re-cent revival of sociological terms like freeter and NEET
in popular cultural media reflects an increasing concern with the rapidly changing social landscape in contemporary Japanese society. Starting with the phenomenon of postwar economic growth, each subsequent generation of Japanese has allegorically and symbolically represented the dramatic social changes they experienced through popular cultural media like film and manga. This article also examines how Japan’s growing stratification is situated within the popular cultural media of recent films. Special consideration is given to the plight of Japan’s older working-class generations who are profoundly affected by the accelerating kakusa shakai trend of recent years. This concern is especially evident in the film Tokyo Sonata directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi in 2008, which depicts a family in crisis because of
the traditional breadwinner losing his job. In comparison, Tanada Yuki’s Hyakuman-en to nigamushi onna [百万円と苦虫女, One million yen and the nigamushi woman], which was also published in 2008, depicts the contemporary social challenges of the much younger freeter generation upon graduating from university. The aim of this investigation is to gauge how the current discourse on Japan’s “gap-widening society” is encoded in recent literature and films.
ening society” (格差社会, kakusa shakai) as identified by Yamada Masahiro. A re-cent revival of sociological terms like freeter and NEET
in popular cultural media reflects an increasing concern with the rapidly changing social landscape in contemporary Japanese society. Starting with the phenomenon of postwar economic growth, each subsequent generation of Japanese has allegorically and symbolically represented the dramatic social changes they experienced through popular cultural media like film and manga. This article also examines how Japan’s growing stratification is situated within the popular cultural media of recent films. Special consideration is given to the plight of Japan’s older working-class generations who are profoundly affected by the accelerating kakusa shakai trend of recent years. This concern is especially evident in the film Tokyo Sonata directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi in 2008, which depicts a family in crisis because of
the traditional breadwinner losing his job. In comparison, Tanada Yuki’s Hyakuman-en to nigamushi onna [百万円と苦虫女, One million yen and the nigamushi woman], which was also published in 2008, depicts the contemporary social challenges of the much younger freeter generation upon graduating from university. The aim of this investigation is to gauge how the current discourse on Japan’s “gap-widening society” is encoded in recent literature and films.
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This Japanese paper was published by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (国際日本文化研究せんたー) as part of their Nichibunken Forum Series. The paper investigates the International Literary aspect of Oda Makoto's novels... more
This Japanese paper was published by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (国際日本文化研究せんたー) as part of their Nichibunken Forum Series.
The paper investigates the International Literary aspect of Oda Makoto's novels (小田実の国際文学). It also investigates Oda's methodology of applying Noma Hiroshi's notion of the holistic novel to the short story media (全体(短編)小説に向かってい野間宏と小田実). Special attention is paid to the characteristics of Oda Makoto's holistic novels (小田実の全体小説の特徴) and finally an example of Oda's short story oeuvre is investigated in some detail (小田実の全体短編小説に向かって一つの見本).
The paper investigates the International Literary aspect of Oda Makoto's novels (小田実の国際文学). It also investigates Oda's methodology of applying Noma Hiroshi's notion of the holistic novel to the short story media (全体(短編)小説に向かってい野間宏と小田実). Special attention is paid to the characteristics of Oda Makoto's holistic novels (小田実の全体小説の特徴) and finally an example of Oda's short story oeuvre is investigated in some detail (小田実の全体短編小説に向かって一つの見本).
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This paper investigates the intercultural and transcultural implications of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s (辰巳 ヨシヒロ) gekiga (劇画) movement in Japan. What are the implications of Tatsumi’s graphic representation of cross-cultural differences in terms... more
This paper investigates the intercultural and transcultural implications of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s (辰巳 ヨシヒロ) gekiga (劇画) movement in Japan. What are the implications of Tatsumi’s graphic representation of cross-cultural differences in terms of what Roland Kelts has called ‘transcultural longing’?
Gekiga in Japan was a countercultural movement that eventuated in response to the perception of the stereotypical drawing of manga developed by Tezuka Osamu in his mimesis of Walt Disney comics. Yet as David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu have argued in Transcultural Japan the West is preoccupied with conceptual dichotomies and dialectical oppositions and has therefore overlooked the transcultural and transnational elements in Japan that have created a contemporary society with fluid boundaries and innovative cultural formations. Thus, is Tatsumi’s gekiga genuinely similar to the American countercultural movement of the 1960s, where Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch and Art Spiegelman discarded the old funny page format and themes and started a new way of graphical representation, or does it manifest an entirely different cultural approach? What are the differences and similarities between the American underground comic movement and Japanese gekiga; considering that both eventuated in the early 1960s as part of a larger social transformation in society?
The paper also considers the contemporary significance of the recent transliteration of Tatsumi’s oeuvre in English by Canadian based Drawn & Quarterly. I will focus in particular on the intercultural and transcultural properties of Tatsumi’s recent work and how translations of his work, like Adrian Tomine’s A Drifting Life, conceptualise the gekiga or ‘dramatic pictures’ movement that launched the alternative comic scene in Japan in opposition to the prevalence of manga or ‘whimsical pictures.’ To what extent was the gekiga groups manifesto a product of intercultural/transcultural influence and how did its legacy effect the internationalisation of manga?
Gekiga in Japan was a countercultural movement that eventuated in response to the perception of the stereotypical drawing of manga developed by Tezuka Osamu in his mimesis of Walt Disney comics. Yet as David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu have argued in Transcultural Japan the West is preoccupied with conceptual dichotomies and dialectical oppositions and has therefore overlooked the transcultural and transnational elements in Japan that have created a contemporary society with fluid boundaries and innovative cultural formations. Thus, is Tatsumi’s gekiga genuinely similar to the American countercultural movement of the 1960s, where Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch and Art Spiegelman discarded the old funny page format and themes and started a new way of graphical representation, or does it manifest an entirely different cultural approach? What are the differences and similarities between the American underground comic movement and Japanese gekiga; considering that both eventuated in the early 1960s as part of a larger social transformation in society?
The paper also considers the contemporary significance of the recent transliteration of Tatsumi’s oeuvre in English by Canadian based Drawn & Quarterly. I will focus in particular on the intercultural and transcultural properties of Tatsumi’s recent work and how translations of his work, like Adrian Tomine’s A Drifting Life, conceptualise the gekiga or ‘dramatic pictures’ movement that launched the alternative comic scene in Japan in opposition to the prevalence of manga or ‘whimsical pictures.’ To what extent was the gekiga groups manifesto a product of intercultural/transcultural influence and how did its legacy effect the internationalisation of manga?
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Korean symbolism resides evocatively in the literary output as well as socio-political activism of Oda Makoto (小田実). Not only has the author/activist dedicated entire books to the study of Korea and its enigmatic relationship with Japan,... more
Korean symbolism resides evocatively in the literary output as well as socio-political activism of Oda Makoto (小田実). Not only has the author/activist dedicated entire books to the study of Korea and its enigmatic relationship with Japan, but a large corpus of his critical essays and fictional narratives features a surprising plethora of Korean characters and themes. It is fair to say that Korea forms an integral part of Oda’s novelistic discourse, vastly outpacing the confines of postwar Japanese literature. Oda’s role in engaging with Korea during a time of tension and strained relationships, his philosophical travelogues through Korea and his candid exploration and portrayal of the Korean psyche in dialogue with its Japanese “other” paved the way towards reconciliation during the particularly antagonistic climate of postwar suspicion and rising tension.
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Just as Jean-Paul Sartre once famously asked what literature can do for starving children, so Makoto Ichikawa, the director of Waseda bungaku, asks whether it is ‘just’ in a time of disaster to simply write and whether Japanese writers... more
Just as Jean-Paul Sartre once famously asked what literature can do for starving children, so Makoto Ichikawa, the director of Waseda bungaku, asks whether it is ‘just’ in a time of disaster to simply write and whether Japanese writers could possibly achieve anything by it? The literary response to the Fukushima earthquake has been somewhat subdued because of the magnitude of the event. If as Adorno has memorably suggested there can be no poetry after Auschwitz, can there be literature after Fukushima? This conundrum is contextualised by local writers such as Hideo Furukawa who have dared to write about the event despite the paradox that once you do, it immediately becomes fiction. This paper investigates the literary response to the Fukushima earthquake and the likelihood of social repercussions of a discourse on disaster. Close attention is paid to the views of established literati, the responses of Ōe Kenzaburō (History Repeats) and Haruki Murakami (An Unrealistic Dreamer) investigated along with the marginalised counter-hegemonic voices of grassroots collaborative approaches in popular social media. Both Ōe and Murakami situate the nuclear catastrophe that followed the earthquake within the post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear rhetoric of victimisation. Yet, while the unprecedented graphic representation of the disaster has been overwhelming in its variety, new forms of collaborative literature have filled the gap left by traditional forms unable to express the immediacy of victimisation.
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This book investigates the genealogy of the Yakeato (焼け跡) generation or those Japanese, who experienced the final stage of the war during their adolescent period. The book investigates generational issues of disenfranchised people... more
This book investigates the genealogy of the Yakeato (焼け跡) generation or those Japanese, who experienced the final stage of the war during their adolescent period. The book investigates generational issues of disenfranchised people emerging from the aftermath of the Asia–Pacific War along the lines of other minorities such as Koreans in Japan (migrants or forced labourers), Burakumin, Hibakusha, Okinawans, Asian minorities, comfort women and many others. Several of these groups have been discussed in a large corpus of what we may call ‘disenfranchised literature’, and the research presented in this book intends to add an additional and particularly controversial example to the long list of the voice- and powerless. The presence of members of what is known as the yakeato sedai (焼け跡世代) or the generation of people who experienced the fire-bombings of the Asia–Pacific War is conspicuous in all areas of contemporary Japan. From literature to the visual arts, from music to theater, from architecture to politics, their influence and in many cases guiding principles is evident everywhere and in many cases forms the keystone of modern Japanese society and culture.