Panel 16: Roundtable: Japanese Pop Culture and the Useable (?) Past

Chair: Hiromi Mizuno, University of Minnesota

Presenters

Charo D’Etcheverry, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Hiromi Mizuno, University of Minnesota

Laura Miller, University of Missouri–St. Louis

Susan Westhafer Furukawa, Beloit College

Ethan Segal, Michigan State University

This roundtable discusses two interwoven topics: how contemporary Japanese popular culture (JPC) utilizes historical figures and icons; and how global fans of JPC repurpose this recycled material for their own reasons, including to get students to come to class! Ranging from the enigmatic Yamatai queen Himiko and later court cultures to the worlds of the samurai and Imperial Navy, historical figures and icons saturate Japanese films, TV shows, and novels and fascinate Western audiences and media outlets alike. Our interdisciplinary roundtable brings together scholars of premodern and modern Japan working in literature, anthropology, and history to explore a range of intellectual and pedagogical questions, including:

How can we analyze retellings of myth and history and their role(s) in both global media and the cultural and national identity-making of Japan?

Where can premodernists and modernists collaborate to make Japan’s past and present relevant and productive for American students?

What is gained and lost when commercial forces within and beyond Japan use “the past” (and is it even possible NOT to do that)?

By discussing these questions, this Roundtable hopes to explore the often blurry boundaries between our pedagogical practices and personal fandoms and consider the commercial interests present within the university itself.

Here is the lineup of presenters and a glimpse of their topics, which we hope will also attract new ideas and examples from the audience:

Laura Miller on Himiko in contemporary Japanese commerce. Susan Westhafer Furukawa on the Sengoku period and contemporary women writers. Ethan Segal on the representation and reception of Shogun. Charo D’Etcheverry on old gods in globe-trotting franchises like Kakuriyo. Hiromi Mizuno on the changing usage of the Battleship Yamato in the postwar.