First, identify a Japanese popular culture topic that interests you. It can be within a category covered in class (television, film, music, anime, manga, sports, fashion, or food) or another category of Japanese popular culture. Second, start thinking about how to respond to this prompt: In his lecture (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. posted on YouTube on 9 Nov. 2015, William Tsutsui says, “Now, seeing all these themes and the riotous profusion of popular culture they have enlivened, it’s hard not to wonder, ‘What forces in Japan, what forces in Japanese history, what forces in the contemporary Japanese experience have stimulated the broad diversity and sparked the imaginative energy of Japan’s pop universe?” (40:04 – 40:32). He offers three alternative interpretations of the global success of Japanese popular culture: Culture/tradition: Japanese popular culture is a continuation of and expansion of traditional practices and cultural forms of expression. Traumas from World War II: Japanese popular culture is an expression of the traumas of the Japanese experience of World War II (atomic bombing, defeat, and U.S. domination). Unresolved tensions: Contemporary Japanese society is so repressive, so uniquely intense, that popular culture expresses the anxieties generated by rapid industrialization and by modernization. Which of these alternative interpretations (or combination of interpretations) provides the best explanation for the success of your chosen phenomenon, and why?
2.Research Paper – Annotated Bibliography
The purpose of this assignment is to help prepare for your research paper, which itself is meant to help you achieve the following course learning goals:
By the end of this course students will be able to:
Locate and analyze aspects of Japanese popular culture within individual, social, historical, political, economic, and global contexts; Articulate a working definition of Japanese popular culture; Describe the cultural and social significance of Japanese popular culture in shaping the larger twentieth- and twenty-first
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