Gender and Nation in Meiji Japan is a historical analysis of the discourses of nostalgia in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. Through an analysis of the experience of rapid social change in Japan's modernization, it argues that fads (ryūkō) and the desires they express are central to understanding Japanese modernity, conceptions of gender, and discourses of nationalism. In doing so, the author uncovers the myth of eternal return that lurks below the surface of Japanese history as an expression of the desire to find meaning amid the chaos and alienation of modern times. The Meiji period (1868-1912) was one of rapid change that hastened the process of forgetting: The state's aggressive program of modernization required the repression of history and memory. However, repression merely produced new forms of desire seeking a return to the past, with the result that competing or alternative conceptions of the nation haunted the history of modern Japan. Rooted in the belief that the nation was a natural and organic entity that predated the rational, modern state, such conceptions often were responses to modernity that envisioned the nation in opposition to the modern state. What these visions of the nation shared was the ironic desire to overcome the modern condition by seeking the timeless past. While the condition of their repression was often linked to the modernizing policies of the Meiji state, the means for imagining the nation in opposition to the state required the construction of new symbols that claimed the authority of history and appealed to a rearticulated tradition. Through the idiom of gender and nation, new reified representations of continuity, timelessness, and history were fashioned to compensate for the unmooring of inherited practices from the shared locales of everyday life.This book examines the intellectual, social, and cultural factors that contributed to the rapid spread of Western tastes and styles, along with the backlash against Westernization that was expressed as a longing for the past. By focusing on the expressions of these desires in popular culture and media texts, it reveals how the conflation of mother, countryside, everyday life, and history structured representations to naturalize ideologies of gender and nationalism.

Gender and Nation in Meiji Japan: Modernity, Loss, and the Doing of History

History

Karlin, Jason G.

Asia

University of Hawaii Press

AKB48 (33 1/3 Japan)

Since its formation as a girl group in 2005, AKB48 has become a phenomenal success and institution in Japan. Having originally recruited fans with photocopied fliers and daily performances in the Akihabara area of Tokyo, AKB48 now saturates Japan. Its members--nearly 800 of them, including five sister groups and four so-called "rival groups" across Japan, as well as six sister groups in other Asian cities--appear in print, broadcast, online, and social media; in advertisements and on products; at home and on the train; on- and off-screen. AKB48's multi-platform omnipresence is characteristic of "idols," whose intimate relationship to fans and appeals to them for support have made the group dominant on the Oricon Yearly Singles Chart in the 2010s; they hold several records, including most consecutive million-selling singles sold in Japan. A unique business model relentlessly monetizes fans' affections through meet-and-greet events and elections, which maximize CD sales, and their saturated presence in the media. At a time when affect is more important than ever in economic, political, and social theory, this book explores the intersection of idols and affect in contemporary Japan and beyond.

Arts & Photography

Galbraith, Patrick W.

Music

Bloomsbury Academic

Since its formation in 2005, the 130-member, Tokyo-based girl group AKB48 has become a phenomenal success and institution in Japan. Having originally recruited fans through so-called “guerrilla live shows” advertised by photocopied fliers handed out on the street, before graduating to daily performances in a theater in Akihabara, AKB48 now saturates Japan. Its members appear in print, broadcast, online and social media; in advertisements and on products; at home and on the train; on- and off-screen.Such multi-platform omnipresence is characteristic of the “idol,” a heavily produced and promoted performer who is in intimate relation to fans and appeals to them for support. And AKB48's appeals have astonishing results. From 2010 to 2016, the group's singles have occupied the top four or five spots of the Oricon Yearly Singles Chart, and almost all sold over a million copies. They hold the record for most singles sold by a female artist, highest Japanese sales of a single by a female artist, most consecutive million-selling singles sold in Japan, most million-selling singles in Japan and more. At a time when affect is more important than ever in economic, political and social theory, this book is an introduction to idols and the economics of affect in contemporary Japan.

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Books by Karlin, Jason G.