著者
木下 耕介 Kinoshita Kosuke
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
Juncture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.3, pp.140-153, 2012-03

In recent years, both in Hollywood cinema and Japanese cinema, we can find an interesting phenomenon in which a considerable number of narrative films has presented stories of two diegetic worlds intersecting with each other. For example, in Hollywood cinema, blockbuster franchises such as the Matrix series (1999-2003), Harry Potter series (1993-2010), and Avatar (2009) with no exception have constructed two diegetic worlds. Typically in these films, one is the world we occupy (our so-called "reality") and the other is usually a strange, fantastic world. In Japanese cinema, animation films such as Perfect Blue (1998) and Summer Wars (2009) also deal with this dual-diegesis narrative. Notably, this kind of dual-diegesis narrative is rather unusual, according to the norm of classical Hollywood cinema. For what reason have these films become popular both in United States and in Japan? This essay tries to answer this question, apprehending the dual-diegetic structure as a spatial metaphor for today's information society in which we have two lives: one dwelling in reality and the other in cyberspace. Cyberspace is a quite new concept for ordinary people, therefore we sometimes feel embarrassed, puzzled, or even uneasy and terrified in cyberspace. The dual-diegesis narratives we find onscreen are in a sense reflections of this sort of cultural experience we have. However, at the same time, from another point of view, dual-diegesis narratives can also be said to offer us a visual sketch, which I call a "folk mindscape," visually and spatially depicting a cognitive map of cyberspace with which we can comprehend our new cultural experience with a greater sense of security in our minds. Dual-diegesis narratives can also be understood as arguments or statements over the issue of embodiment/disembodiment. The pair of theoretical terms is now familiar in the discourse of posthumanism, the new theoretical trend which tries to question the definition of humanity, decentering the cultural position human beings have historically held and relocating it in a new context which includes concerns for state-of-the-art information technologies, animal rights and so on. In dual-diegesis narratives, the arguments over such theoretical issue take the shape of the protagonists' journey, in which he/she departs from (corpo-)reality and explores the virtuality, but finally comes back to reality, where he/she originally belongs. From the two standpoints mentioned above, this essay tries to interpret contemporary popular films as having something to do with our new cultural experience, which was brought on rather abruptly, when we were left unprepared, by the information technology revolution.
著者
水野 勝仁 Mizuno Masanori
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2, pp.92-104, 2011-03-01

This article examines what the "plane" in Masaki Fujihata's works is. Although Fujihata is known as one of the most famous media artists, the work Unformed Symbols is not that well known--just an animation work which Fujihata started his artistic career from. In making this, and other works--i.e. the "sculpture," Forbidden Fruits and interactive art works like Beyond Pages--however, he discovered, for himself, the possibility of computer graphics, and, as I explore in this paper, came to tackle the problem of the plane with, for perhaps the first rime, the computer. I consider three of Fujihata's works in order to consider chis handling of the plane as it exists in his works. First, I compare the plane in Forbidden Fruits with Leo Steinberg's the flatbed picture plane. This consideration makes clear that the plane is no longer the privileged role for the image in a collection of data. Secondly, I make a comparison between the interactive work Beyond Pages and the Graphical User Interface in order to show that the plane in the computer, through both artwork and utilitarian feature, becomes too thin to grasp with our hands. Thirdly, I ponder why the animation Unformed Symbols overlaps the image with the real, showing that there is no difference between the plane and the solid in this "thin" world. Accordingly, I conclude that Fujihata may have created a new plane itself by creating a "thinness" which causes a "switchover between dimensions" to that of the plane. Incidentally, the architect Junya Ishigami 's Table, which has a very thin tabletop, shows some similarities to Fujihata's "thin" plane. And furthermore, in his architectural critique, Taro Igarashi refers to the tabletop of Table as Superflat. Thus, I finally point out that Fujihata's "thin" plane shares a homology with Superflat, which, as proposed by the artist Takashi Murakami and developed into the discussion about information by the philosopher Hiroki Azuma, has come to be fundamental concept for modern Japanese art, and also suggest this "switchover between dimensions."
著者
栗田 秀法 Kurita Hidenori
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.4, pp.30-41, 2013-03-11

In the west, landscape representation began being developed in the 14th century and the genre of landscape painting was established in the 17th century. In Holland, realistic landscape painting was perfected. However, Nature was still praised as God's Creation and was studied as a second Bible. On the other hand, in Italy, ideal landscape painting was brought about by Annibale Carracci and refined by Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain. The tradition of noble and grand representations of nature was then passed down to the 19th century as historical landscape painting. It was during the Fronde (1648-53) that historical painter Poussin created landscape paintings prolifically. For Poussin, a neostoic, nature was not always a place of delight. The artist found analogies between humans, the natural world and the world of politics and depicted the storm as a trick of Fortune. In his storm landscapes, the people without wisdom were criticized as a bad examples. In the 17th century, even if it was painted realistically, nature was not always aesthetically appealing, but it was still deciphered in analogous relations.
著者
日比 嘉高 Hibi Yoshitaka
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
Juncture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.3, pp.32-46, 2012-03

In this paper, I examine how contemporary transnational writers in Japan bring about their appearance (H. Arendt) in the public sphere of literature. An illusion that links nation, national language and national literature still seems to be dominant in the public sphere where people discuss and maintain "Japanese Literature". I consider here how transnational writers and their works in contemporary Japan manifest themselves with foreign styles and provide alternative discourses. Contemporary transnational authors are not only participants in the politics of recognition (C. Taylor) themselves, but their narratives also join in the space of dispute with the power of literature. I consider the power of literature a power to bridge public spheres, intimate spheres and private spaces, and to partage (J. L. Nancy) cultural distribution and placement of recognition. Cultural translation provided by transnational writers and their works stands between these phases of bridging and partaging. In the case of transnational authors of contemporary Japan, contact between heterogeneous cultures not only thematizes encounters between different cultures but also forms motifs about the meeting and comingling of the Japanese language with other languages. This reveals that the representation of cultural translation is a critically important subject in the transnational literature of contemporary Japan. In this paper, I will discuss this concretely by analyzing the short novel by Shirin Nezamaffi, "Salam." "Salam" is the story of a female university student working part-time as an interpreter for an Afghani girl applying for refugee status in Japan. My reading of the novel will focus on the following two points: on the one hand, representing failures of translation reveals the difficulty of bringing over words from different cultural backdrops and experiences; on the other hand, it depicts the difficulty of transference to public spheres via narrative. By representing a translator who deepens her understanding of her native country, Iran, and its neighbor, Afghanistan, by encountering them in through interpretation, the novel opens the door for better recognition of each of the two nation's cultures in the public literary sphere of contemporary Japan.
著者
川合 大輔 Kawai Daisuke
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
Juncture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.3, pp.166-180, 2012-03

本研究は、京都大学人文科学研究所・共同研究B「第一次世界大戦の総合的研究」の共同研究員として行ったものであり、その研究成果の一部である。
著者
溝渕 久美子 Mizobuchi Kumiko
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
Juncture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
no.3, pp.114-124, 2012-03

In this article, I look into how the prizes for original stories and screenplays were established, and how the publicness of cinema was constructed under the Film Law of Japan. Since the enforcement of the Film Law in 1939, the Japanese film industry was controlled by the Japanese Government. There were not enough stories and screenplays in the film industry, because ready-made stories such as Soseki's works were difficult to fit into the requirements of wartime circumstances. So, film makers established an institute for writing and started to serialize articles titled "A Classroom for Screenplays" in a movie magazine to train writers. In addition, the Japanese government and film industry began various public offerings for original stories and screenplays in some newspapers and magazines. Unlike other jobs related to film making, writers did not need a license to work under the Film Law. This made it possible to assemble writers using public prizes. A representative example is the "Cinema and Theater Play of the Nation" prize, established in 1941. The winner "Hahakogusa (The Story of a Mother and Her Child)" written by Koito Nobu, an elementary schoolteacher, was adapted into a film by Tasaka Tomotaka and published in an anthology along with other prizewinners. People who wanted to apply need not be cultivated or rich, and their gender, job, class, education, age, or habitation did not matter. Anybody literate enough to read the application and to write stories or screenplays and agree with the purpose of the offering could apply. These prizes gave people a feeling of participation in making of national cinema for themselves. In other words, people were not only spectators who watched the films made by Japanese Government and film industry, but were also "film makers" of "National Cinema". "National Cinema" was not just films for the nation, it was also films by the nation.
著者
孫 軍悦 Sun Junyue
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.3, pp.182-194, 2012-03-06

This paper examines how the concept of the detective novel, introduced to China by Japan, changed under the unique historical circumstances in China following the Cultural Revolution, and what type of function this served in Chinese society with its new "economic reforms." Owing to the ambiguity in the meaning of the Chinese characters for the concept of "reason," detective novels became associated with logic and law. With their strong connections to the newly-founded field of research in forensic reasoning, detective novels were theorized anew as "science" and "law" literature, prompting the legalization of the detective story genre, which had previously been criticized as "typical bourgeois literature." Consequently, the publication of translated detective novels became a point of conflict between the forces promoting democracy and a constitutional government and those steeped in socialist ideology. A new literary genre of "legal literature" was born in the midst of this struggle, which still retains various functions in present Chinese society.
著者
陳 力衛 Chen Liwei
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.3, pp.78-98, 2012-03-06

In the nineteenth century, many Chinese translations of English terms, such as "bank, insurance, love, and medicine. "were adopted as Japanese translations of the same terms. It is well known that this process contributed to the establishment of modern Japanese. However, during the twentieth century, Japanese translations of English terms became more readily available, and the process reversed itself. Now English to Chinese dictionaries were using the Japanese translations as a reference. This resulted in the absorption of terms such as "philosophy, society, and communism" into the Chinese language. The sharing of translated terms resulted in the creation of many similar words within Chinese and Japanese, which benefitted communication between the two languages. This paper will take a look at how Chinese and Japanese exchanged vocabularies through the translation of English terms during four separate historical periods.
著者
溝渕 久美子 Mizobuchi Kumiko
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.3, pp.114-124, 2012-03-06

In this article, I look into how the prizes for original stories and screenplays were established, and how the publicness of cinema was constructed under the Film Law of Japan. Since the enforcement of the Film Law in 1939, the Japanese film industry was controlled by the Japanese Government. There were not enough stories and screenplays in the film industry, because ready-made stories such as Soseki's works were difficult to fit into the requirements of wartime circumstances. So, film makers established an institute for writing and started to serialize articles titled "A Classroom for Screenplays" in a movie magazine to train writers. In addition, the Japanese government and film industry began various public offerings for original stories and screenplays in some newspapers and magazines. Unlike other jobs related to film making, writers did not need a license to work under the Film Law. This made it possible to assemble writers using public prizes. A representative example is the "Cinema and Theater Play of the Nation" prize, established in 1941. The winner "Hahakogusa (The Story of a Mother and Her Child)" written by Koito Nobu, an elementary schoolteacher, was adapted into a film by Tasaka Tomotaka and published in an anthology along with other prizewinners. People who wanted to apply need not be cultivated or rich, and their gender, job, class, education, age, or habitation did not matter. Anybody literate enough to read the application and to write stories or screenplays and agree with the purpose of the offering could apply. These prizes gave people a feeling of participation in making of national cinema for themselves. In other words, people were not only spectators who watched the films made by Japanese Government and film industry, but were also "film makers" of "National Cinema". "National Cinema" was not just films for the nation, it was also films by the nation.
著者
水嶋 一憲 Mizushima Kazunori
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2, pp.24-35, 2011-03-01

This essay, focusing on the dynamic intersection between "affective turn" and the concept of "Empire," attempts to explore the important role that affect plays in today's "communicative capitalism." "The Affective turn" that the humanities and social sciences have undergone in recent decades expresses a new configuration of bodies, technology and matter. This turn also incorporates Spinozian definition of affect: an ability to affect and to be affected in a felt passage to a varied power of existence, pre-individual bodily capacities to act, engage, and connect. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's theory of "Empire" shares this Spinozian definition of affect. Further, according to Hardt&Negri, a passage from imperialism to Empire corresponds to a passage from "disciplinary societies" to "societies of control," and they define Empire as a global society of control which seems to operate through "Affective Imperial Apparatuses (AIAs)." The paradigmatic example of an AIA is the brand. Brands are machines for organizing, controlling, monitoring, and modulating flows of affect. So we can grasp brands as a kind of de-territorialized factory where the productive mass intellectuality and the new forms of appropriation enabled by contemporary communication media come together. Contemporary information and communication networks are essentially affective networks. Therefore, communication media seeks to capture and control their users' affects in intensive and extensive networks of enjoyment, production, and control. Jodi Dean terms this formation "communicative capitalism." In this formation of capitalism, politics is reduced to communication or circulation of drives which forms an endless loop. How can we constitute a politics that can overturn such a communicative capitalism and flee from capture and control by AIAs? I provisionally conclude with a focus on the productive possibilities provided by Deleuze and Hardt&Negri's concepts of event, singularity and common, as a platform to constitute an alternative politics of affect.
著者
川口 潤 Kawaguchi Jun
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.2, pp.54-65, 2011-03-01

Nostalgia is one of the common feelings people experience when they encounter information from their past. However, few psychological studies have been conducted on the phenomenon of nostalgia. In this article, I describe the history and definition of nostalgia, review psychological studies on nostalgia, and discuss the relationship between nostalgia and memory. Nostalgia was coined by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in the 17th century to refer to the psychological and physiological symptoms exhibited by Swiss mercenaries working in foreign countries. By the early 19th century, nostalgia came to be regarded as a form of melancholia or depression, and through the mid 20th century it came to be considered a psychodynamic disorder like "mentally repressive compulsive disorder." Throughout this period, nostalgia has been viewed simply as "homesickness." However, the recent concept of nostalgia has a sentimental feeling of longing for the past rather than a mental disease. Psychological studies on nostalgia have been recently launched, and they began by elucidating what the essence of nostalgic experience is, when people are nostalgic, and what the psychological significance of nostalgia is. Those studies showed chat a person recalls memories with himself/herself as protagonist during the feeling of nostalgia, and that nostalgia is triggered by negative feelings. Furthermore, nostalgia has the socio-psychological functions of bolstering social bonds, increasing self-regard, and generating positive affect. From the theoretical perspective of human memory, nostalgia is associated with the episodic memory system, which underlies remembering one's own past with a feeling of re-experience, "mental time travel" Mental time travel is a form of recall that allows people to re-experience, albeit in an attenuated form, situations previously encountered. Considering that episodic memory is thought to be a hallmark of a highly evolved memory system and uniquely human, nostalgia can also be regarded as human-specific and advantageous in the evolution of the human mind.
著者
木下 耕介 Kinoshita Kosuke
出版者
名古屋大学大学院文学研究科附属日本近現代文化研究センター
雑誌
JunCture : 超域的日本文化研究 (ISSN:18844766)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.3, pp.140-153, 2012-03-06

In recent years, both in Hollywood cinema and Japanese cinema, we can find an interesting phenomenon in which a considerable number of narrative films has presented stories of two diegetic worlds intersecting with each other. For example, in Hollywood cinema, blockbuster franchises such as the Matrix series (1999-2003), Harry Potter series (1993-2010), and Avatar (2009) with no exception have constructed two diegetic worlds. Typically in these films, one is the world we occupy (our so-called "reality") and the other is usually a strange, fantastic world. In Japanese cinema, animation films such as Perfect Blue (1998) and Summer Wars (2009) also deal with this dual-diegesis narrative. Notably, this kind of dual-diegesis narrative is rather unusual, according to the norm of classical Hollywood cinema. For what reason have these films become popular both in United States and in Japan? This essay tries to answer this question, apprehending the dual-diegetic structure as a spatial metaphor for today's information society in which we have two lives: one dwelling in reality and the other in cyberspace. Cyberspace is a quite new concept for ordinary people, therefore we sometimes feel embarrassed, puzzled, or even uneasy and terrified in cyberspace. The dual-diegesis narratives we find onscreen are in a sense reflections of this sort of cultural experience we have. However, at the same time, from another point of view, dual-diegesis narratives can also be said to offer us a visual sketch, which I call a "folk mindscape," visually and spatially depicting a cognitive map of cyberspace with which we can comprehend our new cultural experience with a greater sense of security in our minds. Dual-diegesis narratives can also be understood as arguments or statements over the issue of embodiment/disembodiment. The pair of theoretical terms is now familiar in the discourse of posthumanism, the new theoretical trend which tries to question the definition of humanity, decentering the cultural position human beings have historically held and relocating it in a new context which includes concerns for state-of-the-art information technologies, animal rights and so on. In dual-diegesis narratives, the arguments over such theoretical issue take the shape of the protagonists' journey, in which he/she departs from (corpo-)reality and explores the virtuality, but finally comes back to reality, where he/she originally belongs. From the two standpoints mentioned above, this essay tries to interpret contemporary popular films as having something to do with our new cultural experience, which was brought on rather abruptly, when we were left unprepared, by the information technology revolution.