1. Introduction (Kei Hibino, Barnaby Ralph and Henry Johnson).- PART I. Reception.- 2. Western Art Music in Pre-Edo and Meiji Japan: Historical Reception, Cultural Change and Education (Ayako Otomo).- 3. Western Musical Elements in Japanese Koto Music from the 19th to 21st Centuries: Sonic, Visual and Behavioral Spheres in a Context of Cultural Change (Henry Johnson).- 4. Guitar Making and Intercultural Communication in Japan and Australia (Gavin Carfoot).- PART II. Transformation.- 5. Black Intentions: Maki Ishii, Ryohei Hirose, Makoto Shinohara and the Japanese Avant-Garde (Barnaby Ralph).- 6. Scarlett, an American Musical Made in Japan; or, How Japanese Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Integrated Musicals (Kei Hibino).- 7. Like Some Cat from Japan: Masayoshi Sukita’s Photographs of David Bowie as Japan’s First Appearance in the History of Rock Music (Yuki Gennaka).- PART III. Cultural Flow.- 8. The Flow of Jazz in Japan: Why Jazz Resonates So Far from Home (Michael Pronko).- 9. Juna's Groove and Emi's Beat: Women and Rock in Modern Japan (Barnaby Ralph in conversation with Emi Yonekubo and Juna Serita).- 10. Manufacturing Identity: Femininity, Discourse and Representation in Japanese Popular Music (Aya Sato and Ayako Otomo).
Kei Hibino is Professor of English in the Faculty of Humanities, Seikei University, Japan. His published works include: The Postwar Development of Japanese Musicals (2017), American Labor: The Cultural Representations of Labor in the United States (2017), and Japonisme in Theatre (2016).
Barnaby Ralph is a Professor in the Department of British and American Literature, Seikei University, Japan. Recent publications include the book London And Literature, 1603-1901, for which he was principal editor, “Four Men in a Boat: Dryden, D'Avenant, Shadwell, Locke and The Tempest”.
Henry Johnson is Professor of Music at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His books include The Koto (Hotei, 2004), The Shamisen (2010) and The Shakuhachi (2014). He is Associate Director of the Centre for Global Migrations at the University of Otago.
“This innovative volume [...] brings together highly diverse genres, texts, and issues, including music education, gender, and traditional, classical, and popular genres. The chapters speak to each other through the unifying concept of affective media, and successfully provide a rich palette of a wide variety of the vibrant and multifaceted state of music in Japan today.”
- Professor Alison Tokita, Monash University, Australia
This volume explores the notion of “affective media” within and across different arts in Japan, with a primary focus on music, whether as standalone product or connected to other genres such as theatre and photography. The volume explores the Japanese reception of this “affective media”, its transformation and subsequent cultural flow. Moving from a discussion of early encounters with the West through Jesuits and others, the contributors primarily consider the role of music in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. With ten original chapters, the volume covers a wealth of themes, from education, koto music, guitar making, avant-garde recorder works, musicals and rock photography, to interviews with contemporary performers in jazz, modern rock and J-pop. Innovative and fascinating, the book provides rich new insights and material to all those interested in Japanese musical culture.