Japan Speaker Series: Restaging Japanese History in Popular Culture
Japan Speaker Series: Restaging Japanese History in Popular Culture
Alternate histories restage events from a hypothetical premise or “point of diversion.” Two recent pop-culture phenomena rewrite critical moments in Japan’s history. The Place Promised in Our Early Days, Shinkai Makoto’s 2005 animated feature, asks: What if Japan had been divided up during the Cold War, with the US occupying the main island and “The Union” controlling Hokkaido? Princess Toyotomi, Makime Manabu’s 2009 novel (and 2011 film adaptation) asks: What if Osaka were an independent city-state under a secret agreement made during the Meiji Restoration? Each story explores its fictionalized national history from a vividly realized local place. A close look at these stories reveals alternate ways of understanding the dynamics of local and national spaces, identities, and sensibilities.
Michael Cronin is assistant professor of Japanese Studies at the College of William and Mary. He is currently completing a monograph on Osaka as imagined in literature and cinema of the trans-war period entitled Treasonous City.
Sponsored by the Japanese Program of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park