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Dartmouth College
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Course description
An examination of major trends in popular visual culture in Japan since the 1980s focused on the growth in production and distribution of animated films, tv series, and video games. Screenings will include works by Miyazaki Hayao, Rintaro, Takahata Isao, and Kon Satoshi. Readings will include both critical and historical sources that will provide the social and economic contexts for the development of the anime industry, theories of animation, and the global impact of Japanese popular culture.
[Source: ORC/Catalog, 01/08/2024]; Dist:ART; WCult:NW
In the Library's collections
There may be several subject headings you can use to find resources in the online catalog. The most direct subject heading is listed below. The call number range is also included.
This guide highlights resources in English. If you want to expand your research with items in Japanese, you can visit the East Asian collection on Baker Stack Level 2 & M.
- motion pictures japanCall number range PN 1993.5 .J3 on Baker Level 4.
- kon, satoshiThis is an author search in the online catalog. You can change the search to a subject one and find resources about the filmmaker.
- hayao, miyazakiThis is an author search in the online catalog. You can change the search to a subject one and find resources about the filmmaker.
Introductory reading(s)
Handbook of Japanese media and popular culture in transition by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9789048559268The Handbook of Japanese Media and Popular Culture in Transition brings together new research and perspectives on popular media phenomena, as well as shining a spotlight on texts that are less well known or studied. Organized into five thematic sections, the chapters span a diverse range of cultural genres, including contemporary film and television, postwar cinema, advertising, popular fiction, men's magazines, manga and anime, karaoke and digital media. They address issues critical to contemporary Japanese society: the politicization of history, authenticity and representation, constructions of identity, trauma and social disaffection, intersectionality and trans/nationalism. ...
Japanese cinema in the digital age by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780824835941Digital technology has transformed cinema's production, distribution, and consumption patterns and pushed contemporary cinema toward increasingly global markets. In the case of Japanese cinema, a once moribund industry has been revitalized as regional genres such as anime and Japanese horror now challenge Hollywood's preeminence in global cinema. In her rigorous investigations of J-horror, personal documentary, anime, and ethnic cinema, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano deliberates on the role of the transnational in bringing to the mainstream what were formerly marginal B-movie genres. ...
A new history of Japanese cinema: a century of narrative film by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780826417091Cinema, which first arrived in Japan in 1896 with the Kinetoscope prototype, came at the very time that Japan was transforming its economic base and society into that of a major international power. The first cinema, the Asakusa Denkikan, was opened in Tokyo in 1903 and within thirteen years three hundred cinemas had sprung up throughout the country. In A New History of Japanese Cinema: A Century of Narrative Film, Isolde Standish focuses on the historical development of Japanese film. She details an industry and an art form shaped by the competing and merging forces of traditional culture and of economic and technological innovation. ...
The Oxford handbook of Japanese cinema by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780199731664The reality of transnational innovation and dissemination of new technologies, including digital media, has yet to make a dent in the deep-seated culturalism that insists on reinscribing a divide between the West and Japan. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Cinema aims to counter this trend toward dichotomizing the West and Japan and to challenge the pervasive culturalism of today's film and media studies.
Routledge handbook of Japanese media by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781138917415The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media is a comprehensive study of the key contemporary issues and scholarly discussions around Japanese media. Covering a wide variety of forms and types from newspapers, television and film, to music, manga and social media, this book examines the role of the media in shaping Japanese society from the Meiji era's intense engagement with Western culture to our current period of rapid digital innovation. ...
Selected book title(s)
Cartoon cultures: the globalization of Japanese popular media by Call Number: Baker-Berry DS 822.5 .C695 2010ISBN: 9781433103674From 1993 to 2003, exports of Japan's cartoon arts tripled in value, to $12.5 billion. Fan phenomena around the world - in U.S. malls, teen girls flock to purchase the latest Fruits Basket graphic novel; in Hungary, young people gather for a summer cosplay (costume dress-up) event - illustrate the global popularity of manga and anime. Drawing on extensive research and more than 100 original interviews, Anne Cooper-Chen explains how and why the un-Disney has penetrated nearly every corner of the planet. ...
Feeling Asian modernities: transnational consumption of Japanese TV dramas by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9789622096318The recent transnational reach of Japanese television dramas in East and Southeast Asia is unprecedented, and not simply in terms of the range and scale of diffusion, but also of the intense sympathy many young Asians feel toward the characters in Japanese dramas, so that they cope with their own modern lives by emulating the lives on screen. Through the empirical analysis of how Japanese youth dramas are (re)produced, circulated, regulated, and consumed in East and Southeast Asia, each chapter in this volume variously explores the ways in which intra-Asian cultural flows highlight cultural resonance and asymmetry in the region under the decentering processes of globalization. ...
Reading Japan cool: patterns of manga literacy and discourse by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780739127544Japanese animation, video games, and manga have attracted fans around the world. The characters, the stories, and the sensibilities that come out of these cultural products are together called Japan Cool. This is not a sudden fad, but is rooted in manga--Japanese comics--which since the mid-1940s have developed in an exponential way. In spite of a gradual decline in readership, manga still commands over a third of the publishing output. ...
Other library resource(s)
Asian film online: volumes 1 & 2 by Call Number: Electronic resourceAsian Film Online offers a view of Asian culture as seen through the lens of the independent Asian filmmaker. Through a selection of over 1,000 narrative feature films, documentaries and shorts curated by film scholars and critics, the collection offers highly relevant perspectives and insights onto themes relevant across Asia, including modernity, globalization, female agency, social and political unrest, and cultural and sexual identity. ...
Japanese cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Japanese film became a major area of English-language film study in the 1960s, after the publication of Anderson and Richie’s groundbreaking work, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, in 1959.
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
Articles and other writings about Japanese popular culture can be found in many publications. Our collection does include one journal title which looks exclusively at popular culture in Japan. You can also use Film & Television Literature Index, CMMC or a more multidisciplinary database such as Academic Search Complete to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
Mechademia (Online) by Call Number: Electronic journalMechademia’s subject area extends from manga and anime to game design, fashion, graphics, packaging, and toy industries, as well as a broad range of fan practices related to popular culture in Japan.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceCovers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television.
Academic search complete by Call Number: Electronic resourceA scholarly, interdisciplinary article index and a good starting place for article searching on any subject.
Communication & mass media complete (CMMC) by Call Number: Online resourceThis is the main article index for the field of Communications.
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Internet resource(s)
- Kinema ClubKinema Club is devoted to the study of Japanese moving image media, and is produced through the collaboration of many scholars around the world.
- Midnight EyeMidnight Eye was a major source of information on Japanese cinema in English. It stopped adding new content in 2015, but it still available for reading.
Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References
Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.