Venue: Temple University Japan Campus Mita Hall 5F

Admission: General 1,000yen (includes reception)
Student w/ID 500yen
TUJ student w/ID Free

Overview of Conference

“Politics of Popular Culture” will focus on developments in digital media and youth subcultures and explore how these are being employed for political means and driving social trends in Japanese popular culture.

This two-part conference, hosted by the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan Campus, will be held on June 5 and June 26, and will include a diverse array of academic panels comprised of leading scholars of Japanese popular culture.

The opening session on June 5 will examine how popular culture is informing emerging alternative cultures and practices, and shaping notions of Japanese national identity and foreign policy, as the “soft power” appeal of the popular becomes politicized. The keynote speaker will be Frederik Schodt, author of “Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics,” and “Dreamland Japan: Writing on Modern Manga.”

“Gendered Labor in Popular Culture,” on June 26, will address how constructions of gender identity are developing institutional presence as forms of “affective labor” (in areas such as enjo kosai, hostesses, hosts, maid-cafes) which represent evolving notions of gender and sexuality in Japan. The keynote address will be given by Anne Allison, Professor of Anthropology at Duke University, and author of “Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club" and “Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan.”

Part 2 "Gendered Labor in Popular Culture" (June 26th)

9:30 a.m.Registration

10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.Panel 1 - "Shifting Boundaries of Gender and Popular Culture"

[Panelists:]
Gabriella Lukacs ( University of Pittsburgh)
Cell Phone Novelists as New Labor Subjectivities in Post-Recessionary Japan”

Aya Kitamura (Meiji Gakuin University)
"Marketing the Marriage Market: Effects and Affects of the 'Konkatsu Boom'"

Hiroki Ichinose (Digital Hollywood)
“Trained to do the Mothering: Implicit Genderization of the Managerial Coaching Training”

Satsuki Takahashi (Rutgers University)
“Mamma-ization: Changing Nature and Women’s Labor in a Fishing Village”

[Discussant]
Sharon Kinsella, (University of Manchester)

12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.Lunch

1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.Keynote Lecture
Anne Allison, (Duke University): "What Difference Does Gender (Still) Make?"

2:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.Break

2:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.Panel 2 - "Service Labor, Gender and Affect"

[Panelists]
David H. Slater (Sophia University)
“Enjo Kosai and the Ambiguities of Entrepreneurial Labor”

Haeng-ja Chung, (Hamilton College)
"Making Hostess Skills Visible: Affective Labor at the High-End Clubs in Japan"

Nana Okura Gagne (Yale Universitiy /Waseda University)
“Inalienated Exchange Through Care and Affect: Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity through Gendered Service in Tokyo Hostess Clubs”

Akiko Takeyama (University of Kansas)
“Affect Economy of the 'Geisha Guys': Labor, Commodity, and Subjectivity in Tokyo Host Clubs”

Patrick Galbraith (University of Tokyo)
“Maid cafes and the Structure of Intimacy in Neoliberal Japan”

[Discussant]
Anne Allison, (Duke University)

5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.Reception