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Workshop on Popular Culture, Cultural Policy, and Cultural Discourse in East and Southeast Asia, June 1-2, 2009, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem The workshop on Popular Culture, Cultural Policy, and Cultural Discourse in East and Southeast Asia, will be held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The purpose of this workshop is to conduct a comparative and multi-sited study of the emergence of the popular cultural industries of East and Southeast Asia, examine the corresponding cultural policies initiated by the various states in the region, and construct an empirically-plausible framework to examine related issues. The workshop will particularly focus on the cases of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean poplar cultures: their emergence, expansion to other markets in the region, and the discourse they create. Panel 1: Popular Culture, Regionalization, and the State 1. Amitav Acharya, American University, "Culture, Regionalism and Southeast Asian Identity" 2. Galia Press-Barnathan, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Does Popular Culture Matter to International Relations Scholars? Possible Links and Methodological Challenges" 3. Nissim Otmazgin, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "A Tail that Wags the Dog: Cultural Industry and Cultural Policy in East Asia" Commentator: Arie Kacowicz, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Panel 2: Cultural Flows and Soft Power 1. Chua Beng Huat, National University of Singapore "Delusional Desire: Soft Power and TV Dramas" 2. Jean Marie Bouissou, Science-Po "From Niche Market to Hypermarkets: The Birth, Growth and Maturation of the French Manga Market" 3. Eldad J. Pardo, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "The Comeback of Iran's Z $B{ (Brkh $Bb (Bneh: Ancient Heroes in the Global Age" Commentator: Eyal Ben Ari, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Panel 3: Cultural Policy in the Making 1. Kozuka Souichirou, Sophia University "Copyright Law as a Tool of New Industrial Policy?: Japan's Unsuccessful Attempt to Promote its Contents Industry" 2. Kukhee Choo, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies "Cool Japan Nation: Japanese Governmental Policy towards the Anime Industry" 3. Jung-Yup Lee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst "Managing the Transnational, Governing the National: Cultural Policy and the Politics of "Cultural Archetype Project in South Korea" Commentator: Ehud Harari, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Panel 4: Cultural Industry and Cultural Discourse 1. Miki Daliot-Bul, Haifa University "The New 'Japan Brand': Cool Japan as Zeitgeist" 2. Pang Laikwan, the Chinese University of Hong Kong "Censorship against Ghosts: China's Cultural Policy Historicized" 3. Kwai Cheung Lo, Hong Kong Baptist University "Historical Tensions in East Asian Popular Culture and the Roles of the State" Commentator: Chua Beng Huat, National University of Singapore Panel 5: Cultural Production and Social Change 1. Marwyn S. Samuels, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "The Media Industry, Popular Culture and Social Change in Contemporary China" 2. Shin Hyunjoon, Sungkonghoe University "Trans/National Cultural Industries as an Agency of Regionalization? The Case of South Korea" 3. Cherian George, Nanyang Technological University "Silence and Protest in Singapore's Censorship Debates" Commentator: Nir Avieli, Ben-Gurion University Panel 6: A Comparative Perspective: Popular Culture in the Middle East 1. Wael Abu-Uksa, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "State and New Media in the Middle East: An Overview" 2. Sariel Birnbaum, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Historical Audio-Visual Dramas: From Egyptian Dominance to a Pan-Arab Satellite Discourse" 3. Tal Shenhav, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Broadcasting the Future Generation: Gender Messages for Women and Youth in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia" Panel 7: Concluding Comments and Open Discussion Peter J. Katzenstein, Cornell University Eyal Ben Ari, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem For further information and registration please contact Dr. Nissim Otmazgin at nissimot@mscc.huji.ac.il

A recent comment by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao decrying the lack of Chinese anime has incited a flurry of online support, with Chinese net users vigorously denouncing Japanese anime. The Premier started the fracas by publically lamenting the current poverty of Chinese visual culture: “There are times when I watch TV anime with my grandchild, but they’re always foreign works like Ultraman and so on, and few are domestically produced. We should be cultivating a domestic anime industry.”

Anime physics can be considered a subset of cartoon physics.

important distinction to make is that while the rules of Western cartoon physics are used as a source of comedy, several of the following are used in perfectly serious situations with the intent of conveying genuine drama or action.

many of these laws only apply to the shōnen genre.

Cultural commentators such as Keiichi Kashiwabara, a professor of philosophy at The Open University of Japan, blame the growth of otaku culture for the widening chasm between youth and mainstream society.

Sunday's attack has prompted politicians and health care professionals to lament again the country's high rate of depression and anxiety, especially among stressed school children.

Experts warn separately that the virtual world inhabited by Japanese youth has caused many to become too comfortable with the idea of seeing dead characters return to life. As Ukyo Murakami, a 14-year-old boy, told the AFP wire service yesterday: "I'm afraid [Kato] did this because he played video games. But he should have known that, in life, you can't hit the restart button."

“the ‘no no stop–’ and the ‘you’re going to have to anyway’ dynamic is so normal in BL that I no longer looked at it as rape…” Tiamat goes on to talk about how awful this is. And one level, being taught to think of forced sex as “not rape” is problematic, true. Yet I can see the other side, as well, that it’s a frequent convention of the genre, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying rape scenarios as part of sexual fantasies. So I can’t agree with Tiamat’s statement that Anything that glamorises rape or sexual assault shouldn’t have a place on the shelves.

So? If it’s part of the formula, and this is clearly fiction with only tangential connection to realism, should any reference to rape be banned? One of the commenters mentions how rape fantasies are common among the young female readers the genre is aimed at. I think there’s a very good reason for that: women are taught that girls who want and enjoy sex are dirty or impure. So a rape fantasy makes enjoyable sex not their fault — they couldn’t prevent it, they were forced into it, and so the element of guilt is removed.

However, this is not the take that most comparisons of the verbals and visual forms take. Rather, they often try to make direct superficial analogies between specific types of structures. For example, "such and such" is the equivalent of a "word" or "sentence." This is often why many want to claim that single images have "grammar" — because a single image has lots of information in it, like a "sentence" and unlike a "word" — even though composition within single images behaves nothing like a grammar. (...nor should we expect it to given the differences between sound and light!)A similar endeavor has tried to find "minimal units" of the structure of the forms, following the school of Structuralism (most popular in American linguistics from around 1920-1960ish). However, again, just knowing minimal units doesn't tell you about the broader structure, and units larger than minimal units might also be useful and insightful. It also gives no beneficial comparison other than that "minimal units" exist in both domains.All of this is an argument for looking beyond the superficial understandings of "language" and to look for comparisons in deeper, more fundamental aspects of structuring.

Twenty-five years after the idea of otaku began poking through like a sly worm from the apple of Japanese materialism, there are geek-culture wormholes everywhere.

Otaku is not what they do, it's the way they do it; an attitude and style associated with compulsive acquisition of popular culture objects and experiences and saturated in IT, especially interactive technology, a field in which otaku are increasingly influential.

Still, some popular journalism in Japan persists in casting otaku as a slur on society. Some sociologists still warn they are a hazard to themselves. Some foreign commentators keep using them to witter on about existential isolation in contemporary Japan.

The real subtext of Hoffman’s comment seems to be authenticity — OEL manga fails because it isn’t created and published in Japan. Yet authenticity is a more elusive concept than most of us are willing to admit. Most of us call something “authentic” when we think it exemplifies cultural traits that are inaccessible to outsiders.