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Ariane Beldi

Visualizing Asia Conference - Home - 0 views

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    About the Conference The Visualizing Cultures project and the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University are pleased to announce an academic conference focused on the relationship between visual imagery and social change in modern Asia entitled, "Visualizing Global Asia at the Turn of the 20th Century." This will be one of the first academic conferences devoted to "image-driven scholarship" and teaching about Asia in the modern world. We have selected scholars of history, art history, history of photography, and history of technology specializing in China, Korea, Japan, United States, Europe and the Philippines to discuss how to integrate visual and textual media in research and teaching, using to the fullest the opportunities presented by the new technologies and the use of the internet as a publishing platform.
Nele Noppe

Call for papers: The Blackwell Companion to the Historical Film - 0 views

  •   Call for Contributions         The Blackwell Companion to the Historical Film   Editors: Robert A Rosenstone, California Institute of Technology      Constantin Parvulescu, Washington University in St Louis The editors invite contributions to The Blackwell Companion to Historical Film, a volume of 25 to 30 essays devoted to the latest scholarship on the origins, contributions, history, range, codes, strategies, poetics, politics, tropes, production, packaging, and cultural impact of this important genre, the dramatic historical feature film. The Companion will be a major work which will survey the field as it exists today and also be suitable as a textbook for history-on-film and film-studies classes. The collection focuses only on feature films, and will include essays by both leading and emerging scholars in the fields of history, cinema studies, cultural studies, and other fields that have something to offer this inherently interdisciplinary topic.  Scholars such as Robert Burgoyne, Marcia Landy, and Catherine Portugues, Paula Rabinowitz, Alison Landsberg, Denise Youngblood, and Guy Westwell have already committed themselves to essays for the volume. We are currently seeking essays on particular topics, but scholars interested in contributing to the collection need not limit themselves to these themes but should feel free to suggest anything related to the genre of the historical film: •       American history (especially 18 and 19th centuries) on film •       African-American and American-Indian history on film •       Exile and diaspora historical films •       Cinematic adaptations of historical novels •       Minor histories and minor heroes on film •       The historical film and the national mythology (outside Europe) •       History on film and history on other media, including animation •       Production and marketing of historical films Those who wish to contribute should send a working title, a brief description of the proposed essay and a short bio to both editors: rr@hss.caltech.edu and ctparvulescu@gmail.com. Essays are to be between 8,000 and 10,000 words long; they will be due on March 1, 2011. Abstracts submission deadline: May 1, 2010. 
Nele Noppe

Warrior games lead charge into history - 0 views

  • History buffs at school are typically viewed as nerds. But the video games may have helped change that image, Miyamoto said. Asked why the women become so passionate about history, she said many of them see the warriors as ideal males. "For us history lovers, we yearn for historical characters — whether he is an ideal type of man or someone to look up to for his way of life." And thanks to the warrior boom, even the losers in historical struggles, those who tend to be overshadowed in history texts by the victors, are receiving their due. The most popular warrior-related merchandise in 2008 belonged to Sanada Yukimura, the loser against Tokugawa.
Nele Noppe

Afuganisu-tan manga - 0 views

  • Afghanis-tan illustrates the modern history of Afghanistan and its neighboring countries, starting from the imperialist era in the 19th century, through moe anthropomorphism.
  • Each yonkoma strip is accompanied by an "Afghan Memo" that explains in prose some of the background and history of the nations depicted. Additional pages give short biographies of the characters.
  • The fact that it is a moe manga depicting international conflict, and the fact that it personifies countries have drawn a little criticism. However, it has also drawn attention for its attempt to blend an appropriate depiction of the history and background of each country with the personality of its characters.
Nele Noppe

Comic Market: How the World's Biggest Amateur Comic Fair Shaped Japanese Dōji... - 0 views

  • the world's largest regular gathering of comic fans today is Tokyo's biannual Comic Market
  • dōjinshi phenomenon did not start with Comic Market, Comike and dōjinshi are inextricably linked, having shaped each other's history for three decades.
  • Comike convention has shaped the most important trends defining the development of dōjinshi in Japan today
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • In 1975, a woman who had made critical remarks about the Manga Taikai was excluded from that convention, and [End Page 234] subsequently a firestorm of anger among fans produced a movement against the Manga Taikai led by the famous circle Meikyū (Labyrinth), which resulted in the conception of a new alternative convention. On December 21, 1975, the first Comic Market—"a fan event from fans for fans"—was held in Tokyo.6
  • [End Page 232]
  • [End Page 233]
  • Comike's underlying vision was of an open and unrestricted dōjinshi fair, offering a marketplace without limitations on content or access.
  • With the advent of these fan-consumers (as opposed to fan-creators), dōjinshi became demand-driven publications. Greater competition gradually fostered rising standards of quality, which in turn attracted more circles and buyers. Higher sales shrank production costs and boosted profits, which could then be reinvested in the dōjinshi themselves. Small printing companies, many of which had begun in the minikomi (microcommunication) boom of the early 1970s, were able to use the profits derived from greater demand for their services to modernize their equipment, lowering production costs further and enabling them to construct their production schedules around each Comike.8 Additionally, lower printing costs freed smaller groups from the dependence on bigger groups, which often had strict rules on content and style to avoid conflict among their many members. Having lost their raison d'être, these big clubs and circles gradually faded away, leaving dōjinshi creators to produce stories they liked, in the manner they liked.9
  • [End Page 235]
  • aniparo parodied popular anime series, and in doing so, attracted a new type of fan to Comike, beyond its core group of 2000 or so attendees. These were female fans, mostly middle and high school students strongly influenced by the 1970s florescence of shōjo manga. They began to create and consume dōjinshi in which the (bishōnen or "pretty boy") male protagonists of popular anime and manga were transposed into a very particular sort of erotic story typified by the phrase: "without tension" (yama nashi), "without punchline" (ochi nashi), and "without meaning" (imi nashi)—and hence the contemporary genre title, yaoi.10
  • The eleventh Comic Market in spring 1979 saw the popularity of the cute and pure bishōjo or "pretty girl" (strongly influenced by 1970s shōjo manga) skyrocket among men's dōjinshi circles, attracting many new male participants.
  • The Comic Market was dominated by women from the beginning (90 percent of its first participants were female), but in 1981, thanks to lolicon, male participants numbered the same as female participants for the first time in Comike's history.13
  • [End Page 236]
  • Internal conflicts on the Comike planning committee underlay some of these developments: they marked the ascendancy of the faction led by Yonezawa Yoshihiro, who favored Comike's unlimited expansion.15 Though he was criticized for purportedly selling dōjinshi out to commercialism, Yonezawa couched his plans for Comike in terms of a collective organization of the convention by all participants, including staff, circles, and visitors.16 Whatever the underlying reality, these public principles remain little changed today.17
  • Faced with this loss of identity, talent, and space, every other large fan convention except Comike dissolved. Yaoi Boom But in the middle of the decade, one manga and its anime not only saved dōjinshi fandom from near extinction but was responsible for its biggest boom yet. Takahashi Yōichi's Captain Tsubasa (1981–88, Kyaputen tsubasa),
  • [End Page 237]
  • New dōjinshi conventions appeared, and manga shops began selling dōjinshi on commission. Comparatively lush, custom-made, oversized dōjinshi with more than one hundred pages became common, and popular circles could now live on their fanworks' profits
  • professional creators like Toriyama Akira of Dragonball fame participating,
  • [End Page 238]
  • Despite the self-censorship brought on by the mass media's criticism, Comike nevertheless continued to thrive. Young men tired of new, tighter restrictions on professional manga turned to Comike, and attendance once again swelled to 230,000 in the summer of 1990.23 Hardcore lolicon was now passé, and erotic dōjinshi for men had greatly changed. New genres were introduced with such aspects as fetishism and a new style of softcore eroticism enjoyed by men and women alike; in particular, yuri (lily), or lesbian stories, emerged.24Dōjinshi also became smaller and shorter due to professional publishers recruiting talented dōjinshi creators en masse: the bulk of dōjinshi were the works of the less talented creators left behind.25
  • Other factors contributing to the increased interest in dōjinshi and in fanworks were the development of fixed otaku landmarks and the spread of computers. Almost everyone could now afford to make digital dōjinshi as well as audiovisual or even interactive dōjinshi (i.e. dōjin music and dōjin games).
  • The personal technology revolution meant [End Page 239] simplification of fanworks' production processes as well as completely new possibilities for communication and new digital genres. With the growth of dōjinshi in other media, the term "dōjin products" (dōjin seihin) has gradually come into use to describe fanworks of all genres.
  • Further, the conversion of Tokyo's Akihabara "Electric Town" into a district full of shops selling otaku-related goods, as well as the nationwide expansion of otaku-goods retailers and the establishment of Internet communities and message boards in the late 1990s, enabled otaku to live out their interests and to communicate nonstop with like-minded people everywhere. Their interests and culture were easily shared, and consequently information on Comic Market and dōjin culture spread around the world.
  • The rise of the Internet also meant that Comike lost its monopoly as the center of otaku and dōjinshi culture. Nevertheless, Comike remained the most important event for Japanese fans, especially after companies with otaku-related products started to exploit it.28 Firms had been interested in Comic Market for decades as a never-ending pool of promising new talent and as a place to exploit them commercially, and they were willing to pay much money for direct access to these masses of otaku.29 Starting with NEC in the summer of 1995, companies were granted exhibition space to market or to sell their newest products. This was the birth of the dealer booth at Comike, and, as with dōjinshi circles, the number of applicant companies was much higher than that of available spaces: a self-sustaining event with such high attendance was too important for any related company to ignore.30 Companies accepted the existence of unlicensed parody dōjinshi using copyrighted material (albeit in a transformative and thus arguably fair-use manner) since they could now sell exclusive goods at Comike (Figure 3) or use it as a marketing place, attracting to the convention people who were not interested in dōjinshi.
  • In the summer of 2004, 5 percent of all circles participating in Comike were headed by a professional mangaka or illustrator, while another 10 percent had some professional experience.
  • Despite its relative newness, Higurashi became one of Japan's biggest media phenomena, and at the seventy-sixth Comic Market in summer 2009, Tōhō Project became the first dōjin title ever to receive the honor of being considered its own genre.
  • [End Page 243]
  • It seems that dōjinshi circles are not switching entirely to the Internet but rather are using it as an informational and marketing platform for themselves and their creations, spreading the knowledge of and fascination with Comic Market to new spheres.
  • With high attendance, positive media attention, and industry support, Comike's position seems invulnerable. Even the deaths of important figures such as Iwata Tsuguo in 2004 and Yonezawa Yoshihiro—who was the face of Comike for decades—in 2006 did not harm its position. But unresolved problems, such as the use of copyrighted material in parody dōjinshi and the child pornography questions inherent in lolicon and shotakon, remain.
  • Comike was neither the first nor the biggest dōjinshi fair when it was established; its main purpose was to provide the freest market possible, and that freedom has come at a price. The dream of a Comic Market open to every one and everything was never realized, as there were too many physical, financial, and legal restrictions. Even today, the Comic Market suffers from a lack of space, a lack of money, and a lack of legal security. Only two-thirds of applicant circles can participate due to constraints, since, as a small independent operator Comike's financial resources are limited and most of the work is done by volunteers.
  • s the center of attention, with its size and its links to the industry, it is undeniable that Comike possesses the power and the means to influence social, market, and even political developments. In [End Page 244]
  • recent years it has not been reluctant to use this power. Whether through conferences on copyright issues or on the establishment of a "National dōjinshi fair liaison group" (Zenkoku dōjinshi sokubaikai renrakukai) in 2000, it has taken on the responsibility of representing and of regulating Japanese dōjinshi culture.
Nele Noppe

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR/ FACULTY FELLOW IN JAPAN STUDIES - 0 views

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    The Department of East Asian Studies at New York University invites applications for a full-time, non-tenure track appointment as an Assistant Professor/ Faculty Fellow in modern Japan studies.  The appointment will be for one year beginning September 1, 2011, pending budgetary and administrative approval. Candidates must have received a Ph.D. within five years of the date of appointment and have a strong commitment to teaching.  Fields of expertise sought include literature, new media studies, and Japanese intellectual history, but we encourage all applicants engaged with critical and methodological issues connected to Japan and East Asian Studies. Applications must include a letter of application, curriculum vitae, a 20-30 page writing sample, sample syllabi for both undergraduate and graduate courses, and 3 letters of recommendation. The deadline is January 4, 2011, but we will continue to accept applications until the position is filled.
Ariane Beldi

Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan , Inc - 0 views

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    The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan has released the statistics for this year's revenues from movie screening. It is interesting to notice that since 2005, Japanese Box Office productions are doing better than movies imported from Hollywood.
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    The official website of the Motion Picture Producers Associations of Japan, with yearly statistics of film screening across the country and brief history of Japanese cinema in figures.
Ariane Beldi

Robot géant : de l'instrumentalisation à la fusion - 0 views

  • Robot géant : de l'instrumentalisation à la fusion Image: Gundam Seed WebL'histoire de la science-fiction manifeste le désir immarcescible de modifier l'homme. Aujourd'hui la science semble permettre une telle évolution et l'on peut désormais espérer accéder à un autre niveau de vie grâce au développement de la génétique, de la cybernétique ou de l'informatique. On désigne désormais par les termes d'« homme augmenté »1 les multiples possibilités d'amélioration de l'humain par l'artificiel. La culture de masse reflète et innerve ces aspirations à une transformation de l'homme. Aux Etats-Unis, ce rêve d'un « surhomme » se manifeste à travers la bande dessinée et les dessins animés populaires, qui ont durant longtemps propagé l'image d'un « super-héros » comme Superman, Spiderman, Batman, X-men. Au Japon, il semble que cette figure surhumaine soit remplacée par celle de « supers robots ». L'importance de ces machines dans les manga et les anime Japonais est liée à un genre et à un contexte socioculturel particulier. Connu en France par le biais de la diffusion de Goldorak, le robotto anime (dessin animé de robots) a longtemps servi d'image d'Epinal pour désigner les productions nippones. Ce genre spécifique à la science-fiction Japonaise cultive un imaginaire des rapports entre l'homme et la machine qui se répand dans les pays où ces séries sont diffusées. Certains auteurs en viennent même à parler de diffusion d'un techno-orientalisme2.
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    Article about how the evolution of the mecha genre against the backdrop of Japanese recent history and the general reflection on the man-machine relationship as well as the mechanically-boosted human.
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    It is in French, but a very interesting article from one member of the Manga Network.
Nele Noppe

Seminar on Anime and Contemporary Japanese Society - 0 views

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    While anime is being watched on a global scale, there are significant differences in its contemporary reception. The gap between regular consumers and critical spectators, sometimes appearing in the form of Japanese audiences vs. foreign Japanologists, deserves special attention since it raises a number of questions, such as what sort of animated film is identified as anime; who relates anime to politics, history and society; what kind of meaning is at play in anime's performative images, and to what extent one can read "Japanese society", or even "culture", out of anime.
Nele Noppe

Mobilizing the Imagination in Everyday Play: The Case of Japanese Media Mixes Mizuko Ito - 0 views

  • A notion of participation leads to a conceptualization of the imagination as collectively rather than individually experienced and produced.
  • While the boosters, debunkers, and the panicked may seem to be operating under completely different frames of reference, what they share is the tendency to fetishize technology as a force with its own internal logic standing outside of history, society and culture. The problem with all of these stances is that they fail to recognize that technologies are in fact embodiments, stabilizations, and concretizations of existing social structure and cultural meanings, growing out of an unfolding history as part of a necessarily altered and contested future.
  • I propose three conceptual constructs that define trends in new media form, production, and genres of participation: Convergence of old and new media forms; authoring through personalization and remix, and hypersociality as a genre of participation.
Nele Noppe

Moe and the Potential of Fantasy in Post-Millenial Japan - 2 views

  • If kawaii, or the aesthetic of cute, is the longing for the freedom and innocence of youth, manifesting in the junior and high school girl in uniform (Kinsella 1995), then moe is the longing for the purity of characters pre-person, manifesting in androgynous semi and demi human forms. This is called 'jingai,' or outside human, and examples include robots, aliens, dolls and anthropomorphized animals, all stock characters in the moe pantheon. A specific example would be nekomimi, or cat-eared characters. More generally, in order to achieve the desired affect, moe characters are reduced to tiny deformed 'little girl' images with emotive, pupil-less animal eyes
  • I argue fantasy characters offer virtual possibilities and affect
  • Moe is also used by fujoshi, zealous female fans of yaoi, a genre of manga featuring male homosexual romance. However, the word moe indicates a response to fantasy characters, not a specific style, character type or relational pattern. While some things are more likely than others to inspire moe, this paper will focus mainly on the response itself rather than the forms that inspire it.
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  • Both otaku and fujoshi
  • The moe character is a 'body without organs' (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), and the response to its virtual potentials is affect.
  • Massumi argues affect is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential (Massumi 2002). The experience, what he calls an 'intensity,' is outside of logical language and conscious control. Moe provides a word to express affect, or to identify a form that resonates and can trigger an intensity.
  • It is for this reason that moe is consistently misunderstood as first and foremost images of young girls instead of a response to virtual potentials
  • In the field interacting with otaku and fujoshi, I was constantly confronted by the concept of moe, and found it necessary to engage it.
  • These are both men and their discourse centers on male otaku, but I will argue from them a more general theory, applied later in the paper to fujoshi structures of desire.
  • Honda, a youth-oriented novelist and self-styled moe critic, defines moe as 'imaginary love'
  • the salient point is his judgment that a relationship with a mediated character or material representations of it is preferable to an interpersonal relationship.
  • the moe man is feminized
  • While recognizing the conservative nature of otaku sexuality, Azuma attempts to account for the schizophrenic presence of perversion in the moe image. For Azuma, otaku are postmodern subjects with multiple personalities engendered by their environment and enthusiastic media consumption
  • To feel moe for all characters in all situations, the narrative connecting characters or moments in time is de-emphasized.
  • cat ears,
  • response is unconnected with 'reality' and thus offers new potentials to construct and express affects.
  • Separating their desire from reality allowed for a new form of affect called moe.
  • Simply stated, moe is about unbounded potential.
  • Moe is affect in response to fantasy forms that emerged from information-consumer culture in Japan in the late stages of capitalism.
  • conditioning of young girls into 'pure consumers'
  • Such a space is disconnected from social and political concerns, and exists for the preservation of the individual.
  • the media and consumption feeding into moe is a specific sort centered on affect.
  • Manga scholar Itou Gou argues that since the end of the 1980s characters in anime, manga and videogames became so appealing that fans desired them even without stories (Itou 2005). Ito dubs such character types 'kyara,' distinct from characters (kyarakutaa) embedded in narratives.
  • Proof of this can be found in the rise of 'parody' doujinshi,
  • The doll-like and semi-human Ayanami became the single most popular and influential character in the history of otaku anime; fans still isolate parts of the character to amplify and rearticulate in fan-produced works to inspire moe.
  • In works featuring these characters, the original work functions as a starting point, and the extended process of producing and consuming moe takes place among fans in online discussions and videos, fan-produced comics (doujinshi), costume roleplay (cosplay) and figures.
  • virtual potentiality
  • That the moe form, the body without organs, is outside personal and social frames is precisely why it triggers affect.
  • 'moe otaku' a superficial fixation on surfaces and accelerated consumption of disposable moe kyara, impetus for him to declare this younger generation culturally 'dead'
  • One man I spoke with said, 'Moe is a wish for compassionate human interaction. Moe is a reaction to characters that are more sincere and pure than human beings are today.' Similarly, another man described moe as 'the ultimate expression of male platonic love.' This, he said, was far more stable and rewarding than 'real' love could ever be. Manga artist Akamatsu Ken stresses that moe is the 'maternal love' (boseiai) latent in men,[xxi] and a 'pure love' (junsui na ai) unrelated to sex, the desire to be calmed when looking at a female infant (biyoujo wo mite nagomitai) (Akamatsu 2005). 'The moe target is dependent on us for security (a child, etc.) or won't betray us (a maid, etc.). Or we are raising it (like a pet)' (Akamatsu 2005). This desire to 'nurture' (ikusei) characters is extremely common among fans. Further, moe is about the moment of affect and resists changes ('betrayal') in the future, or what Akamatsu refers to as a 'moratorium' (moratoriamu). Moe media is approached as something of a sanctuary from society (Okada 2008), and as such is couched in a discourse of purity.
  • I will now demonstrate how it is further possible to reduce people to characters, or to reduce reality to fantasy in pursuit of moe.
  • Association with the two-dimensional world, and lack of depth or access in the three-dimensional world, makes a maid moe.[
  • The appeal of the maid cannot purely be sexual: As many as 35 per cent of customers are women
  • this arose in Japan in the late stages of capitalism as a result of shifts in consumer-information society
  • bias towards male fans of anim
  • aoi erases the female presence because fans say female-male or even female-female couples[xxxvi] are too 'raw' (namanamashii). Put another way, the reality of relationships is removed from yaoi to make the moe response possible.
  • the ambiguous yaoi 'male' is quite literally a body without organs
  • Many other fujoshi I spoke with dated men even as they imagined possibilities of coupling them as characters with other men.[xl] As Saitou points out, the reality of heterosexual relationships and virtual possibilities of homosexual couplings are separate and coexistent (Saitou 2007). Journalist Sugiura Yumiko explains this as the crucial difference between fujoshi and otaku, who approach fantasy as an alternative for things that they actually want but cannot realize in this world (Sugiura 2006).[xli] A fujoshi, for example, would not 'marry' a two-dimensional character the way some otaku advocate;
  • Sugiura is importantly highlighting that fantasy and reality are separate and coexistent, but this is widespread in moe culture and not solely a female quality.[xlii] As much as male otaku boast of their two-dimensional wives, they often do so with levity as a self-conscious performance
  • While it is true that men tend to feel moe for single characters that they can possess while women feel moe for relationships or character couplings, this broad difference is fast disappearing. In truth, the media popular among so-called 'moe otaku' in recent years has come to resemble yaoi aesthetics: multiple girls in a nostalgic or fantastic world with minimal male presence and heightened emphasis on relationships and emotions
  • In all cases, the database (Azuma 2009) is present. The elements that constitute and indicate a certain type of top or bottom, for example glasses or hairstyle or height, are predetermined; any given top or bottom is a construct of defined character traits and behavior.
  • One of the most recognizable features of the moe phenomenon is the anthropomorphization of objects into objects of desire. Otaku turn cats, war machines, household appliances and even men of historical significance into beautiful little girls to trigger moe. Reality is flattened, and from it emerge polymorphous forms of stimulation. Similarly, fujoshi can rearticulate anything into beautiful boys and sexualized yaoi relations. Moe characters can be based on a written description or drawn image, a physical person or even anthropomorphized animals, plants and objects.
  • The erotic fantasy effectively re-mystified their world, adding a layer of potential to the mundane (the very ground under their feet!) and making the familiar queer and exciting. Latent potential so unlocked, the three friends replayed the moe relationship across other potential players such as shampoo and conditioner, knife and spoon, salt and pepper.
  • More startling and subversive is 'moe politics' (seiji moe), where national histories, international relations and imposing world leaders are reduced to moe characters across which yaoi romance can be read.
  • It should be noted that Hetaria was written by a man, and these sorts of stories are becoming increasingly popular among young men known as 'fudanshi' (rotten boys).
  • it precisely because it is pure that it can give birth to such perverse and polymorphous possibilities.
Ariane Beldi

Modern Art Asia - Reviews, Commentary and Peer-Reviewed Articles on Asian Art - 1 views

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    Modern Art Asia is a new journal dedicated to the arts of Asia from the eighteenth century to today, presenting postgraduate research from historical perspectives and international news on Asian art. For the rising generation of Asian art scholars, these works exist in a globalized interdisciplinary context at the intersection of scholarship, criticism, and the market. Founded to address the need within art history and art journalism for a space dedicated to the arts of Asia, Modern Art Asia combines peer-reviewed articles with insightful commentary and the latest exhibition reviews from international correspondents, providing a new forum for exchange between scholars that crosses the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines, and engages with a general readership through the addition of journalistic writing on art.
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