I am currently planning a Japanese pop culture event at the University of Missouri - St. Louis on October 3rd, 2009, in conjunction with the Japanese department, the Center for International Studies, and the Japan America Society!
In the morning, we will have an academic conference covering topics and emerging research in contemporary Japanese culture, with a chance to network and engage other scholars.
In the afternoon, we are going to be screening an animated title from Japan, with a panel discussion afterward.
If you are interested in presenting or attending, please let me know.
I cannot help but post about this guy. He makes up a bunch of loops on FL Studio. Then he improvs with one of two keyboards. The results are pretty amazing-this guy should go really far in the music world.
I know this is not about Japanese culture, but there are a few nods to some Japanese composers.
I finished working on the latest cut of the soundtrack for the upcoming film, “Ragman,” based on a short story by Walter Wangerin, Jr. In this soundtrack, I was surprised by how many composers and themes had influenced what I was doing. I found myself echoing themes by Maurice Durufle, Jan Bender, Richard Wienhorst, Ralph Vaughan William, Ryuichi Sakamoto, as well as Yoko Kanno. I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think. The film will premiere at Concordia Seminary in a few weeks.
Much of the formation of my musical sensibilities happened while I studied music at Valparaiso University and Juilliard. I fell in love with Franck, Durufle, Dupre, Poulenc, Howells, I learned so much about sacred music and 20th century reinterpretations of plain chant and other Gregorian themes, that these themes became part of my DNA when I write.
In his introduction to BTTB, Sakamoto talked about the importance of melodies and creating memorable melodies. I read this the summer after I had a course in counterpoint; when I realized the importance of just having melodies that speak and tell a story, whether it’s a hymn or a movie soundtrack, or even background music, I had a paradigm shift in my composition style. Rather than focusing on the rigitiy of tonal harmony, I “climbed the steps to Parnassus” and learned to focus on linear, modal phrases much more than the straight tonality of traditional styles. Blending these things together gave me a whole new pallet, for which I became most thankful.
The cultural slumming of the American otaku is somewhat different from slumming as defined in the last post.
NYU professor Tavia Nyong’o, who is teaching a course on sub-cultures, referencing a book by Ken Gelder, (Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice. London: Routledge, 2007) says that otaku culture is a slumming based on our modern capitalism. She also references Peter Hitchcock (”Slumming” in Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion, Sanchez and Schossberg, eds. New York: NYU Press, 2001), saying a “slummer is a person who can [sic] “fantasizes what the culture otherwise hide.” Nyong’o also asserts that otaku as consumers are no different than slummers. In other words, their persona is fueled by the desire to acquire goods and trinkets that somehow help create the persona. Or is it more than that?
The difference between slumming and experiencing a culture is, in my opinion, a matter of perspective and how you approach what you are doing. Are you going to a place just to get as much stuff as you possibly can? Do you just want a stamp in your passport? Do you want to pretend to be something you are not? Or are you fascinated by something that you have encountered? Do you want to know more about some aspect of that culture because you love the people, the place, the smells, the sights, the sounds? For some of us, our international travel experiences are a mish-mash of all of the above. Studying abroad exposes you to so much for just a few months; you are bound to come home changed and have new tastes and desires.
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