Cinema and Japanese Modernity

Novelty and timeliness

As both a form of representation and an industry, cinema remains one of the grand metaphors of the modern. Japan’s location at the periphery of the hegemonic realm we generally term ‘the West’ led to a chronological overlap between the beginnings of modernization and the arrival of cinema in the country, resulting in a particularly overdetermined relationship between cinema and modernity. Within the general theme of ‘mixed cinema’ this PhD research will explore the topic of cinema and modernity through a novel approach which goes beyond traditional questions of auteurism, genre and industry so as to incorporate an interdisciplinary perspective on Japan’s own cultural, political and intellectual contexts. The intersection between cinema and modernity in Japan will be examined through one of the following topics:

1. Avant-garde and the city: cinematic, literary and visual modernisms in the 1920s-30s
2. The politics of affect: the national policy (kokusaku) films of the war years
3. Modernity and its repressed other: Japanese horror cinema
4. New Japanese cinema, new nationalism: the post-bubble years

Objectives

1. To investigate the particular relation between cinema and modernity in Japan.
2. To apply an interdisciplinary approach to Japanese cinema which combines the theoretical and methodological apparatuses of film studies, cultural studies and intellectual history.
3. To compare cinematic representations of modernity with those in other art forms.
4. To define the specificity of  Japan’s modernist process on the basis of its own cinema and cultural production.

Resource and facilities available

The interdisciplinary Department of Theatre, Film & Television at the University of York is a new department which will move from its current premises into a £25 million custom built building in 2010.  As well as a fully equipped screening theatre, facilities relevant to this studentship will include edit suites, postproduction facilities which can also be used for fine-grained analysis, and extensive office space for research students. Already good library facilities (both paper and DVD) are being further developed to match the scale of growth of the new department. At Leeds, the student will find all support needed both on the Japanese front, at the Dept of East Asian Studies and WREAC, and on film studies, at the Centre for World Cinemas.

Training provision for student

The student’s training will follow the standard guidelines for York research students which include centrally provided courses as well as department specific provision. In addition, the student will take modules from the MA in Cinema, Television and Society which are designed to provide training in theoretical and methodological approaches to researching the relations between cinema and society. The department currently has some 30 MA/MSc students and 10 PhD students, ensuring that there is a lively graduate culture. At both York and Leeds, graduate students are encouraged to attend/give papers at appropriate conferences for which the parent department provides financial and academic support. They are also encouraged to organise their own seminar series as well as attend those organised by the department.