Description
Book SynopsisGlobalization is usually thought of as the worldwide spread of Western - particularly American - popular culture. Yet if one nation stands out in the dissemination of pop culture in East and Southeast Asia, it is Japan. This title explores how Japanese popular culture circulates in Asia.
Trade Review“Koichi Iwabuchi has given us a uniquely fascinating and empirically rich study of cultural globalization—Japanese style—as it evolved in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Eye-opening and insightful, this is an immensely readable book, adding considerably to the growing stock of non-Western voices and perspectives in transnational cultural studies.”—Ien Ang, author of
On Not Speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West“This book will be one of the most important in Japan studies to come out in a long time. The author’s anaylsis, which theorizes and critiques Japan’s position as a kind of intermediary between Western and Asian pop cultural formations, and the complex will to power that is being worked out under various consumerist guises, is smart and very much needed in the Japan field.”—Karen Kelsky, author of
Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams"A very rich and subtle study. I predict that Iwabuchi´s book will quickly become a central reference in debates over the global organization of popular culture"—Ulf Hannerz, author of
Transnational Connections: Culture, People, PlacesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Note on Japanese Names ix
Introduction: The 1990s—Japan returns to Asia in the age of globalization 1
1. Taking “Japanization” seriously: Cultural globalization reconsidered 23
2. Trans/nationalism: The discourse on Japan in the global cultural flow 51
3. Localizing “Japan” in the booming Asian markets 85
4. Becoming culturally proximate: Japanese TV dramas in Taiwan 121
5. Popular Asianism in Japan: Nostalgia for (different) Asian modernity 158
6. Japan’s Asian dreamworld 199
Notes 211
References 233
Index 261
