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• A CfP to those who have a concern on the anthropology of Japan with specific focus on material culture...
• They say that there's a few more spaces and the deadline for the paper proposals is the end of this year. But please note that this conference will be held in Oslo, Norway in March 2007.

Material culture in global encounters between Japan and the “West”

The relationship between Japanese and “western”
cultures have been described by over a century of
scholarship. This departed from the classical view of
Japan as the “oriental other” and reached the
contemporary elaborations of a country which continues
to surprise for its perfect balance between tradition
and innovation. Too much has been said about the idea
of a Japanese culture as unique, original and exotic.
On the other hand, the problem of the real impact of
the “western” cultures on present day Japan has
remained often unresolved. There are two possible
explanations to this shortcoming. The first is that
Japanese culture, which has traditionally been ready
to embrace features imported from other backgrounds
has shown the tendency to transform and adapt such
features in a strikingly syncretic manner. The second
explanation may be searched in the political and
economic relations between Japan, Europe and Northern
America through time. Starting from the opening of the
country to foreign trade, diplomacy and cultural
influences in the Meiji period, Japan has rapidly come
to play an important role in international politics.
However, this role has sometimes been underscored by
the western countries, which preferred to keep a
glance on a distant and “eastern” Japan rather than to
admit its actual vicinity to the western political and
economic realities. In other words, western scholars
have deliberately chosen to be too eastern biased to
look for the “western” sides in Japanese culture.

This panel proposes to partially fill this gap in the
knowledge of Japan by collecting contributions on the
issue of the Japanese perceptions, adaptations and
constructions of western cultures. The panel welcomes
contributions from every field of anthropology and
other social and human science disciplines on these
issues. The common thread of the proposed papers
should be the material side of culture. We believe
that by investigating the most visible aspects of the
intersections between western and Japanese cultural
features, we may be able to actually shed lights onto
the weight of foreign influences on present Japanese
culture. Among the main fields of interest are:
fashion, art and architecture, religion and religious
sects, pop culture, international relations and the
media.

Some of the main questions addressed by the panel are:

To what extent do Japanese appreciate the real meaning
of the “western” world in their daily life?
Is the classical division between eastern spirituality
and western materialism an invention of the times, or
still reality?
Do fashion, taste and beauty perceptions today have a
distinct Japanese character, empty of western
influences?
How far does the west help to draw the border between
Japanese essential goods and western-oriented luxury
goods in advertising and publicity?
What is the impact of western comic traditions in the
Japanese manga?
To what extent do Japanese images of the west help to
shape the way how Japanese deal with international
politics?
What is the role of the “west” in shaping Japanese
identity?

Prospective panel participants should send title of
the paper, an abstract of no more than 250 words and
few personal details by December 31st 2006.

Please contact:
dtorsello@yahoo.it

Davide Torsello,
Cultural anthropology, associate professor
University of Bergamo
Italy