Faculty of Law, Humanities and Creative Arts

The award-winning picture book Sagashite imasu (2012) was published in response to 3/11. It combines dynamic poetics with poignant photographs of relics from the Hiroshima Peace Museum to evoke emotions about extended suffering from radioactive fallout. I argue that the work plays an activist role in prompting an empathetic response which raises an ethical consciousness, and that this kind of response in turn generates a broader “recognition” of the dangers of using nuclear power in (and beyond) Japan after the Fukushima disaster.

For full paper, see:
https://apjjf.org/2015/13/6/Helen-Kilpatrick/4284.html .

For a translation into Japanese, see:
https://besobernow-yuima.blogspot.com/2015/03/japanfocus.html

Uehashi Nahoko's ten-volume Guardian fantasy series for young adults (1996–2008) creates a fantastic medieval world that is both entertaining and intensely political. In reflecting upon a fictitious nation's beginnings, it resonates with some of ]apan's well-known legends and sociohistorical imaginings, destabilizing their cultural authority. By exposing the "real" stories and behind-the scenes power plays in an extended kingdom, Moribito questions hegemonic power constructions, deconstructing how cultural myths are made, manipulated, and reinforced by corrupt leaders. In doing so, it presents an unconventional critique of many Japanese ideologies and national institutions, drawing attention to the limitations inherent in dominant understandings of, for instance, Japan's emperor system and power politics, past and present.

The recent (2016-2018) live-action Japanese television series, Seirei no Moribito (Guardian of the Spirit), was produced by NHK in the vein of the taiga (big river) historical drama, but challenges this and other Japanese generic and cultural conventions. It does so not only through its production as a fantasy series or its warrior heroine rather than the usual masculine samurai hero, but also through clever narrative strategies which operate to maintain viewer interest and produce affective engagement with gendered positionings. A cognitive narratological exploration of these story-telling devices and the scripts and schemas they conjure helps demonstrate how the series operates affectively to deconstruct dominant patriarchal ideologies. This examination explores how narrative techniques prompt viewer mental processing with regard to cultural schemas and scripts of, for instance, male/female roles in family relationships, women's participation in the employment sector, and marriage and childbearing. A close analysis of the filmic strategies and devices which encourage audience engagement with the main female protagonist, Balsa, and her relationships casts light on the state of some of the changing attitudes to gendered social and personal roles in the context of recent and topical social discourse in Japan.

The recent (2016–2018) live-action Japanese television series, Seirei no Moribito (Guardian of the Spirit), was produced by NHK in the vein of the taiga (big river) historical drama, but challenges this and other Japanese generic conventions through its production as a fantasy series, and through its female heroine rather than the usual male samurai hero. This paper takes a cognitive narratological perspective in the exploration of how story-telling devices conjure and challenge some of the most dominant patriarchal scripts found across much of Asia (and elsewhere). It examines how narrative techniques prompt viewer mental processing with regard to cultural schemas and scripts of, for instance, male/female roles in family relationships, women’s participation in the employment sector, and marriage and childbearing. The examination thereby delves into important issues in the context of recent social discourse on gender roles in Japan. A close examination of the filmic strategies and d...

This paper examines how affect operates cognitively in the reading of fiction to generate care and concern for non-human species. The focus is on an exceptional post-3/11 book for young people, Kibō no Bokujō (Farm of Hope, 2014, henceforth Kibō). Written by novelist, Mori Etō, and illustrated by Yoshida Hisanori, Kibō is notable in its consideration of beef cattle left behind in the wake of the evacuation after Japan’s triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown) of March 11, 2011 (3/11). Although based on actual events, the narrative is a fictional exploration of an unnamed farmer’s internal dilemmas as he keeps his cows alive after they have been rendered commercially worthless through radiation fallout from the nuclear power plant. Affective reading comes into operation under mental processing of the narrative’s ironies and metaphors, and is particularly poignant under cognisance of the irony that the farmer is now tending cows which he had originally bred for slau...

This chapter argues that separate organizing has not successfully advanced the cause of women workers. A women's committee was established in the MTUC in 1965, but government restrictions on union organizing have made it difficult for unions to raise the numbers of female trade union leaders and members thus limiting the committee's effectiveness. However, these restrictions are not the most significant barrier to women's participation in the union movement. Other forms of feminist civil society activism are quite strong in Malaysia, and female unionists have devised strategies with NGOs to campaign for women's rights within the workplace and the home. However, the masculine culture of trade unions, and male unionists, along with continued emphasis on women's role in the family limit women's engagement with the union movement.