The alluring voice/the allure of film (theaters): the formation of the voice in the Japanese cinema of the prewar period

Abstract

Kitada Akihiro provides a historical overview of film presentation as a transient business, its migration into dedicated cinemas, and the concomitant rise and fall of benshi film explainer culture, as silent film incorporating a narrative developed out of simplistic ‘moving pictures,’ only to be gradually replaced by ‘talkies.’ He does so by following the career of Tokugawa Musei, one of the most prominent benshi of the 1920s and 1930s, from beginning to end; in describing the changes in audience composition and expectations, he outlines the transition from the showman-like VOICE「声」 to the more ‘talkie’-like voice «声».     

构建东北亚IT共同体的设想及影响其制度化的因素

如果能够在东北亚地区建立IT产业的共同体,将很有可能带动其他产业的联合,最终走向全面地联合,从而提升东北亚地区合作的层次。东北亚国家已经开始在IT领域进行了一定程度的合作,但是在东北亚地区建立IT共同体的道路不会是一帆风顺的,有许多因素会影响到东北亚IT共同体的最终形成。     

Sharing the Burden: The Role of Government and NGOs in Protecting and Providing for Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Japan

This article examines the background to Japan's current refugeerecognition and protection regime in the thematic context ofburden-sharing. It considers recent legislative reforms andthe role of local NGOs with the aim of setting Japan's domesticprotection framework against the background of its internationallegal obligations. The analysis suggests that the policy andpractices of the Japanese government have resulted in the exclusionof many who seek to enter the country and that for those in-countrythere is inadequate state social and welfare provision. Thearticle questions whether Japan's significant financial contributioncan adequately discharge its international burden-sharing responsibilitiesand argues that the government has effectively shifted responsibilityfor protection and support to local NGOs. It concludes thatwithout further changes burden-shifting and not burden-sharingwill remain a predominant feature of Japan's approach to protectingand providing for asylum seekers and refugees in Japan.     

The realism debate and the politics of modern art in early postwar Japan

This article examines the realism debate (riarizumu ronsō) that took place between 1946 and 1950 as a forum in which ideas on artistic form, the role of the artist in society, and the social relevance of art come into focus in a way that allows us to see how questions such as Japan's modernity, the recent experience of fascism, and the challenges of rebuilding culture during the early cold war were taken up by leading cultural figures in the field of the visual arts. Occurring alongside discussions of how the art world could be reformed to avoid the failures of fascism, the debate served as an occasion to re-examine the history of modern art in Europe and Japan and to consider the question of artistic representation in a way that opened the most fundamental question of art's relationship to the world and promised to begin the process of envisioning it anew. The debate involved three camps which I label social realism (represented by Hayashi Fumio and Nagai Kiyoshi), modernist realism (Hijikata Tei’ichi), and avant-garde realism (Uemura Takachiyo, Okamoto Tarō, and Hanada Kiyoteru). While assessing their points of agreement and disagreement, I argue that the debate set the stage for debates in the 1950s and beyond.     

试析中国与印尼经贸关系存在的问题

近年来,中国与印尼经贸合作关系发展很快,两国双边贸易和中国对印尼基础设施建设的投资顺利发展,但也存在一些问题和障碍,尤其是中国一些商品对印尼的冲击引起印尼部分企业界的不满。本文拟对两国经贸关系存在问题,尤其是印尼纺织服装业受中国产品的冲击进行分析,提出解决问题的意见,以利于促进两国经贸关系的进一步发展。     

The US-Japan Alliance Dilemma in the Asia-Pacific: Changing Rationales and Scope

ABSTRACT

The changes in the US-Japan alliance are taking place in times of a global power shift – a transition from unipolarity to multipolarity – and China’s challenge to the US’ security dominance in the Asia-Pacific. The alliance security dilemma now manifests itself in the rise of ‘entrapment’ concerns for Washington and ‘abandonment’ anxieties for Tokyo. The US increasingly insists on more mutuality in alliance arrangements, while seeking to maintain ambiguity in its defence commitments to Japan. The relative decline of US power and the fluid regional security architecture, however, incentivise Japan to step up preparations for abandonment. Although Tokyo’s hedging strategy contributes to enhancement of the bilateral alliance in the short term, it also paves the way for Japan’s pursuit of strategic autonomy in the medium to long term.     

Social accountability and community forest management: the failure of collaborative governance in the Wombat Forest

This article presents a critical analysis of what caused the failure of Australia's first Community Forest Management (CFM) trial. We explore how ‘community’ was conceptualised and represented through the dynamic CFM process, leading to contradictions and conflicts that could not be resolved. We examine the governance structures and institutions that were created to try to enable community participation in forest management. Ambiguity and uncertainty in the power and purpose of the CFM organisation, as well as power relationships within the organisation, all contributed to conflicts that eventually tore the CFM process apart.     

Crisis ideology and the articulation of fascism in interwar Japan: the 1938 Thought-War Symposium

In early 1938, the newly formed Cabinet Information Division (Naikaku jōhōbu) held a closed-door Thought-War Symposium (Shisōsen kōshūkai) in Tokyo with over 100 bureaucrats, military officers, media executives and academics in attendance. While the ostensible purpose of the symposium was to discuss propaganda following Japan's full-scale invasion of China in July of 1937, the presentations had very little to do with the practical coordination of information. Rather, the symposium participants brought their specific areas of expertise to bear on elaborating the curious term ‘thought war’ (shisōsen), a term that had only recently been used with any regularity but which had become invested with critical urgency following the invasion of China.

In the conventional literature, the term ‘thought war’ is understood as marking a new modality of state propaganda as Japan moved towards a total war system. However, this reading overlooks the ideological investments in thought war discourse, as well as how ‘thought war’ inherited a multivalent sense of crisis that had crystallized around thought and culture earlier in the 1930s. In this article, I explore how the 1938 symposium reveals a combined sense of historical crisis and an urgent call for the total overhaul of Japanese state and society, a combination which, I argue, underwrote the development of fascism in Japan. I trace how three earlier discourses of crisis – the ‘Manchurian Problem’, the ‘thought problem’ and the ‘movement to clarify the kokutai’ – converged within thought war discourse, thus investing it with fascist urgency.     

美国和日本对东南亚山地僳族的研究——兼与中国傈僳族研究的比较

傈僳族既是中国的世居民族之一,也广泛地分布在东南亚山地地区,是这一区域内重要的跨境民族。本文在对1968-2008年美国、日本人类学东南亚山地傈僳族研究文献梳理和评述的基础上,阐明二者在理论和资料关注、研究脉络和研究对象认知、民族志写作等方面的差异。最后,从家户的研究问题、比较维度和联系性研究视角、田野调查和多元研究方法3个层面就美、日东南亚山地傈僳族研究与中国傈僳族研究进行比较。希望在这种比较中搭建与国际傈僳族研究对话的研究框架。     

Viorel Virgil Tilea and the Origins of the Second World War: An Essay in Closure

The 'Tilea Affair' of March 1939 is among the most contentious of the short-term events leading to the Second World War. V.V. Tilea, the Romanian minister in London, brought information to the British Foreign Office, about an alleged German threat to his country. The guarantee to Poland soon followed and, in turn, the outbreak of the war. This article examines the evidence offered by contemporary British witnesses, the ensuing historical controversy - bringing to bear a variety of new revelations, including materials derived from the author's acquaintance with Tilea - and the present state of historical knowledge. It concludes that closure can be applied to most aspects of the 'Tilea Affair'.     

Arms production in the third tier: An analysis of opportunity and willingness

Major determinants of third world military industrialization operate at the domestic, regional, and global levels. I summarize these and then examine their relative importance by analyzing time‐series cross‐section data for twelve arms producers from 1968 to 1990. Overall, there is considerable support for the various factors identified in the literature. However, my findings do highlight the importance of opportunity, perhaps more than willingness, as an explanation for changing levels of third tier arms production. Resolution of the tensions that drive regional militarization and the eruption of military conflict should have some positive effects ‐on restraining the expansion of arms production capacity. But there also seems to be a certain inevitability to the process, a process that is limited primarily by states' resources, industrial capacities, and access to weapons‐production technologies.     

多元文化或同化：亨廷顿的族群文化观与东南亚华族

亨廷顿的文明冲突论是其族群文化观对国际政冶格局的解读。其族群文化观源于美国的族群理论中的盎格鲁一萨克逊优越论。在美国国内,亨廷顿断言多元文化将使美国分裂而反对多元文化,主张用以盎格鲁一萨克逊文化代表的美国核心文化同化其他移民族群。在国际上,亨廷顿强调不同宗教文化的难以调和性,似乎由主流文化同化其他族群才是解决“国家间和国家内部的文明冲突”的出路。正如同化理论在美国日益没落而多元文化广被认可一样,在东南亚,一个各族群可以和睦相处的多元社会的构建不但是一种理念,也能成为现实。     

Motivation and Intervention in the Northern Ireland Peace Process: An Interview with President Bill Clinton

The role of former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton in the Northern Ireland peace process has been acknowledged as an example of political risk‐taking and leadership driven by political interests and strategic post–Cold War aims. The tendency to examine Clinton's role from the perspective of international and global policy objectives, however, has obscured consideration of his motivational role in the Northern Ireland peace process and of how he moved between encouragement and intervention to help the political parties reach a settlement. This article, which is drawn from an extended interview conducted with Clinton in 2017, seeks to paint a more comprehensive picture of Clinton's participation in the peace process, showing how his combination of motivational and interventional skills enabled him to help convince others of the need to take risks for peace and gave him greater influence and leverage over the peace process as a result.     

Post-9/11 counterterrorism in popular culture: the spectacle and reception of The Bourne Ultimatum and 24

This article examines the representation of counterterrorism in contemporary film and television and surveys its reception among active online audiences. Contemporary counterterrorism fiction like The Bourne Ultimatum (2007 The Bourne ultimatum. 2007. Film. Directed by Paul Greengrass. Produced by Doug Liman, Henry Morrison and Jeffrey M. Weiner. USA.  [Google Scholar]; Film. Directed by Paul Greengrass) and the TV series 24 (2001–2010; Television series. Created by Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow), present viewers with conventional hero-driven narratives wrapped in a spectacle of high-tech surveillance technologies. As counterterrorism is an inherently covert exercise, the widespread popularity of these Hollywood franchises raises questions about how the public understands the capabilities and ethics of counterterrorism. These questions are addressed through an analysis of the generic and aesthetic features of the texts along with a survey of audience responses on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).     

新安全视角下美国政府的气候政策

"人类安全"逐渐成为一种新的安全理念,环境气候问题等各种影响人类安全和福祉的非传统安全问题日益引起广泛关注。全球性安全威胁的严重程度则取决于治理框架的反应能力。包括气候政策、法律和机构在内的气候环境治理框架能够最大限度地削弱全球化冲突的根源,避免影响的发生或减缓其进程。奥巴马上任以来美国新政府能源、环境和应对气候变化政策出现较大调整,大力推动新能源法案来减缓气候变化。这一政策转向具有深刻的历史动因和政治基础,并将给美国经济复苏和美国企业的国际竞争力带来压力,加剧美国对外贸易摩擦和削弱其在国际气候环境合作中的领导地位。