Persistently Postwar - by Blai Guarné & Artur Lozano-Méndez & Dolores P Martinez (Paperback)

About the Book

Persistently Postwar approaches the topics of social memory and political discourse through an exploration of Japan's post-war mass media. Diverse disciplinary backgrounds and contrasting perspectives offer a nuanced dialogue in which the functions of mass media are explored as more than a simple ideological tool.

Book Synopsis

From melodramas to experimental documentaries to anime, mass media in Japan constitute a key site in which the nation's social memory is articulated, disseminated, and contested. Through a series of stimulating case studies, this volume examines the political and cultural representations of Japan's past, showing how they have reinforced personal and collective narratives while also formulating new cultural meanings, both on a local scale and in the context of transnational media production and consumption. Drawing upon diverse disciplinary insights and methodologies, these studies collectively offer a nuanced account in which mass media function as much more than a simple ideological tool.

Review Quotes

"Persistently Postwar uses a variety of detailed case studies to demonstrate how the contested legacy of the Asia-Pacific War has helped to shape the artistic and intellectual life of postwar Japan. This thought-provoking and highly readable collection of essays leaves the reader with deep insights into not only depictions of war in Japanese popular culture, but also how the war has affected broader cultural production from yakuza films to the anime industry." - Philip Seaton, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

About the Author

Blai Guarné is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the East Asian Studies Programme at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has been Visiting Fellow at the University of Tokyo and a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University. His publications include Antropología de Japón (Bellaterra 2017) and Escaping Japan: Reflections on Estrangement and Exile in the Twenty-first Century (Routledge 2018).