Japan's Pop Culture Takeover Speakers Series - Part 2

IAN CONDRY

Professor of Japanese Culture and Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ian Condry is a cultural anthropologist and professor in Comparative Media Studies/Writing with an affiliated appointment in Anthropology. His book, The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story, is part of the Experimental Futures series at Duke University Press.  He is also the author of Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization (2006, Duke University Press), which was translated into Japanese and published as "Nihon no Hip-Hop" (2009, NTT Publications). Overall, he is interested in "globalization from below," that is, how cultural movements spread transnationally without little push from corporations and governments.

ALEXANDER ZHALTEN

Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Director of Graduate Studies, Regional Studies East Asia (RSEA), 2020-21, Harvard University

Alexander Zahlten's research interests center on film and audiovisual culture in East Asia, with a focus on Japan. Zahlten's publications have examined the role of postcolonial fantasy in Korean “remakes" of Japanese films, the role of a character such as Doraemon as shared media memory in East Asia, the metaphors of world in the media mix environment of Japan, the history of German sexploitation cinema, or poststructuralist media theory in 1980s Japan. Zahlten was Assistant Professor in the Department of Film & Digital Media of Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea for one and a half years before joining Harvard in 2012.

The Japan's Pop Culture Speaker Series is co-sponsored by 

The Consulate-General of Japan in Boston

This program is made possible by the support of

the Toshiba International Foundation.

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