Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times"A sumptuously documented book, one that makes innovative use of the principle of montage to generate informative historical readings of Japan's myriad mass cultural phenomena in the early twentieth century. Both in terms of its scholarship and its methodology, this is a truly admirable work."—Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Brown University "As Miriam Silverberg has brilliantly shown here, the modern times of 1920s and ‘30s Japan were rendered in a cacophony of cultural mixing: a period of consumerist desires and Hollywood fantasy-making but also the rise of nationalist empire-building. Excavating its kaleidoscope of everyday culture Silverberg astutely offers a theory of montage for how Japanese subjects 'code-switched' in juggling the mixed cultural/political elements of these times. Utilizing a montage of media, texts, sites, and scholarship, Silverberg leads the reader into the terrain of the 'erotic grotesque nonsense' in a work that is as scintillating as it is theoretically important."—Anne Allison, author of Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination "Unlike other scholars who merely view ero-guro-nansensu in its literal meanings, Silverberg brilliantly documents it as a complex cultural aesthetic expressed in a spectrum of fascinating mass culture forms and preoccupations. With great erudition and humor, she traces the sensory and conceptual modes that are animated with potency and sophistication through this cultural metaphor. This book is destined to be a classic in Japan scholarship."—Laura Miller, author of Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics |
Contents
Japanese Modern within Modernity | 13 |
Placing the ConsumerSubject within Mass Culture | 20 |
Erotic Grotesque Nonsense as Montage | 28 |
The Modern Girl as Militant Movement | 51 |
The Café Waitress Sang the Blues | 73 |
Documenting the Café Waitress | 90 |
A Close Look at Ginza | 98 |
How the Japanese Café Waitress Sang the Blues | 105 |
DownandOut Grotesquerie | 203 |
Vagrant Culture | 209 |
Juvenile Delinquents | 217 |
The Hawkers | 223 |
Modern Nonsense | 231 |
Letting Go of the ModernCharlie Left Behind | 253 |
Freeze Frames An Epilogue in Montage | 259 |
Asakusa Memories the 1970s and 1980s | 265 |
Other editions - View all
Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times Miriam Silverberg Limited preview - 2006 |
Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times Miriam Silverberg Limited preview - 2006 |
Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times Miriam Silverberg No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
acharaka advertisement appeared Asahi Shinbun Asakusa audience beggars Bunka café waitress Casino Folies Chaplin Chinese code-switching consumer-subjects Crimson Gang customers dance delinquent discussion documentary documented emperor ero guro erotic grotesque nonsense eroticism everyday expressed female film Fujin Geijutsu geisha gender gestures Ginza Gonda Goraku grotesquerie guro hawker Hayashi Hayashi Fumiko hero Hollywood household housewife ideology Iijima imperial issue Iwasaki Japan Japanese modern culture jokyu Josei Kawabata Kenkyū kimono Kindai Kon and Yoshida Korean Köron Kusama labor lumpen magazine male Manchuria mass culture mass media Meiji Minami Minami Hiroshi Minshū Modan Modan Gaaru Modanizumu Modern Girl modern Japan montage movie nansensu Nihon Obayashi Onna parody play political prostitute readers reference relationship Sata Ineko Sató seikatsu sexual Shobó Shoten Shufu no Tomo social Soeda Storm over Asia Takami Jun term theater tion Tokyo vagrants Western woman words workers young