scholarly journals Reviewing Japanese Dream Culture and Its History: Where Ancient, Medieval and Modern Times Meet

Author(s):  
Hiroshi Araki ◽  

‘Dream’ is an important keyword in the study of cultural history. Dreams relate profoundly to various cultural phenomena, so that the aspects of this relationship are broad and diverse. Japanese dreams are also represented visually in many different cultural contexts, in various styles and media, and their representation changes according to social and historical situations. In particular, pictorialization of dreams offers interesting possibilities. For example, the ‘speech balloon’ (or bubble) is a popular device for depicting speech acts in picture books and manga, and a significant symbolic image in contemporary culture such as LINE messages in Japan. Historically, however, speech balloons also seem to have a close relationship with the visualization of dreams. In this paper, I would like to trace and review the Japanese dream culture and its history, to consider where or how ancient, medieval and modern times encounter in the history of East Asian cultural representation.

Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson

La bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? Drawing on an extremely broad range of sources, Alexandra Wilson traces the opera’s rise to global fame. Although the work has been subjected to many hostile critiques, it swiftly achieved popular success through stage performances, recordings, and filmed versions. Wilson demonstrates how La bohème acquired even greater cultural influence as its music and dramatic themes began to be incorporated into pop songs, film soundtracks, musicals, and more. In this cultural history of Puccini’s opera, Wilson offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. La bohème was strikingly modern for the 1890s, she argues, in its approach to musical and dramatic realism and in flouting many of the conventions of the Italian operatic tradition. Considering the work within the context of the aesthetic, social, and political debates of its time, Wilson explores Puccini’s treatment of themes including gender, poverty, and nostalgia. She pays particular attention to La bohème’s representation of Paris, arguing that the opera was not only influenced by romantic mythologies surrounding the city but also helped shape them. Wilson concludes with a consideration of the many and varied approaches directors have taken to the staging of Puccini’s opera, including some that have reinvented the opera for a new age. This book is essential reading for anyone who has seen La bohème and wants to know more about its music, drama, and cultural contexts.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-242
Author(s):  
JAMES POSKETT

AbstractWhat is the history of science? How has it changed over the course of the twentieth century? And what does the future hold for the discipline? This ‘Retrospect’ provides an introduction to the historiography of science as it developed in the Anglophone world. It begins with the foundation of the Cambridge History of Science Committee in the 1940s and ends with the growth of cultural history in the 2000s. At the broadest level, it emphasizes the need to consider the close relationship between history and the history of science. All too often the historiography of science is treated separately from history at large. But as this essay shows, these seemingly distinct fields often developed in relation to one another. This essay also reveals the ways in which Cold War politics shaped the history of science as a discipline. It then concludes by considering the future, suggesting that the history of science and the history of political thought would benefit from greater engagement with one another.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Cohen

This chapter investigates the idea of the 'Jewish contribution' that was borne on Jews, non-Jews, and the interaction between them in modern times, from the seventeenth century to the present. It determines what role 'Jewish contribution' has played in 'Jewish self-definition' and how it has influenced the political, social, and cultural history of the Jews. It also discusses the biblical heritage that Jews, Christians, and Muslims share that highlights the people of the book and the impact of biblical monotheism on the history of religions. The chapter looks at the survival of the Jews as a distinct ethnic group and a multinational religious community that wrestles with the phenomenon to understand the reasons for their survival. It mentions the tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust and the re-establishment of the Jewish state in its wake that piqued the curiosity of the world.


2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-96
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Mok ◽  
Mitsuhiro Tokunaga

Against the political backdrop of what was arguably the lowest point in the China-Japan relationship in modern times, China had called for Japan to take “concrete actions to face up with … its history of invasion”. In response, Japan’s then Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, issued a public apology at the Asian-African Summit on 22nd April 2005. His choice of words, “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology”, did little to assuage the Chinese. What did these words really mean in the context of speech acts of apology? Was the apology considered to be an apology? How does this episode of apology fall into the current discussion of apology strategies? Was there lexical avoidance? Was there any discourse difference compared to previous apologies? This paper will attempt to answer these questions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 64-74
Author(s):  
Lan A. Li

This article explores a cultural history of peppercorn and its famous characterization as a “numbing spice.” It investigates how the quality of “numbing spice” extended from East Asian cosmologies that engaged with peppercorn, also known as mountain pepper or sanshō 山椒, as a medical, literary, and culinary object. Medieval and early modern encyclopedias in China described how the plant's vivid colors reflected cosmological relationships that promised better health and eternal youth. The plant's desirability represented what I call “numbing aesthetics,” in that its taste was directly tied to its appearance and utility. When burned, boiled, or crushed, forms of peppercorn could treat hemorrhages, hair loss, swollen scrotums, and toothaches. Beautiful peppers were more effective; ugly peppers were less effective. These many types of plants had many kinds of names with origin stories that derived from young girls, young couples, pigs, and frogs. As a social metaphor, pepper dust became a popular metaphor for describing confined concubines. This article later argues that these qualities fell away when biologists attempted to reduce the plant into its active molecular components in the twentieth century. Tokyo-based chemists imperfectly distilled numbing juices from the pepper's bark and fruit to define numbness as a single unit of flavor, even when numbness was not a classical kind of flavor and more closely resembled tingling vibrations. But by becoming a quasi-category of flavor, the molecularization of peppercorn would diminish its long history of cosmological associations that were gendered, practiced, and otherworldly.


2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Magdalena Popiel

Summary This article is concerned with the role of the literary and the photographic portrait in the cultural history of literature. It argues that a new appraisal of the history of literature should take into account the prominent role of pictorial representation in contemporary culture. In practice, getting to grips with the multimediality of literary history means not only taking note of the interaction of various modes of communication but also adopting a nonlinear perspective, liberated from the ordering hegemony of language and narration, and based on the rhythm of Warburg’s formulas of pathos. The new approach should draw freely on inspirations from the history of art and anchor its discourse in the conceptual frameworks of anthropological aesthetics, Visual Culture Studies and case studies. One can expect that it would show its exceptional worth when applied to the study of multimedia artists like Stanisław Witkiewicz and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Sequeiros

The creation of the Public Library of Braga, one of the first of the modern times in Portugal, and a brief sociobiography of Manoel Rodrigues da Silva Abreu, the first librarian, are here presented within the context of the social, economic, cultural and political power relations of the initial decades of the Library’s history.Some episodes of the creation and of the consolidation of the Library, as well as some episodes of the librarian’s professional life will be outlined to facilitate a wider reading. While building from specificity, the analysis and interpretation of this case enclose an explanatory capacity addressed at a wider framework, in what concerns both the history of public libraries in Braga, and the understanding of the cultural history of this period in Braga and in Portugal.


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