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Japan in Australia is a work of cultural history that focuses on context and connection between two nations. It examines how Japan has been imagined, represented and experienced in the Australian context through a variety of settings, historical periods and circumstances.
Beginning with the first recorded contacts between Australians and Japanese in the nineteenth century, the chapters focus on 'people-to people' narratives and the myriad multi-dimensional ways in which the two countries are interconnected: from sporting diplomacy to woodblock printing, from artistic metaphors to iconic pop imagery, from the tragedy of war to engagement in peace movements, from technology transfer to community arts. Tracing the trajectory of this 150-year relationship provides an example of how history can turn from fear, enmity and misunderstanding through war, foreign encroachment and the legacy of conflict, to close and intimate connections that result in cultural enrichment and diversification.
This book explores notions of Australia and 'Australianness' and Japan and 'Japaneseness', to better reflect on the cultural fusion that is contemporary Australia and build the narrative of the Japan-Australia relationship. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Asian, Japanese and Japanese-Pacific studies.
List of contents
List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
Prologue: Celebrating Japan in Australia
ALAN RIX
1 Japan in Australia, an introduction
DAVID CHAPMAN AND CAROL HAYES
2 Youthful first impressions: Tsurumi Kazuko and Shunsuke in Australia, 1937
TOMOKO AOYAMA
3 Forging an Australian artistic modernity: how Japanese woodblock prints informed Margaret Preston’s early paintings and prints
PENNY BAILEY
4 Japan-Australia friendship through bat and ball: the Yomiuri Giants’ baseball tour of Australia in 1954
AI KOBAYASHI
5 Japan at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics
MORRIS LOW
6 Japanese sleeping beauties abroad: Australian retellings of Kawabata Yasunari’s fairy-tale novella
LUCY FRASER
7 The irrepressible magic of Monkey: how a Japanese television drama depicting an ancient Chinese tale became compulsory after-school viewing in Australia
REBECCA HAUSLER
8 Nikkei Australian identity and the work of Mayu Kanamori
TIMOTHY KAZUO STEAINS
9 Trans-Asian engagement with Japan in/and Australia
KOICHI IWABUCHI
10 The Australian literary scene and Murakami Haruki: Nobel laureate heir apparent or marketing overhype?
LAURA EMILY CLARK
11 Why introductory Japanese? An Australian case study
CHIHIRO KINOSHITA THOMSON
12 Mobility and Children Crossing Borders
IKUO KAWAKAMI
Coda
ROGER PULVERS
On the streets of our town
VERA MACKIE
Index
About the author
Dr David Chapman is Associate Professor of Japanese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Queensland in Australia. His research interests include history, identity and citizenship. He is the author of The Bonin Islanders 1830 to the Present: Narrating Japanese Nationality (2016), coauthor of Koseki, Identification and Documentation: Japan’s Household Registration System and Citizenship (Routledge 2014) and author of Zainichi Korean Identity and Ethnicity (Routledge 2007).
Dr Carol Hayes is Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Studies in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. Her research interests include literature, identity and language teaching methodologies and practice. She is the author of ‘Sashiko Needlework Reborn: From Functional Technology to Decorative Art’ (Japanese Studies 2019) and ‘Women Writing Women: "A Woman’s Place" in Modern Japanese Women’s Poetry’ (JSOA 2016), and coauthor of Reading Embraced by Australia: Oosutoraria ni Idakarete (2016).
Summary
Japan in Australia is a work of cultural history that focuses on context and connection between two nations. It examines how Japan has been imagined, represented and experienced in the Australian context through a variety of settings, historical periods and circumstances.
