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This thesis discusses revue as a significantly inter-cultural genre in the history of global theatre. During the ‘modernisation’ period in Europe, America and Japan, most major urban cities experienced a boom in revue venues and performances. Few studies about revue have yet been done in theatre studies or in urban cultural studies. My thesis will attempt to reevaluate and redefine revue as a highly intercultural theatre genre by using the concept of liminality. In other words, the aim is to examine revue as a genre built on ‘modern composition of betweenness’, bridging seemingly opposing elements, such as the foreign and the domestic, the classic and the innovative, the traditional and the modern, the professional and the amateur, high and low culture, and the feminine and the masculine. The goal is to regard revue as a liminal genre constructed amidst the negotiations between these binaries, existing in a state of constant flux.
The purpose of this approach is to capture revue as a transitory phenomena in five dimensions: conceptual, spatial, temporal, categorical and physical. Over the course of six chapters, this
inter-disciplinary discussion will reveal the reasons why and the ways by which revue came to establish its prominent position in the Japanese theatre industry. The whole structure is also an attempt to provide plausible ways to apply sociological considerations to theatre studies.
This study examines the relationship between media content, its production, and its reception in Japanese popular culture with the example of the so-called yuri ("lily") genre that centers on representations of intimate relationships between female characters. Based on contemporary genre theory, which posits that genres are not inherent properties of texts, the central question of this study is how the yuri genre is discursively produced in Japan. To examine this question, the study takes a variety of sources into consideration: Firstly, it discusses ten exemplary texts from the 1910s to 2010s that in the Japanese discourse on the yuri genre are deemed the milestone texts of the yuri genre's historical development (Hana monogatari, Otome no minato, Secret Love, Shiroi heya no futari, BishÅjo senshi Sailor Moon, Maria-sama ga miteru, ShÅjo Sect, Aoi hana, Yuru yuri, and Yuri danshi). Secondly, interviews with ten editors working for Japanese manga magazines shed light on their assessment of the yuri genre. Finally, the results of an online survey among Japanese fans of the yuri genre, which returned 1,352 completed questionnaires, question hitherto assumptions about the fans and their reasons for liking the yuri genre. The central argument of this study is that the yuri genre is for the most part constructed not through assignments on part of the genre's producers but through interpretations on part of the genre's fans. The intimacy portrayed in the texts ranges from "friendship" to "love," and often the ideas of "innocence" and "beauty" are emphasized. Nevertheless, the formation of the yuri genre occurs outside the bounds of the texts, most importantly in fan works, i.e. derivative texts created by fans. The actual content of the originals merely serves as a starting point for these interpretations. Located at the intersection of Japanese studies, cultural studies, media studies, and sociology, this study contributes to our understanding of contemporary Japanese popular culture by showing the mutual dependencies between media content, production, and reception. It provides a deeper look at these processes through first-hand accounts of both producers and fans of the yuri genre.
Recent non-comparative studies diverge in their assessments of the extent to which German and Japanese post-Cold War foreign policies are characterized by continuity or change. While the majority of analyses on Germany find overall continuity in policies and guiding principles, prominent works on Japan see the country undergoing drastic and fundamental change. Using an explicitly comparative framework for analysis based on a role theoretical approach, this study reevaluates the question of change and continuity in the two countries" regional foreign policies, focusing on the time period from 1990 to 2010. Through a qualitative content analysis of key foreign policy speeches, this dissertation traces and compares German and Japanese national role conceptions (NRCs) by identifying policymakers" perceived duties and responsibilities of their country in international politics. Furthermore, it investigates actual foreign policy behavior in two case studies about German and Japanese policies on missile defense and on textbook disputes. The dissertation examines whether the NRCs identified in the content analysis are useful to understand and explain each country- particular conduct. Both qualitative content analysis and case studies demonstrate the influence of normative and ideational variables in foreign policymaking. Incremental adaptations in foreign policy preferences can be found in Germany as well as Japan, but they are anchored in established normative guidelines and represent attempts to harmonize existing preferences with the conditions of the post-Cold War era. The dissertation argues that scholars have overstated and misconstrued the changes underway by asserting that Japan is undergoing a sweeping transformation in its foreign policy.
ASEAN and ASEAN Plus Three: Manifestations of Collective Identities in Southeast and East Asia?
(2003)
East Asia is a region undergoing vast structural changes. As the region moved closer together economically and politically following the breakdown of the bipolar world order and the ensuing expansion of intra-regional interdependencies, the states of the region faced the challenge of having to actively recast their mutual relations. At the same time, throughout the 1990s, the West became increasingly interested in trans- and inter-regional dialogue and cooperation with the emerging economies of East Asia. These developments gave rise to a "new regionalism", which eventually also triggered debates on Asian identities and the region's potential to integrate. Before this backdrop, this thesis analyzes in how far both the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has been operative since 1967 and thus embodies the "old regionalism" of Southeast Asia, and the ASEAN Plus Three forum (APT: the ASEAN states plus China, Japan and South Korea), which has come into existence in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis of 1997, can be said to represent intergovernmental manifestations of specific collective identities in Southeast and East Asia, respectively. Based on profiles of the respective discursive, behavioral and motivational patterns as well as the integrative potential of ASEAN and APT, this study establishes in how far the member states adhere to sustainable collective patterns of interaction, expectations and objectives, and assesses in how far they can be said to form specific 'ingroups'. Four studies on collective norms, readiness to pool sovereignty, solidarity and attitudes vis-Ã -vis relevant third states show that ASEAN has evolved a certain degree of collective identity, though the Association's political relevance and coherence is frequently thwarted by changes in its external environment. A study on the cooperative and integrative potential of APT yields no manifest evidence of an ongoing or incipient pan-East Asian identity formation process.
The vision of a future information and communication society has prompted leading politicians in the United States, the European Union and Japan to influence or even lead the economic and social transition in the context of an active technology policy. The technological development of society, however, is a product of a complex interplay of technological, economic and socio-political constraints. These constraints limit the political decision-making and implementation abilities. Moreover, facts and information are continuously changing during a paradigmatic technological, economic and social shift, which limits political decision-making abilities. This study compares political decision-making to promote computer-mediated communications in the Triad since the beginning of the 1980s, on four levels: the development of a political vision, the long-term aims and strategies, technology policy (e.g. the promotion of technological development and competition policy) and regulatory policy (e.g. universal access, protection of privacy and intellectual property). While technology policy tends to be uncontroversial, during a paradigmatic shift regulatory policy is difficult and lengthy. Nevertheless, the inclusion of interest groups, which rise during this paradigmatic shift and which are close to the technologies and their societal consequences, help to aid decision-making processes. In this context, politics in the United States has been more successful that in the European Union and especially Japan. Although this study predates the rise of eCommerce over the Internet, it addresses many of the themes underlying it. Of these themes, many remain politically unsettled, both on national, supranational and especially international levels. For example, for encryption and secure payments, which are necessary for eCommerce, no international standards do yet exist. The issue of taxation has hardly been opened for discussions. In sum, this study does not only offer a historical overview of the development of the Internet, but it also discusses issues of continuing present concern.