Filed under: Academic stumbling blocks, Resources, Reviews | Tags: Academic stumbling blocks, Reviews
One of the biggest hurdles in learning Japanese is taking that step from learning basic/intermediate Japanese in class to reading actual Japanese literature, whether that’s newspapers or the latest Harry Potter. For me, the problem is rarely grammar, but frequently kanji and vocabulary. I’m always working on that in some form or other, but recently I was told that Japanese Ph.D. students need to know 1,000 kanji on entering the program. Ouch. To see how far I have to go, I printed out a list of the kyouiku kanji, the 1,006 characters Japanese kids learn in elementary school*, and tested myself on their readings and meanings. Good news: I could come up with a fair bit for most of them even with no context for the characters, and I was able to get at least something for almost all of them. Bad news: most isn’t all, and even if I remember the meanings and readings of characters A and B I may not know the reading and meaning of the word AB. Worse news: I was surprisingly bad at getting all of the information for the “easiest” characters. What’s happening is that I learned a lot of characters way back when and never saw them again. Remember the character for bamboo? You probably do (I did), but when’s the last time you read anything with the word bamboo in it? It’s one of the first characters they teach because it’s simple and a simplified version of it is part of other kanji. A lot of the ones I’m forgetting are like that: easy, but I haven’t seen them in years.
I’m now doing all sorts of stuff both to remember that which time has left in the dust and to learn new kanji. But this is a common problem, everyone who studies Japanese faces it at some point. So I thought I would post mini-reviews of some of the best resources I’ve found for pushing yourself from intermediate/advanced into advanced/fluent.
Japanese Cultural Episodes for Speed Reading is pretty much what it says it is. It’s not intended to teach grammar (or vocabulary, really). Instead, it has 74 roughly one page-long essays on simple cultural questions like “Do you greet people you don’t know in the apartment elevator?” featuring various fake characters. There are eight or twelve questions after each reading to ensure that you understood it, followed by a short vocab list.
I have to admit, I love this book. I’ve only just started using it, but it’s wonderful. The vocab list is nice, but it’s also clearly meant to be cumulative: どうりょう is defined (“colleague”) in episode one, but when it shows up again in episode four you’re expected to remember it. And they go out of their way to ensure that words like that pop up again, so you get to see useful words multiple times (repetition is key for remembering that stuff). They give you furigana in the readings for names (a sticking point for most Japanese-learners), but nothing else, so you don’t use it as a crutch. If I get to a word and look at its meaning only to find that it’s incredibly simple, I know immediately that I need to study. In works with tons of furigana, sometimes I catch the furigana out of the corner of my eye and read that before even noticing the actual kanji. That doesn’t help me practice.
Final verdict: This book rocks. It’s an easy read, but it incorporates a variety of words that you’re likely to hear (unlike those textbooks that teach you words you may hear once in a blue moon), and it supports both reviewing kanji you know and learning those you don’t. It’s a great way to keep your hand in, if you’re worried about forgetting what you’ve learned.
*Apparently they’re reviewing and expanding this list this spring. That kind of depresses me.
Inspired in part by talk at Dr. Crazy’s about syllabi (here and here), and challenged by a friend, I’ve been thinking about making a sample syllabus for a course for fun and practice recently. (Wild times at my house, my friends.) The challenge was for an intro contemporary Japanese literature course, but after giving it some thought I don’t feel ready to make a syllabus for that topic yet. Japanese literature isn’t my thing. I’m intending, should I ever make it into a Ph.D. program, to study it more, and I’ve been consciously reading much more of it (in both English and Japanese) recently, but I’m not at that level yet.
I actively avoided modern Japanese literature for a long time. I don’t like I-novels, and since I was such an immature scholar it wasn’t as though I lacked things to study. I’ve taken several courses now that either focused on or included decent chunks of premodern Japanese lit, so despite my contemporary pop culture interests I’m more comfortable with premodern than modern lit. After a lot of thought, I ended up deciding to try making a syllabus for an intro course on anime and manga.
I’m working on that now. I seem to think about syllabi a bit differently from my friend and Dr. Crazy. I can’t just come up with a list of things I want to cover, I have to organize them more. For example, I was thinking that if the class was longer (two or three hours) – which is the length of the pop culture courses I’ve taken in the past – a good way to deal with the first day would be to do all of the standard introductions, have them read the first chapter or two of Peach Girl and then show the first episode of the anime. If I were just making a list of stuff that I felt was important enough to cover, Peach Girl would never make it on there. But when I start thinking about what issues I want to cover, the relationship between anime and manga comes up. The first episode of Peach Girl stands out in my mind as a perfect example of taking each picture and word from the manga directly to the screen and animating the necessary bridging movements. Showing the students such a plain adaptation going in would, I hope, set them up to look for more complex adaptations in everything else we watch.
That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I’ve got some ideas for themes and concepts that I would want to cover, but I have to figure out how to best get it all together. I think this project might take awhile, but I’m excited about it. After I get a syllabus done for this course, I think I might make one for a course on Japanese film. If the beginning of the anime course came to me quickly, the end of the film course is just early; naturally, Millennium Actress would be perfect last-day viewing.
I missed a page of my notes when I posted yesterday, so here are the last two:
In response to a question about a generational disconnect between anti-military 60 year-olds, pro-military 40 year-olds and twenty-somethings,
“Well, I am 64 years old now. I took part in the Vietnam demonstrations in my youth. Um, everybody has their youth.” -Yukio Okamoto, saying more by silence
And finally, on the effects of rude comments about the president,
“Regarding what someone would call the U.S. president, I think they’re used to being called pretty much anything.” -Richard Armitage
The more I work in DC, the more I’m impressed by the quality of our statesmen and our allies’ statesmen. (I don’t work too much with our, um, non-allies.) I can’t recall ever meeting a senior member of the Foreign Service who I wouldn’t be proud to have represent myself and my nation. They all seem able to effortlessly make critical points – but in a way that doesn’t feel as though you’re being criticized. It’s a skill I wish I had. Whenever I deal with them, making progress just seems easier, natural. I’m glad we’ve got them working for us.
Quotes from the 16th annual Japan-U.S. Security Seminar, which I attended awhile back.
“How long [do we have to speak]?” -Shinichi Kitaoka
“About seven minutes. After seven minutes, there’s a trap door that drops you into the bowels of the Willard Hotel.” -Ralph Cossa
“A woman went in to see her doctor. He said ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you’ve only got a week to live.’ She said ‘Oh no, is there anything I can do?’ He said ‘Well, you can go and marry a U.S.-Japan security specialist.’ She said ‘Will that help?’ He said ‘No, but a week will feel like forever!’” -Richard Armitage
“I tend to be an optimist also, but that may be more a commentary on my mind than the facts.” -William Perry, with one of my new favorite quotes
After a questioner was referred to CNA for the answer to their question:
“Hi, I’m Mike McDevitt, and I am employed at CNA.” -Mike McDevitt
“Yeah, you can turn your resumes in to Mike on the way out.” -Ralph Cossa
Note: Tim Keating recently retired. Prior to his retirement, he was a four-star admiral in the U.S. Navy, i.e. in charge of a lot of important stuff.
“Thank you. I’m Tim Keating, and I’m unemployed.” -Tim Keating
And in that vein,
“You know, I’m also unemployed, so I have no way of knowing what the DPJ is thinking.” -Yukio Okamoto, former Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan
Don’t read this if you don’t want to know how the anime Gilgamesh ends.
There is a relatively unknown anime called Gilgamesh that I like. I bought it way back when (okay, only a few years ago), but I just wasn’t getting around to the end of it. Over the mass of holiday days (off work, that is) around Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s I finally got up the necessary impetus to finish it off in an orgy of about twelve episodes over a long weekend. I know that that doesn’t sound that hard – I mean, I’ve seen twelve episodes of different things in single days, and then gone back for more – but this series has a few things working against marathon viewing. For one thing, it’s bleak. The ending of the series is “gather the main dozen-or-so characters in one place, kill them off one by one except for the last two, then bring on the apocalypse”. Seriously, that is an exact description of it. The rest of the series, well, is in line with the ending.
The other factor against watching this one in marathons is the animation. They either put a lot of money into it, or not much at all, and I honestly can’t tell. At first I thought it was rather well funded, but when I started marathoning the end, I was struck by what looked like cheap animation. Did they run out after spending most of their budget on the earlier episodes? Was mediocre animation covered by cool character/world designs from the start? Was I just rushing to the point where everything became a blur in my eyes? All are equally possible.
I finished the series a few weeks ago now, but it still haunts my mind. I had trouble figuring out why, until I finally made the connection with history/the past. One of the things that attracts me most about anime is the way it serves as a sort of gateway drug for students. You like the cartoons? You would understand them better if you spoke Japanese. You adore Rurouni Kenshin but have no idea who these ishin shishi and shinsengumi are? Why not try a little history? That’s how I got into it all, and even the most casual fans are often interested in hearing someone explain juuuust a bit of Japanese language/culture/history/et cetera if it makes them understand their favorite series more.
So, what’s the connection with Gilgamesh? Gilgamesh takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. (I know – I said that the show ends with an apocalypse. It does; there are TWO apocalypses. As I said, it’s dark.) We find out the reason for the apocalypse in the last episode, and it is…
A woman’s jealousy.
Seriously.
We can call down apocalypses now.
(You know, for all that I’m outraged as a feminist, I’m rather attracted by the thought of having that power. Perhaps it’s for the best that this is a load of hogwash.)
Anyway, when I first heard this, I was appalled. I mean, seriously!?! In this day and age, we’re supposed to believe that a brilliant, beautiful young scientist can be so consumed with suppressed jealousy that it takes on a life of its own and destroys most of the world? And then goes on, some years later, to destroy the rest of it? Naaah, I don’t think so.
But then I got to thinking. That’s what we scholars are supposed to do, and it shouldn’t have taken me so long, but there you go. Woman+jealousy=death. Where have I heard that before? Lady Rokujou, perhaps? Tale of Genji, anyone?
In the Tale of Genji, Lady Rokujou becomes so jealous of Genji’s other women that her spirit leaves her body – without Lady Rokujou’s knowing – and kills one of them. The other woman in question is below Genji, class-wise. This parallels Gilgamesh fairly closely. The Countess (Lady R-) becomes jealous of the brilliant Terumichi Madoka’s wife. In this case, class isn’t the issue so much as intelligence. Both the Countess and Madoka are brilliant scientists, the wife is simply a sweet girl – a photographer. In addition, though I said earlier that the Countess’ spirit causes the apocalypses, it’s more complicated. The Countess’ jealous spirit enters into and then is embodied by an ancient power called Tear. The Countess knows nothing of this for years afterward. So you could say that the Countess’ spirit went wandering just like Lady Rokujou’s.
I’m not really sure what to do with this, though. So the story riffs on the preeminent work of classical Japanese fiction, so what? It’s still horribly sexist. But this one bit of history gives us a handle on the rest of the series.
Leave out the ending; simply consider the rest of the series. Do bad things happen to women? Yes. Do bad things happen to men? Yes. Are they comparable? Often, or at least that appears to be the intention. (I’m thinking here of some characters’ issues with finding out that they are clones. Wouldn’t bother me, but it was presented as horribly scarring to those characters.) And there appears to have been some editing. From the copious material that came with my DVD’s, I learned that one scene was originally intended to be a rape scene. I also learned that that episode was given to a female director and suddenly it was consensual sex. That’s not definitive proof of anything, but I’ll still cheer a little for involving women in the industry at decision-making levels.
There’s also the issue of history/legends in the story overall. As you might guess from the title, Gilgamesh is a new take on the legend of Gilgamesh. The legend of Gilgamesh doesn’t have female characters that I know of, but Gilgamesh has them in spades, and in important positions too. The anime isn’t a direct take on the legend, but builds off of it. So I can see tying the question of arrogance in Gilgamesh to the issue of jealousy in Gilgamesh. After all, what is jealousy if not the arrogance to argue that you are better for your beloved than anyone else? The past runs through Gilgamesh like water in Kyoto. Understand that past and new meanings open up for you. But I don’t think that that denies the previous meanings; jealous-women-end-the-world just doesn’t sound right to me.
On Monday I saw The Princess and the Frog. I saw it because I, like many others, followed the debates and controversies about Disney’s first black princess, Tiana, and I wanted to see the outcome of those debates for myself.
I was fascinated. I’m not sure how it stacks up lyrically against such classics as The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, but there was some serious, intense animation going on there. Before I get into that, I should explain a bit about the story. The movie, as you may have heard, was set in New Orleans, in the mid-World Wars period. The movie is closely involved with Creole/mish-mash culture and style. In fact, the vibrancy of the melting pot is a strong message underlying the entire movie. The entire movie, from start to finish, is moving. Here, there, everywhere. The little mermaid went from her hideout in the sea to the palace, the surface, the beach, et cetera, but that movie was really divided between under the sea and land. In contrast, we see a variety of different cultures/ways of life in The Princess and the Frog, from our heroine’s home in a semi-poor black section of town to her rich friend’s mansion lifestyle to bayou life. Each culture is presented as a valid way of life, with none demonized.
The lack of demonization showed up most clearly for me in the character of Charlotte, one of Tiana’s friends. Rich and spoiled, Charlotte was perfectly situated to be a new kind of evil stepsister – this time with shades of racism, as Charlotte was white. Instead, Charlotte was depicted as kind but thoughtless, a girl who was willing to give up her chance to become a princess – once someone pointed out that doing so would bring her friend true love.
However, she is an example of what I’m talking about, not what I want to focus on. That is the role the animation plays in tying this movie into the rest of the Disney pantheon, and the resulting political implications. Oh yes, political implications in Disney. I was struck.
Anyway, onto the animation. In keeping with the theme of energy and production in diversity, the animation for The Princess and the Frog riffs on several previous Disney movie styles. The memorable lagoon love song scene in The Little Mermaid is mirrored in a shot of the two frogs sitting on a little boat in the bayou as singing fireflies light up lotus lamps floating in a circle around them.
Yup, you read that right. Ariel’s big scene got co-opted to argue that frogs (read: people that don’t look like you) can/should have the same love experiences and opportunities as all the previous movies’ heroines. But it doesn’t end there: several other movie’s art styles were used at different points in the movie. I won’t name them all (because I probably didn’t notice them all), but the opening shots of New Orleans and Charlotte’s mansion are reminiscent of the artwork in Cinderella, and the ending credits are images of the bayou done in the style of Sleeping Beauty. In other words, the force and power of the previous Disney movies is used to legitimize The Princess and the Frog. At the same time that this variety of animation styles is strengthening the new movie, the fact that what could have been a cacophony of dissonant art styles does strengthen the movie underscores the overall message of strength, energy and unity in diversity.
Disney is not known for putting strong political messages in their films – quite the opposite, in fact. And the value of diversity isn’t exactly a new message. But what struck me was how thoroughly Disney went after that particular point. We see it in the storyline, where a poor, hardworking girl and a profligate prince both teach each other a bit about life. We see it in the animation, where several art styles are woven seamlessly (and skillfully) together. We see it in the characters from all walks of life who help the romantic leads along. And on, and on, and on. Disney could easily have just done a black princess movie. But they chose a couple messages (the other big one being the value of hard work) and hit those suckers with a sledgehammer. I’m impressed, Disney. I hope to see more works of this quality from you in the future.
Filed under: Academic stumbling blocks, Video games | Tags: Academic stumbling blocks
Normally I dump most of my Christmas money in savings, but this year I decided to try a new sort of investment: books. I used a large part of my Christmas funds to buy academic books on yokai, anime and postmodern Japan, as well as the newest issue of Mechademia. I also got some books to read for fun, and the second volume in a fantasy series by a successful female Japanese author who I’m rather fond of. At the same time, I something like ten new video games. Meanwhile, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to drag through that list of anime that I really ought to have seen, but haven’t managed to get to yet, and those new series that I ought to know about. And I’m trying to clear out those books that have been haunting my shelves for years unread. (All that doesn’t even include the basic reading in Japanese that I need to do for a class I’m taking/to keep up with kanji.)
It’s a lot to do.
So I’m wondering about order, now. What should I do first? In the past, I’ve read several books at once without trouble. But many of these are academic books, which really need sustained, undivided attention. All the same, I can’t help but feel the draw of new books in the house. The anime are relatively easy – new series I watch as they come out, old series I tackle one at a time in depth. (At the moment, I’m working on Peacemaker Kurogane, at roughly two episodes per night.)
Video games are a bit different. I got a new Wii for Christmas, so many of the new games are doubling as exercise (Wii Tennis, for example). I can’t start all the games at once, though. I just can’t pick up new configurations of keyboards/controllers that quickly. At the moment, I’m doing the exercise-style games the most, to negate the extra eggnog/cookies of the past month or so.
What seems to be working is making a schedule. I made one for anime and it’s progressing relatively smoothly. I’m hoping my second book order will be in when I get home today. If it is, I’ll set down all of the books currently available and order them as well. With any luck, I should expand my knowledge of the relevant scholarship a lot over the next few months. However, I think it will go more like this: with book schedule in hand, I am inspired by New Idea for research. New Idea is related to a field which is not reflected in my new book stash, so new books get set aside for… probably more new books. And then I have even more old books that were bought but never read!
I don’t think this problem is specific to me. Have you had it? How do you deal with it?
Filed under: Academic stumbling blocks | Tags: Academic stumbling blocks, influence
Recently I’ve been writing back and forth with Another Scholar about various people’s impressions of an academic who put out a problematic book about a decade ago. While not her first book, it was her most heavily marketed book, and in a new field of studies. It all got started because AS was upset with various negative comments online about the scholar in question. I promptly got upset because AS lumped anyone with a negative opinion of the scholar together and dismissed all of our opinions.
I’m not going to rehash all the arguments for or against that particular scholar. I’m more interested in the issue of time and age in this argument. That is, there were two groups of people interested in this book when it came out: fans of the works discussed and academics who were interested in the new field growing around the study of these works. At the time, I was one of the fans, albeit one who was interested in becoming an academic. Now, this is a decade ago. Today there are tons of academics working in the field, some as a bit of dabbling on the side, others as a more serious focus (like AS), and then people like me, who basically only work in it. On the fan side, a lot of the fans who were interested in the topic a decade ago are still here, or course, but then there are those who have been into the field since before I was born (and man, do I envy their knowledge), and there are also a lot of casual fans.
AS’ interest in the field is a bit less intense than mine. After all, it’s not her main field. She doesn’t remember the intense interest and hope that this book generated among fans. She doesn’t recall the concerted marketing push – aimed at fans, who knew the field in question inside and out – that led to that interest and hope. She hasn’t read all of the first edition of the book. Finally, though I’ve recently learned that her knowledge of the field is more extensive than I had thought (Yay! Let interest in my field spread like a plague!), I’m not persuaded that she knows how very, very many properties there are available, leading her to judge the author’s knowledge of those properties much more kindly than I would, or the fans in question did, given that this book was supposed to survey all the works. (That’s definitely an arguable point, to be clear.)
After thinking things through a bit (okay, a lot), I’m convinced that the operative issue here is time. AS looks at the works of a more mature scholar, one who watches her citations and is more careful about the sources she discusses. As such, she’s willing to overlook past mistakes, particularly those that she hasn’t seen and isn’t in a position to judge the severity of. In other words, AS is acting in the present.
The fans she’s irritated with, however, have a decade-old grudge going. They were sold a new! interesting! book that was all! about! their veryfavoritething! … and totally sucked. I mean serious disrepect for the very topic the author was writing about. People bought it because it was supposed to be academic, so it was only to be expected that they might not easily grasp its contents while flipping through it at a convention. When they sat down to read it, they found tons of what I used to call “stupid mistakes” in math class: those errors so basic you could only make them because you weren’t paying attention. The smart part of your brain was not in attendance.
So these people bought this book, read it, found nothing of worth in it, felt insulted by it and then… nothing. They couldn’t get their money back. The scholar was an academic; she wasn’t going to get fired because of a bunch of fans’ displeasure. In fact, scholars who knew nothing about the field thought it was great that she had written a book about this new thing. The only thing to do was rant on the ‘net – which fans did, in droves. A new edition eventually came out (because the author wanted to expand a section of the original, because it had sold well, and, as a distant third reason, to fix some of the major mistakes in the original), but of course no one was dumb enough to believe the marketing this time. People felt like they’d been had. Over time, memories of the specific insults grew fuzzy, but that feeling of being had remained.
AS knew that the scholar’s work wasn’t well regarded by fans, but wanted to know why. I had briefly explained why to her at one point, but she wanted more information. So she went online and searched. I’m still not sure what exactly she found (though I have a rough idea), but she characterized it in a negative and insulting fashion that pretty much dismissed anyone who didn’t like the scholar’s works.
Time, I think, is the important factor. At this point, fans aren’t posting careful discussions of the original work online, if they happen to post about the scholar. They aren’t likely to post about her later works, because who of them would invest the time in a disgraced scholar? Moreover, AS is at a time in her career where she needs to know that this scholar is worthy (she’ll be working with the person in question in the future). So AS doesn’t feel the past wrongs and is likely to look closer at more current, favorable writing that is more likely to have an impact on her, while fans are likely to be unaware and uncaring of later, redemptive works. Meanwhile, here I am once again trying to navigate fans and academia, exacerbated by the issue of when and under what circumstances each side reads the scholar’s works. It’s a tiring position for me, and I think that being put in it so often leads me to be a bit more abrupt than I should. After all, haven’t I explained this before? Still, if one doesn’t battle on, who will? I don’t like being an imperfect gateway between different groups, but I really want there to be a gateway. I feel like having a problematic mediator is better than having none.
I’ve been writing this blog for about a year now, writing more and more frequently over time. Still, I don’t write that often. (I’m working on it, really.) So I was surprised to find today that my li’l ol’ blog pops up on the first page of the Google search “avatar racefail”. Go me.
Yeah, that’s all I really had to say. I’ll follow this up with a proper post soon, promise.
Filed under: Academic stumbling blocks, theory | Tags: Academic stumbling blocks, anime, Movies, theory, TV shows
One of my perpetual irritations as a scholar of anime and manga is the disdain that most academics hold for fans. I’m not even talking about those scholars who just think all popular culture is trash. No, I’m talking about a subtler form of disrespect. I’ve been reading some old issues of the Journal of Asian Studies – going through the book reviews for things I ought to have read – and came across a review of Japan Pop! in the May, 2001 issue that brought it to mind. I should note that the author of the review isn’t blatantly disdainful, it’s just that the introduction to the review brought it to mind. She tries to briefly summarize the reason why Japan Pop! was put together (to bring together fans and academics) by casting fans as pleasure-seeking consumers and academics as critical analysts. This is a false dichotomy.
This particular dichotomy pops up a lot, so I’ll unpack it a bit. The review’s author does note that some academics are fans, but says that even so they want to analyze. The problem is that “analysis” is a very vague term that suggests intelligent/thoughtful action. If you sit down and think for a second, you can probably remember sitting down with someone at some point and going over a character’s motivations; that’s analysis! People do it every day. Pop culture fans in particular are known for incessantly going over what character did what in what series, why, what things in the real world might have nudged an artist toward making this, that or the other creative decision… Given the zounds of hard-core fans (to say nothing of casual movie-goers) out there and the relative paucity of culture-focused academics, fans analyze popular culture far more than academics.
Well, hey, now, how many fans reference Foucault, you might be thinking. I will grant not a ton, but more than you might think. How many students try to write papers on their favorite movie or TV show for their Intro Whatever course? In my experience, rather a lot. (And that’s not even counting all the other aspects of pop culture.) However, let’s leave aside how often – and critically – fans think about series. What about the academics?
This is where the disdain issue bugs me. Okay, irritates the heck out of me. One of the earliest academic books about anime is often favorably mentioned to me by academics who don’t really know their popular culture. (I won’t mention it, but if you know anime you most likely know the one I’m talking about.) Now, this book has gotten rather good reviews from various academics, and is looked down on by fans. Some of these academics know that fans look down on the book and take that to mean that the fans are silly widgins who just don’t care about critical thinking.
The book in question is full of factual inaccuracies. I’m talking everything from getting references wrong to getting plot/character details wrong. Admittedly, messing up a reference happens to everyone at some point, but this book is a particularly egregious example. The plot issue, however, undermines the whole book for me. A lot of the author’s arguments are based on the plots and characters of a handful of main anime – and s/he gets them wrong! Throughout the book!
I’ve heard academics who purport to study anime and manga argue that getting those plot details wrong doesn’t really matter. Really? Getting the facts that you’re basing your argument on wrong doesn’t undermine your argument? Seriously?
Let’s be honest: if I wrote a book about women in the Tale of Genji and I confused all of Genji’s paramours I would get jumped on faster than lightning. I would probably never get a job in academia again.
I’m not writing this to say that ye random anime of the week is of equal quality and academic interest to the first novel ever written. The thing is, anyone who is seriously trying to study popular culture needs to treat it with the same respect that other academics treat whatever they focus on.
Back to the fans=fun-loving lack of thought, academics=Serious Inquiry dichotomy, when a fan reads an academic book on their topic, they may not know the obscure scholar whose works are briefly mentioned on page 13 (and yes, most of the scholars referenced in academic work are obscure). They will know the series under discussion, and possibly have extensive knowledge of production details, including things like whether the studio pushed for sex scenes that the director never wanted, whether the series had to be ended early because the magazine it was published in was folding, assertions of plagiarism and so on. All of this affects the final product, and fans know it. Academics writing on popular culture are talking to a well informed audience – that happens not to know as much about critical theory as we do. Sloppy research will be caught quickly, and why would fans respect an academic who proves, on every page, that s/he does not know what s/he is talking about?
I’ll give another, similar example. Japan Pop! is a bit different than the unnamed book above. It’s meant to bring together academics and fans, and it came from a conference aimed at the same. It ends up being a bit uneven as some of the authors focus more on fans or more on academics, but that’s to be expected. Still, I remember wondering why a Canadian girl’s Sailor Moon doujinshi was included. Fans already know about doujinshi, and if the idea was to show academics who didn’t know anything about Japanese popular culture about the vibrancy of the doujinshi industry, why not include a Japanese one? Another article in the book argued that a shoujo manga showed great gender equality in Japanese culture – but looked at that one manga alone, without comparing to a sea of cookie-cutter manga that all show female characters being almost – but not quite – as smart as the boys. Taken as a group, the issues become clear, but the author missed the larger themes.
When I write, I try to assume what I’ll call a high level of uninformed intelligence. My imaginary reader may not have seen the movie or book in question and may not have learned the theories I’m using, but she has the ability to understand all of the above. That approach has, generally, worked for me. Even if an author assumes that I know five series and seventeen theories that I’ve never heard of, though, it’s fine with me so long as it’s clear that they know what they’re talking about. When you are blatantly uninformed about the topic that you chose to write about, however, I will have little interest in your work.
