Matching Items (24)
Description
This paper explores how US Cold War nuclear testing in the Pacific Islands has been approached in three different regions \u2014affected Pacific Islands, the US, and Japan. Because the US has failed to adequately address its nuclear past in the Pacific Islands, and Pacific Islander narratives struggle to reach the international community on their own, my study considers the possibility of Pacific Islanders finding greater outlet for their perspectives within dominant Japanese narratives, which also feature nuclear memory. Whereas the US government has remained largely evasive and aloof about the consequences of its nuclear testing in the Pacific, Japan encourages active, anti-nuclear war memory that could be congruent with Pacific Islander interests. After examining historical events, surrounding context, and prevailing sentiments surrounding this issue in each region however, my study finds that even within Japanese narratives, Pacific Islander narratives can only go so far because of Japan's own nuclear power industry, its hierarchical relationship with the Pacific Islands, and Japan's strong ties to the US in what can be interpreted as enduring Cold War politics.
ContributorsHinze, Rie Victoria (Author) / Benkert, Volker (Thesis director) / Moore, Aaron (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
This thesis explores the relationship between the Japanese urban myth of Kuchisake-onna and expectations of motherhood in postwar Japan. The following study was performed with the goal of establishing Kuchisake-onna’s spontaneous emergence in 1970s Japan as a response to the Ūman Ribu (a contracted transliteration of “Women’s Liberation”) Movement, a new wave of feminism. Historically, a Japanese nuclear family unit (ie) was considered to be fundamental to the structure and stability of the nation. As women increasingly sought to shift from their roles as mothers within the domestic sphere in order to pursue employment outside as sararī ūman (“salary woman”), the ie was threatened. At the same time, unrealistic expectations and the pressure of motherhood resulted in numerous cases of filicide in Japan in the 1970s. This research study engages textual history, feminist theory, news/magazine articles, and an analysis of the film Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007). I conclude that Kuchisake-onna’s representation within Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman serves to address a perceived need for liberation from the overly rigid expectations that mothers in 1970s Japan faced to excel within their roles as the custodians of the domestic sphere. However, it also allows for a reading whereby the Kuchisake-onna’s emergence cannot be attributed to a single notion of the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mother. Rather, it is the failure of the ie system which creates insurmountable pressures for these women to fulfill the role of the perfect mother which allows for the manifestation of Kuchisake-onna.
ContributorsShartle, Ryden John Thomas (Author) / Tuck, Robert J (Thesis advisor) / Hedberg, William (Committee member) / Kroo, Judit (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
In 1915, a bear slew and consumed seven residents of a farming hamlet in Hokkaido, Japan. The circumstances surrounding these killings are laden with semiotic gravitas. A comprehensive analysis of the millennia of historical forces that preceded and begat Japan's modern shift is impractical. Rather it is through the identification of the ideal précis of change, and a Thick Analysis thereof, that I arrive at an understanding of how, and precisely when, Japan crossed modernity's rampart. The attacks perpetrated by, and the hunt and dispatch of, the bear include aspects of separation from the past vis a vis their relationship to religion, the Ainu, and the artifacts of daily life. The bear's presence and anthropophagous propensity relate to the primal human urge to practice arctolatry, and Japanese patterns of relationship between men, land, and animals. So too is the gory nature of the incident analytically valuable insofar as macabre events resonate in the breasts of men. Finally, the presence of a monster indicates, as per Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, an epochal liminality. Thus through a disarticulation of this incident, I arrive at a cogent understanding of what sundered Japan from her past.
ContributorsLaichtman, David Aaron (Author) / Fixico, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Hedberg, William C. (Committee member) / Duan, Lei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
In looking at genres of anime geared towards a male audience, the varying messages presented to Japanese men will be analyzed. Throughout this work it will be demonstrated that anime is used to both challenge and reinforce Japanese culture through human physical and family depictions, themes presented and expected masculine qualities aimed at a male audience.
ContributorsHattabaugh, Hunter David (Author) / Green, Heather (Thesis director) / Deacon, Deborah (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05