Prof. Koichi Iwabuchi (Monash University): Popular culture, national branding and cultural diversity in Japan

In the last two decades, we have witnessed the rise of Japanese popular culture and its international flows and consumption. In many parts of the world, especially, in East Asia and Europe, the development has enhanced the appreciation of Japanese culture and engendered cross-border dialogic connections in an unprecedented manner. However, it is an open question whether and how the increased exposure to Japanese popular culture has led to a greater understanding of the diversity of contemporary Japan. This question is of vital importance, given the growing prevalence of the promotion of nation branding and inter-nationalized circulation and display of popular cultures, which re-highlights distinctive national cultural borders and nation consciousness in new forms. Revisiting the development of transnational media culture flows and connection in the Japanese and East Asian context, this lecture will consider how it overtly and covertly contains and discourages the engagement with growing multicultural situations within national borders and how we can move beyond the predicament. I will suggest the significance of “trans-Asian” perspectives and collaboration towards the further advancement of cross-border dialogue.

Prof. Koichi Iwabuchi is Chair Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Director of Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Melbourne.
He is the editor of book series, Asian Cultural Studies: Transnational and Dialogic Approaches (Rowman & Littlefield International). His English publications include Resilient Borders and Cultural Diversity: Internationalism, Brand Nationalism and Multiculturalism in Japan (Lexington Books, 2015); “Cultural citizenship and prospects for Japan as a multicultural nation” (in Y. Soysal ed., Transnational Trajectories in East Asia: Nation, Citizenship and Region, Routledge, 2015); East Asian pop culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave (co-eds with Chua Being Huat, Hong Kong UP, 2008); Recentering Globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism (Duke UP 2002).