Lillian TSAY

Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies,

The University of Tokyo

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Keywords: travel media, food tourism, Japanese media, Taiwanese food, Chinese cuisine, tourist gaze

This research examines the discourses and representations of Taiwanese food in Japanese travel guidebooks, catalog magazines including Chikyuu no Arukikata, Rurubu as well as special issues of women’s fashion magazines. It challenges the existing interpretations that food tourism is simply motivated by the taste rather than the visualized experiences. Although food tourism is becoming a fashionable leisure activity in Asia, few studies have addressed the role of the media and how they may embody a deeper significance in intercultural understanding which is largely visual.

In this research an interdisciplinary approach is applied to examining the representations of Taiwanese food in Japanese travel media from postwar to contemporary Japan. These print media sources are examined by discourse and semiotic analysis within the theoretical framework of Urry’s concept of “the tourist’s gaze” (1990) and Farrer’s idea of “the culinary contact zone” (2015). The analysis establishes that Japanese tourists are not merely consuming the food itself but that they are realizing their imaginations from stimulus received from these travel media. In this “gustatory gaze” the food “images” embody a larger context of Japan’s longings for the South in their imagination, Chinese culture, together with the affinity in Japan-Taiwan relationships.

Further research will be based on interviews to be conducted among Japanese tourists to assess the effects of media on their gaze.

Hanako SEO

Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies,

The University of Tokyo

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Keywords: “Developing the Inaccessible Land”, “The Construction Record of the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant”, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, PR films, nuclear energy

This research analyzes the representation of nuclear energy in PR films from 1959 to 1968, based on interviews and the private papers of the producers. This is important because until now Shunya Yoshimi (2012) and Hiroyuki Shimizu (2013) have argued about the representation of nuclear energy in PR films in Japan using limited sources, and have not been concerned so much with the social context of orders and producers.

Thirteen PR films, including the newly discovered “Developing the Inaccessible Land” (1968) from five archives were analyzed: Kirokueiga Hozon Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Library, Kawasaki City Museum, Neoneo Meets!!, and the Science Film Museum. These sources were examined using the methods of historical sociology. This revealed that PR films had three meanings: Atoms for Peace, Technology, and Modernization. It also discovered that the producers of two of the films had different views from the aim of nuclear power promotion, instead concerned about documenting the reality of nuclear power.

Further research will be needed to reveal how PR films were perceived at the time and the social context of their audiences.

Sera MUTO

Graduate School of Education,

The University of Tokyo

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Keywords: awe, admiration, adoration, respect, emotion words

This research argues that awe is prototypically a negative emotion for (and being forgotten by) modern Japanese people. This is important because previous studies, especially in western countries, often consider awe as a positive emotion. This research shows important empirical findings from a series of my previous questionnaire studies on my own theoretical framework of the “respect-related emotions” (Muto, 2014) such as awe, admiration, adoration, and respect in Japanese people. Over 2,500 students in several universities participated in several paper-and-pencil questionnaires at their own university and about 800 adults sample ages 20–79 participated in an online survey. Collected data were all statistically analysed. First, I found that the two words “ifu” and “ikei,” both denoting awe in Japanese, take on negative affective valence compared with other respect-related emotion words. Surprisingly, about 30% of university students and 15% of adults participating in this study answered that they did not understand the meaning of either word. Next, I found prototypical emotion episodes of awe in Japanese university students and its shared and unshared characteristics with other respect-related emotions. Finally, I discovered that awe as an emotional trait in Japanese university students correlated negatively with their self-esteem and subjective well-being. These empirical data all suggest that awe is prototypically a negative emotion in modern Japanese people, contrary to western experience.

Katsufumi MATSUI

Graduate School of Interdisciplinary

Information Studies,

The University of Tokyo

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Keywords: video sonification, interactive sonfication, boundary synthesizer, sound-image relationship, audiovisual performance

This research examines a video sonification framework, that is, seeing and hearing performance that transforms the visual “boundary” in moving sceneries’ images such as cityscapes, to sound waves. It creates correspondence between sound and image for an audiovisual performance. This is important because previous research argued that a vast majority of existing image sonification uses color-to-sound or raster scanning approach. In addition, existing research does not make the strong connection between sound and image embodied in this approach. Video sonification was also influenced by Matsumura’s image sonification, “Dip in the wave” and “Graph-Sono” (2008), converting outline to sound wave simply. Our sound synthesis technique was also based on “Scanned synthesis” (2000), the effective system of controlling a dynamic sonic wave.

For this research, overall system implementation was developed as audiovisual performance system and sound installation. Users can play with Boundary Synthesizer by changing video inputs, controlling the frequency and manipulating the image data with video effects.

This research discovered that Boundary Synthesizer was an intuitive and expressive instrument that generates dynamic sounds and images at the same time. Further research will be needed to evaluate the correspondence between sound and image results and intuitiveness in this interface.

KOO Jeehoe

Doctoral Program,

Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies,

The University of Tokyo

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Keywords: fall of Edo Castle, Ooku, Buddhist temples, the abolition of Buddhism,women’s belief, gender discourse

This thesis investigates the changing relationship between the high-ranking women in the Ooku (the organization of women in the Tokugawa Shogun’s household) and Buddhist temples in the late Edo and early Meiji period. This is important because previous studies overlooked the ‘changing’ relationship between women and religious institution in the new era, which followed the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the persecution of Buddhism.

This research analyses historical documents from Dai Nihon Komonjo (Shiryo Hensanjo, the University of Tokyo), and primary sources from Buddhist temples, especially the Honganji Shiryo. Using gender discourse methodology, these reveal how women coped with social change through changes in their beliefs. Future research will analyse women at different social levels, not just those in the Ooku.