Series on Cultural Responses to 3.11
at Sophia University

invites you to our next talk:

This Machine Kills Nuclear Power Plants: The Music of Resistance in Post-Fukushima Japan

Alexander Brown
Research Student, Hitotsubashi University

April 27th, 2012; 6:30-8pm
Sophia University, Yotsuya Campus
Bldg. 10, room 301
http://www.fla.sophia.ac.jp/about/location

Free and open to all
Lectures in English

Abstract
The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March has led to the recomposition of an anti-nuclear movement in Japan.
Musicians representing a wide variety of genres have participated in the large anti-nuclear rallies that have been organised in Tokyo by urban activist grouping Shirōto no Ran (Amateur Riot). Music has always been an important medium for expressing concern and dissent in Japan. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 prompted The Blue Hearts to compose their classic tune ‘Chernobyl’. After Fukushima, young female rapper M.C. Rumi, who joined the protests in Kōenji, reworked one of her raps into a critique of the nuclear industry. Reggae artist Rankin Taxi’s popular ‘You Can’t See It and You Can’t Smell It’ has been re-released. Rock artist Saitō Kazuyoshi rewrote one of his songs with new, anti-nuclear lyrics to express his anger and dismay. Music is an important aspect of political protest. Technological systems, such as nuclear power plants, are embedded in intricate webs of cultural representation. The nuclear industry in Japan has been built around a culture that emphasised the ‘myth of safety’ (anzen shinwa). In this paper I analyse the role of music in the creation of ‘cultures of resistance’. I show how musicians have responded to the disaster by criticising the nuclear industry and expressing their hopes for a nuclear-free Japan. In doing so I emphasise that social movements involve not only demonstrations and overt political activity but the creation of rich ‘cultures of resistance’.

Alexander Brown is a PhD candidate at the University of Wollongong in Australia where he is undertaking research on precarity and subjectivity in contemporary Japanese social movements. He is currently based in the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Hitotsubashi University as part of a research studentship funded by the Japanese government. Alexander's research aims to trace a cultural history of the new wave of social movements that has been emerging in Japan over the past ten years. His work draws on autonomist Marxist theories of class composition and political subjectivity in post-Fordist capitalism.

SERIES ABSTRACT: Since March 11, 2011 artists, authors, musicians, filmmakers, professionals and amateurs, have responded in various ways to the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown. These have ranged from choreographic demos, live and recorded performance and a wide range of media interventions, to fashion, fiction and music. Folk, pop or high culture, these have forced us to reexamine the role of cultural practices in the dynamic between the political and personal. In addition, there has been an enthusiastic revival of past cultural practices addressing related issues.

This series will feature small and informal workshops events over the course of the next year. Contact me off-list if you are interested in presenting and we will see if we can work up a suitable event:
dhslater[at]gmail.com.

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David H. Slater, Ph.D.
Faculty of Liberal Arts
Sophia University, Tokyo