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July 4, 2016

[SSJ: 9455] Japan History Group, ISS, University of Tokyo, 13 July 2016 at 18:00

From: Naofumi Nakamura
Date: 2016/07/04

The next meeting of the Japan History Group (JHG) at the Institute of
Social Science (ISS), University of Tokyo, will be held on Wednesday, 13
July 2016, at 6:00 PM, in 307 Meeting Room (307 Kaigi-shitsu), 3rd floor of
the Main Building of ISS, Hongo Campus.

Presenter: Hiromu Nagahara (Associate Professor, MIT)

Title:"The Battle of the Drums at the Imperial Palace Plaza: Music,
Cultural Hierarchy, and the Modern Japanese State"

Discussants: Roger Brown (Professor, Saitama University)


Abstract:
On the morning of March 6, 1934, a violent scuffle broke out between some
of the ten thousand marchers who had congregated at the Imperial Palace
Plaza to celebrate the Empress' Birthday and the police officers guarding
the Plaza. The conflict apparently centered on a disagreement over the type
of drum that the marchers would be allowed to use for this occasion.
Notably, the incident was discussed shortly afterwards in a Diet committee
that was meeting to debate the government's proposed revision to the
Publication Law, which stood as the cornerstone of the Home Ministry's
censorship apparatus. This presentation will use both the incident that
took place at the Palace Plaza as well as its subsequent discussion within
the Diet as a springboard to highlight the broader politics of cultural
hierarchies that were at play in modern Japan, with a focus on the modern
Japanese state's deeply fraught relationship with music. The talk will also
serve as an introduction to the forthcoming monograph *Tokyo Boogie-Woogie:
Japan's Pop's Era and It's Discontents* (Harvard University Press, February
2017).

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Dr. Naofumi NAKAMURA
Professor of Business History
Institute of Social Science,
The University of Tokyo
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