In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan’s cultural industries have found themselves in a precarious position. While inbound tourism and interest in Japanese literature and popular media have only increased in the 2020s, the devaluation of the yen and increased global geopolitical tensions have created economic and political issues that have in turn impacted the country’s much-vaunted soft power initiatives. At the same time, growing cultural diversity within Japan and the increasingly global nature of media production have created new opportunities and possibilities for artists, writers, and other media creators.

What does 'soft power' mean to Japan in the 2020s? This symposium will assess how cultural and soft power is understood and negotiated in Japan’s cultural industries since COVID, moving past earlier paradigms such as the government-led 'Cool Japan' initiatives of the late 2000s and 2010s. It will consider how global interest in Japanese media products intersects with ongoing economic and geopolitical issues and reexamine what 'soft power' itself is and what it can do in an increasingly unstable and rapidly re-militarising world. Areas of discussion will include shifts in Japanese literary translation, the globalisation of media industries such as anime and video games, and how changing economic and geopolitical conditions have reshaped perceptions of 'Japan' both domestically and internationally.

Convenor: Professor Linda Flores, Fellow in Japanese Studies, Pembroke College  
Organiser: Dr. Patrick Carland-Echavarria, Tanaka Junior Research Fellow in Japanese Studies, Pembroke College
Keynote Speaker: Professor Susan J. Napier, Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International and Cultural Studies, Tufts University

Register for the Conference in-person or online here.

The Tanaka Symposium in Japanese Studies is generously funded by a grant from the Tanaka UK-Japan Educational Foundation.

Susan J. Napier is Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric and Japanese at Tufts University. A specialist in Modern Japanese Literature and Popular Culture, she is the author of five books. Her most recent, Miyazakiworld, (Yale, 2018) has been translated into twelve different languages. She is currently finishing a book comparing Walt Disney Studios with Studio Ghibli, titled Miyazaki and the Mouse: Disney, Ghibli and the Pursuit of Enchantment. This spring she has been an Academic Visitor at Oxford, affiliated with the Nissan Institute at St. Antony’s College and Pembroke College, where she is working with Professor Linda Flores. The Japanese government recently announced that Napier will be conferred with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.