Beyond Japan with Oliver Moxham

Oliver is joined by Dr Sonia Favi, researcher at the University of Turin, to discuss the history of imagined travel. Sonia’s digital exhibition, ‘Travels in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868): A Virtual Journey’, explores how late-Edo period maps indulged the imagination of those unable to journey across the country, something all too familiar in the wake of COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Download the full transcript here (PDF)

Watch with subtitles on YouTube

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Nanban byōbu by Kanō Naizen (Folding screen depicting ‘Southern barbarians’ – i.e. European travellers – as they land on Japanese shores). First quarter of the 17th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[R] Measured map of the Tōkaidō Highway by Ochikochi Dōin and Hishikawa Moronobu (1690) 東海道分間絵図; Tōkaidō bunken no zu; 東海道分間之図. John Rylands Research Institute and Library.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Maud Rowell, blind freelance journalist and author of Blind Spot: Exploring and Educating on Blindness, to discuss Infrastructure for the Blind. Maud’s upcoming James Holman prize-winning project, ‘Where Birds Won’t Go’, will see her independently travel to the most remote regions of Japan and write a book on her experiences, all the while demonstrating that accessible public infrastructure can benefit us all. She also lays out how informed attitudes towards blind people go a long way to supporting independence.

Read Maud's book, Blind Spot: Exploring and Educating on Blindness.

Watch Dr Mona Minkara's Planes, Trains and Canes travel series.

Download the full transcript here (PDF)

Watch with subtitles on YouTube

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Cover art for Blind Spot: Exploring and Educating on Blindness by Maud Rowell.

[R] White Cane on Curb Cut with Shadow by cheapsurrealist is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Brittany Rapone, PhD candidate at the School of Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes University, to discuss attitudes towards pets and animal cafés in Japan. Brittany walks us through the cultural commonality of human-animal relationships and the “rent-a-pet” model of animal cafés in Japan, providing the iyashi, or “comfort”, of animal interaction at an hourly rate.

Download the full transcript here (PDF)

Watch with subtitles on YouTube

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Cat café photo provided by Brittany Rapone.

[R] "Enticing for an owl cafe" by neil.dalphin is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Viviana Andreescu, Associate Professor of Justice Administration at the University of Louisville, to discuss public opinion on capital punishment in Japan. Viviana’s 2020 article, ‘Public opinion and the death penalty in Japan’, took a look at over 2,500 responses of the Japanese General Social Survey to gauge who supports the death penalty and who would recommend it as a member of the relatively new Citizen Judge System.

Download the full transcript here (PDF)

Watch with subtitles on YouTube

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] E. The Hangman's Noose by John Twohig Photography.

[R] Solitary confinement by Chris.Gray.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Wuon-Gean Ho, printmaker and research associate at the University of West England’s Centre for Print Research, to discuss the place of mokuhanga, or woodblock printmaking, in the global spread of traditional crafts. Wuon-Gean Ho walks us through her path to mokuhanga,  her experience learning from a master printmaker in Japan and how  learning these traditional methods have shaped her growth as an artist.

Watch Wuon-Gean's V&A film

Download the full transcript here (PDF)

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Lockdown Chop by Wuon-Gean Ho.

[R] No Lake View, No Cake by Wuon-Gean Ho.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Dr Andreas Musolff, professor at the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia, to discuss the body politic and how metaphors for nations vary across the world. Andreas shares the insights from his recent book, National Conceptualisations of the Body Politic: Cultural Experience and Political Imagination, covering an 8-year survey of over 2,000 students across 29 countries.

Download the full transcript here (PDF)

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Musolff (2021) Fig 1 - Britain as a body politic as portrayed by a UK student.

[R] The frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan shows a body formed of multitudinous citizens, surmounted by a king's head.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Dr Koto Sadamura, Robert & Lisa Sainsbury Research Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute, to discuss the place of humour in art through the works of the eccentric 19th century painter Kawanabe Kyōsai. Kyōsai’s specialty of kyōga, or “comic pictures”, have historically been overlooked when compared with his more traditional works, despite being of equal skill and cultural significance. Koto also unpicks how comic devices such as inversion of legendary figures were used to depict humorous situations which people of all classes could relate to, much like the memes of today.

Koto's exhibition, Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection, will be held at the Royal Academy of Arts from 19 March — 19 June 2022.

Mentioned works by Kyōsai:

Demons playing the game of go (Tokyo National Museum)

Shoki chasing demons (Christie's)

For more of Kyōsai's works, see the online collections of the MET and the British Museum.

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Kawanabe Kyōsai, Night Procession of One Hundred Demons (detail), 1871–89. A pair of six-fold screens; ink and colour on paper, 146.8 x 310 cm each. Israel Goldman Collection, London. Photo: Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University.

[C] Kawanabe Kyōsai, Cats Carrying Giant Tweezers to Torment a Catfish, 1871–89. Hanging scroll; ink and light colour on silk, 97.8 x 36.1 cm. Koto Sadamura.

[R] Kyōsai, Hell Courtesan (Jigoku-dayū), Dancing Ikkyū and Skeletons (detail), 1871–89. Hanging scroll; ink, colour and gold on silk, 137.1 x 69.3 cm. Israel Goldman Collection, London. Photo: Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Kaitlyn Ugoretz, anthropologist of religion and a PhD candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at UC Santa Barbara, to discuss the global appeal of Shinto in the digital era. Kaitlyn introduces us to online Shinto communities as old as the internet itself, as well as the many international faces of Shinto, from official shrines in the USA to localised rituals and Marie Kondo’s brand of spiritualism.

Read Kaitlyn's article, “The untidiness of Marie Kondo’s eclectic spirituality”.

Check out Kaitlyn's YouTube channel, "Eat Pray Anime".

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Clip art provided by Kaitlyn Ugoretz.

[R] Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Seattle, WA, USA.

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Dr Aya Homei from the University of Manchester to discuss family planning, looking at how Japan’s history of medical science has influenced policy and its impact on the current aging population. Aya unpacks historical attitudes in Japan towards child-bearing held by individuals and the nation and explains that through scientific thought of the time, such as eugenics, much can be understood about attitudes today in Japan and East Asia.

IMAGE AND AUDIO CREDITS

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] Graph of birth rates provided by Dr Aya Homei.

[R] "A Japanese newborn- having babies is service to the nation, in a way!" by shankar s. is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.

Oliver is joined by Dr Jonathan Wroot, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Greenwich, to discuss Samurai in Cinema. Together, Jonathan and Oliver take a look at the many faces of samurai in Japanese cinema and their global influence on film producers. Jonathan also focusses on Zatoichi, the lone blind swordsman that has graced film and TV in Japan and elsewhere for over 50 years.

Read Jonathan's new book, The Paths of Zatoichi: The Global Influence of the Blind Swordsman - Remakes, Reboots and Adaptations

Credits:

Intro-outro music: jasonszklarek / MotionElements.com

[L] The Paths of Zatoichi: The Global Influence of the Blind Swordsman - Remakes, Reboots and Adaptations

[R] Heihachi from Seven Samurai by show and tell

Copyright © 2022 Oliver Moxham, ℗  2022 Oliver Moxham. May be freely distributed for education purposes.