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Producing the People

in The Pan-African Nation: Oil and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria

This chapter focuses on the making of Nigerian national culture within the broader black and African world, because it brings into bold relief the very logic of spectacle as a form of cultural ... More

This chapter focuses on the making of Nigerian national culture within the broader black and African world, because it brings into bold relief the very logic of spectacle as a form of cultural commodification. It approaches this important notion as a basic inversion of simulacrum and original—a kind of commodity fetish writ large—whereby an exhibited “people” became more real and authentic than the lands and peoples themselves. That this transformation was in fact quite fundamental to the political ontology of the colonial exhibition is well demonstrated by several studies of British and French imperial culture. But in the postcolonial context of an oil-rich Nigeria, the consequences were very different. The transformation of the public sphere that Nigeria sought to achieve in FESTAC developed into a simulated arena of national participation which was underwritten by oil, projected from “above,” and ultimately detached from its popular base.Less

Japan’s Popular Culture Powerhouse

Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin

in Regionalizing Culture: The Political Economy of Japanese Popular Culture in Asia

This chapter examines the commodification of popular culture in Japan as well as the capacity of the domestic market to manufacture and export anime, movies, video games, television programs, music, ... More

This chapter examines the commodification of popular culture in Japan as well as the capacity of the domestic market to manufacture and export anime, movies, video games, television programs, music, and manga. It first considers the structure of Japan's cultural industries and the process of cultural commodification based on examples from music, television, and manga in order to provide a broad picture of the Japanese popular culture markets. It then discusses the main features of popular culture production and the capacity of Japan's cultural industries for production, consumption, and export. It also explores the role of “freeters” and “otaku” in Japan's popular culture production, along with the Japanese government's involvement in the production and export of popular culture and its initiatives to support the sector. It argues that the structure and size of the domestic market and the experience of Japan's cultural industries at home have fostered the competitiveness of Japanese popular culture products abroad.Less

¿Droga o terapia?(Drug or Therapy?)

Carolyn Merritt

in Tango Nuevo

What does tango's global renaissance say about contemporary life? Are addiction and therapy flip sides of the same coin, and is there a threshold for suffering in tango? Are new tango venues and ... More

What does tango's global renaissance say about contemporary life? Are addiction and therapy flip sides of the same coin, and is there a threshold for suffering in tango? Are new tango venues and practices more relaxed than their traditional counterparts? Or should we rank experience (and cathartic potential) according to “authenticity?” What does the growing tango industry mean for dancers seeking an experience traditionally described as priceless? This chapter frames tango as a form of resistance to the disconnect of modern life through moving portraits of “tango therapy”; these are juxtaposed, in turn, with vignettes of hierarchy and violence in tango venues old and new. Tango commodification is explored through the dance's global renaissance, contemporary desires to consume authenticity, and shopping as therapy, while the traditionalist emphasis upon quality over quantity is contrasted with the novice desire/necessity to accumulate experience. Reflecting on my own ambivalence towards a dance whose rewards are ever changing and whose culture retains vestiges of sexual violence, I argue that tango seduces through its endless contradictions and challenges.Less

Locating the Tango

Carolyn Merritt

in Tango Nuevo

Where does Argentine tango exist? Does it rightly belong to some more than others? How will dependency upon global interest and tango tourism impact the dance over time? Do government efforts to ... More

Where does Argentine tango exist? Does it rightly belong to some more than others? How will dependency upon global interest and tango tourism impact the dance over time? Do government efforts to market Buenos Aires and Argentina through tango curb innovation? Why is it that foreigners so vehemently protest the dilution of tango's purity? Can contemporary trends find their place within this beloved tradition, or do they represent rupture-not only with the past but also with the romance of culture and place? This chapter presents the political economy of contemporary tango. While government patrimony policies, tourism campaigns, and advertisements often reduce the tango to stereotype, foreign desires to preserve and consume authenticity bespeak equal parts reverence and arrogance. Discussing my own journey in tango and across continents, and my evolving feelings toward experimentation in the wake of a life in Buenos Aires. I highlight the enduring significance of place, and I argue that the evolution of the dance represents continuity through transformation.Less

Comedy, Class, and Nation

Philip Tew

in The Oxford History of the Novel in English: Volume 7: British and Irish Fiction Since 1940

This chapter studies the comic novel. If British and Irish culture in the post-war decades underwent some radical social and political upheavals, the novel registered and critiqued these ... More

This chapter studies the comic novel. If British and Irish culture in the post-war decades underwent some radical social and political upheavals, the novel registered and critiqued these transformations in part through the development of a particular comic mode. Comedy in British and Irish novels published from 1940 to 1973 often turned around the difficult intersection of class and nation. Alongside this overarching attention to class and nation, a number of other recurrent motifs can be traced in the comic novel of the period, such as the representation of cultural commodification, the decline of traditional values, and the emergence of new forms of youth culture. In the context of such widespread changes to the narratives that shaped public life, the comic novel expressed an ironic scepticism concerning the capacity of any cultural narrative to offer an adequate account of contemporary identities.Less