Ukiyo ad

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Ukiyo - ad

• Some thoughts toward a theory of representation,
  social structuration and cultural values

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Todd Joseph Miles Holden

• Professor, Mediated Sociology
• Department of Multi-Cultural Societies
• Graduate School of International Cultural Studies
• Tohoku University
• Sendai, Japan

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Japanese Media and Identity
Much of my work to date has involved the
intersection between media and identity (in Japan)
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Japanese Media and Identity
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Mediated Identity Defined

• (1) Interactions
• In and through institutions
•  
• (2) And involving significations
• (3)  conveyed through representations of
• sameness
• difference
• (4) by media
• (5) And brought into relief by
• users references to
• Socially-constructed group traits
• Their depiction of relationships
  between/amongst
• Themselves
• Their group
• and/or other groups

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Previous Research on Mediated Identity

• Adentity the filtration of messages about
  self, group, individuality, freedom (and
  contraint) through TV advertising.
• Welcome to my Homepage sampling of Japanese
  home pages in focused areas revealed evidence of
  rather unified selves, intentionally constructed
  for an unknown public to consume.
• Adolechnics how young cell phone users employ
  communication technology to frame, enhance
  self-presentation, and better understand
  themselves.
• Sportsports daily news reports about Japanese
  athletic performance overseas has the effect of
  creating hyper-awareness of national and cultural
  identity.
• The Overcooked and Underdone the various ways
  that masculinities (and femininities) are
  mediated in Japanese TV food shows

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Todays Discussion

• Looks at 2 media or, better, two forms of
  expression
• Ukiyo-e
• Advertising
• And their interrelationship
• Ontologically beyond media I want to think
  about what it means that historically
  continuities can be seen in cultural values and
  practices, as played out in different epochs,
  through very different media.

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Todays Discussion

• Because this particular session addresses
  communication, identity and values, I wish to
  think about matters of form and content.
• Specifically, what are the relationships between
  these twin communication forms and Japanese
  cultural ideas.
• Where I would like this discussion to move is
  toward matters of societal nature
• And also, to some degree, questions of values and
  identity

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Todays Discussion

• In the process, we will talk about the following
  key media practices
• Representation
• Intimacy
• Uchi/Soto
• Mass-mediated bindingness
• Persistence of core cultural values

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Todays Discussion

• As for specific content bearing on cultural
  values, we shall consider
• Privileged Space
• Class
• Social Organization/Order
• Celebrity
• Nature
• Sexuality

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To Begin

• About Contemporary Media
• TV
• Advertising
• About Ukiyo-e

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The Centrality of Television in Japan Today

• In Japan today, there are 6 TVs for every 10
  people
• and a diffusion rate of 100.
• TV is viewed by virtually every Japanese every
  day 95 of the population.
• This has been the case since the 1960s when the
  rate was also 95.
• This far exceeds other popular forms of
  information processing newspapers (86),
  cellphones (73), and the Internet (27).

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The Centrality of Television in Japan Today

• A 1990s NHK study found that, on average, at
  least one TV set played 7 to 8 hours a day in
  each Japanese dwelling.
• Another study found that TV viewing is deemed as
  indispensable by 43 of the population.

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The Centrality of Television in Japan Today

• Today, the average for personal viewing per day
  approaches 225 minutes, and has constantly topped
  three hours since 1960.
• A recent European survey places the number in
  excess of four hours, ranking Japan third in the
  world.
• 261 minutes, this ranks ahead of the U.S. (at 255
  minutes) and behind Mexico (265) and Bosnia
  (287). In the most recent assessment, Japan came
  in second only to Bosnia.

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The Centrality of TV Advertising in Japan Today

• Japans advertising market is the second largest
  worldwide
• Some Facts/Figures
• Advertising outlays for TV outdistance all other
  media sources
• At 34.1
• Its closest alternative conduit is newspapers (at
  19.9).
• It amounts to 223,250,000 just for television
• Dedicated to 957,447 ads
• Consuming 6,016 broadcasting hours per year
• Source Dentsu Koukoku Nenkan, 02 03 Dentsu
  Advertising Yearbook, 2002 2003, Tokyo
  Dentsu, 2002 pp.57,90,89.

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The Centrality of TV Advertising in Japan Today

• Advertising serves not only a major motor for
  Japanese television it also works as one of the
  major means by which cultural communication
  occurs.
• Ads serve a powerful socializing and ideological
  function, narrowly and repetitiously re/producing
  images of gender, cultural values, history,
  nationalism, and political, social and personal
  identity (among others).

• On advertising and gender, see Holden 2000
• On advertising and cultural reproduction, see
  Holden 2001
• On advertising and nationalism, see Holden 2002

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Ukiyo-Ad
Advertisements as Strips

• Japanese ads often adopt the form of panels.
• Ukiyo-e paintings of the 17th and 18th century
  serve as their cultural precursor
• Like ukiyo-e, ukiyo-ads are fully realized (or
  else pieces of fully-realized) worlds.
• They are arbitrary slice(s) or cut(s) from the
  stream of ongoing activity. (Goffman 197410).
  Video still-lifes, if you will.

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The Reality of Strips

• Ukiyo-ads often stand as enclaves of invented
  reality which, nonetheless, are based on and
  transmitted into the real world as their own
  reality

The constant communication of their values and
practices works to re/produce society in accord
with that worldview
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An Example Cosmetics
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The Scenario
A woman enters a bar alone Shes wearing a
clinging, shiny red dress A young man in a white
shirt is behind the bar The woman sits alone at
the bar, caressing the stem of her glass
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The Scenario (continued)
She raises her eyes suddenly to meet the
mans and winks Shocked, the man drops the
glass hes holding As it shatters the womans
lips part Entranced, the man reaches out to to
touch the woman
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The Scenario (continued)

• She meets his touch
• Then directs his fingers to her face

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The Scenario (concluded)

• She regards herself in the mirror of her compact
• We see her embrace the man forcefully

In a voice-over the man utters "is it okay to
touch your skin?"
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Some Media Theory Bindingness

• In recent work (Holden 2004, Holden and Ergul,
  forthcoming) I argue that TV in Japan is a
  binding mechanism.
• TV is one of only a few institutions and set of
  fixed activities with a finite set of codes,
  languages, customs and meanings that are shared
  (at least interpretable) by the entire society
  and engaged in routinely, in a narrow, consistent
  set of ways.

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Some Media Theory

• Moreover, despite a variety of genres, the
  communication tropes, constantly recycled
  personae, and relatively narrow range of content
  work to draw the viewer into an intimate web of
  proximity and common cultural currency.
• One effect is to create a near-national uchi
• A privileged space
• Offering familial-like membership
• A direct link between the viewers world and the
  invented, hidden, non-existent world of
  celebrities
• An ontological configuration predicated on
  in-group secrets whose currency is automatic,
  unconditional warmth one which daily produces an
  ongoing collective history.

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About Ukiyo-e
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Ukiyo-e a precis

• As most of you probably know, ukiyo-e refers to
  the floating world.
• Generally, this referred to
• Transience and pleasure
• Likely because ukiyo-e came of age during the Edo
  period
• a time during which a rising merchant class began
  to emphasize (and subsidize) worldly pleasures
• they frequented the so-called pleasure-quarters
  and patronized theaters.
• These two sources became the early subject matter
  for woodblock prints

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Explaining Ukiyo-e Structurally

• There are 2 key dimensions to ukiyo-es inception
  and proliferation.
• Production
• Factors associated with its development and
  distribution.
• Consumption
• Factors associated with its maintenance and use.

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Explaining Ukiyo-e Production

• The early woodblock prints were generally
  commissioned by the Kabuki and Noh-Theaters and
  by actors as a form of advertising.

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Marrying Media Kabuki and Ukiyo-e

• Ukiyo-e artists produced theater posters and
  playbills.
• These prints, which depicted famous actors,
  helped promote and then preserve the aragoto
  style of acting.

Source http//www.vmfa.state.va.us/ukiyoe/ukiyoe1
.html
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Wedding Commercialized Culture and Communication

• Ukiyo-e prints were created for a mass-market,
  and their publishers dominated the creative
  process. As such
• publishers determined the subject matter
• commissioned artists
• oversaw the creation of the woodblocks, and
• marketed the finished products.
• To heighten public demand, publishers developed
  series of prints which they sold in installments.

• Source http//www.vmfa.state.va.us/ukiyoe/ukiyoe1
  .html

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Explaining Ukiyo-e Consumption

• At ukiyo-es inception there was a fixed social
  hierarchy
• Warriors, farmers, and artisans stood above
  merchants, who were the wealthiest segment of the
  population
• Having their political power effectively removed
  by the shogun rulers, the merchant class turned
  to art and culture as arenas in which they could
  participate on an equal basis with the elite
  upper classes.
• Source http//www.loc.gov/exhibits/ukiyo-e/objec
  t.html

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Explaining Ukiyo-e Consumption

• Ukiyo-e provided not only the merchants, but
  those in the city and in less traditional
  professions a chance to participate in society.
• This offered a means of attaining cultural status
  outside the sanctioned realms of shogunate,
  temple, and court.
• Source http//www.loc.gov/exhibits/ukiyo-e/objec
  t.html
• The key actors in this consumption process
  included actors, artists, townspeople, and
  publishers.

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Ukiyo-e Art High or Low?

• At its inception, Ukiyo-e was not considered a
  fine art, rather it was a commercial art.

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Communicative Arts and Cultural Continuity

• This distinction between High-Low / Fine versus
  Commercial art merits comment.
• As Buruma recently observed, even court
  painters of the Kano School made little
  distinction between decorative and fine art.
  (NYR, June 23, 200514)
• The same could be said in other (and all)
  cultural realms in Japanese cultural
  communications where a tendency to separate high
  from low was not strictly adhered to even prior
  to Modernism.
• Certainly, such melding is characteristic both of
  ukiyo-e and advertising.

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Cultural Continuities

• There are some aspects of ukiyo-e and
  contemporary advertising that warrant special
  note. Both possess
• Production-consumption systems
• Promotional dimensions in their communication
• Referencing of cultural, political, social and
  moral aspects of the surrounding society
• Melding of high and low forms of communication
• Requirements for extremely advanced (popular)
  cultural literacy by their audiences in decoding
  texts

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Societal System, Commercialized Culture, and
Communication

• The fact that ukiyo-e possesses socio-economic
  dynamics similar to the contemporary scene is
  significant.
• The presence of a promotional system (an
  agency/promoter), celebrities, mixed in with
  depictions of everyday life, and the
  commercialized process of advertising these
  elements publicly leads to the spanning/melding
  of societal sectors.
• It also produces societal bindingness between
  message producer, medium, content/consumed
  object, and message consumer.

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The Historical Continuities of Communication/Cultu
re

• This historical continuity in media/system
  matters because I believe it suggests a
  seamlessness between (Japanese) culture and forms
  of communication.
• As such, not only modes of communication, but the
  content of communication persist, helping to
  unify a culture across time.
• Despite political, economic, ideological and
  technological changes, much of what came before
  is found in the present what was found in a
  prior (and very different) medium continues into
  the current moment.

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Ukiyo-e as New Media

• Katsuhiko Takahashi (1992) has argued that rather
  than a form of art, ukiyo-e was akin to modern
  mass media, with the functions of information,
  advertisement and play.
• See Edo no nyu media (The New Media of Edo)
• Viewing ukiyo-e as a fine art is limiting insofar
  as it ignores the functional value of ukiyo-e
  during its time.

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Ukiyo-e as New Media

• An aesthetic and class-based theory is implicated
  in this, but Takahashis examples are most
  salient.
• The author observes that ukiyo-e reported on
  games, depicted scenes from scandal sheets,
  served as commercial messages, as fashion shows,
  and lampoons.
• In some ways this makes it closest to the wide
  show
• It also bears strong resemblance to TV
  advertising

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How to Read Ukiyo-e

• Takahashi concludes in a way similar to
  semioticists who work with advertising or
  cultural studies researchers who assess media
  texts
• ukiyo-e prints should be viewed as objects for
  social anthropological analysis rather than art
  history.
• This is similar, then, to work conducted by, say
  Goffman (1968) concerning gender in North
  American magazine advertising and Holden (2000)
  in Japanese TV advertising.

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Static Media?

• One issue of concern to media theorists but
  possibly less so to those engaged in Japanese
  Studies is whether media are static, discrete
  entities.
• Are they individual in their ontological
  characteristics, their operative aspects, and
  their effects
• Or do they share similar ontologies, operations,
  and effects

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A Theory of Mixed Media?

• Media Studies tends to distinguish between media
  forms
• TV differs from radio, comics are different than
  the Internet
• But is it possible that media are melded?
• Do they share readability
• Is the way one encodes messages the same as the
  way other media encode?
• So, too, is the manner in which one medium is
  decoded by its audience the same as the way in
  which another is decoded?

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A Theory of Mixed Media?

• On this account
• ukiyo-e might bear considerable relationship to
  comics (manga)
• So, too, would it be related to advertising
  either in its tropes of representation, or its
  specific content.
• One might claim historical continuity in both
  form and content (across media).

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Ultimately Ontological Similarity, Analogic
Breakdown?

• Ukiyo-e and TV advertising share extensive
  similarities. Above all
• Their polysemy
• Focus on celebrity
• Attention to everyday life
• Enabling surveillance of privileged, unnavigable
  worlds
• De-centered dissemination of knowledge and
  information
• Reproduction of popular culture

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Distinct Media

• Ultimately, though, we are talking about media
  with different feel, approach and perspective.

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Distinct Media

• Despite similar themes or subjects, these are not
  identical means of communication
• Moreover, the political, economic and cultural
  systems from which they emerged and within which
  they operate(d) differ.

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Ultimately Ontological Similarity, Analogic
Breakdown?

• Above all, some key differences emerge
• Different communication strategies
• TV ads embellish and draw viewers into the world
  of celebrity
• They help forge more intimate links with
  personalities in society who are inserted into
  viewers lives through other genre (and media),
  at other times.
• Thus, ads provide greater genre-spanning
• Ads also manifest a greater bindingness function

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Deeper Ontologies

• As you may recall, I have somewhat whimsically,
  perhaps foolishly grandiosely, sub-titled this
  talk some thoughts toward a theory of
  representation, social structuration, and
  cultural values.
• The theory I have in mind is about communication
  and cultural continuity despite quite radical
  societal change.
• This is what I will now address in the second
  half of this talk.

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Deeper Ontologies I Representation

• Let me begin with Representation.
• It can be thought of in terms of any number of
  elements. Among the most salient may be
• Medium
• Subject
• Perspective
• Modes of address
• Aim
• Tropes

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Deeper Ontologies I Representation

• Today, in the interest of time, I will only look
  at a few similarities and differences between the
  media
• Working toward understanding ways that they
  articulated with the larger culture and society.
• First, I will consider Medium
• In what way(s) was ukiyo-e a different kind of
  medium
• In what way(s) can ukiyo-e be thought of as a
  medium that is similar to or different than
  advertising
• Next I will focus on Perspective
• In terms of modes of address, juxtaposition of
  images, and the construction of a set out of
  serial scenes
• Although this involves Tropes this analysis will
  not delve into that microscopic medium comparison

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Japanese Painting as Medium A quick history of
forms

• Numerous media have been employed in Japanese
  painting over the centuries. These include
• emakimono (Horizontal scrolls)
• Created by pasting single sheets together to form
  a long roll.
• Images were viewed from right to left
• Among the oldest forms of Japanese painting
• kakemono (Vertical scrolls)
• Mounted on a wall
• Has a roller on both ends
• The top roller has a string attached to enable
  vertical hanging
• The bottom roller serves to straighten the image
  due to its weight
• Became popular during the Edo era
• Comes closest to the Western framed canvas
  painting
• byobu (Folding screens)
• Came from China to Japan in the 7th century
• Because of size, use was limited to temples and
  palaces
• As merchant class grew, so did the demand for
  byobu in rich towns
• The subjects were similar to those on ukiyo-e
• fusuma (Sliding doors)

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Ukiyo-e as Medium

• Thus Ukiyo-e represented a departure from its
  national precursors.
• It was in some ways closer to European approaches
  to the presentation of art than earlier Japanese
  models.
• Its mass-produced nature served to bring it
  closer to lithographic print or even
  later-evolving media such as records, movies, and
  television.

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Woodblock Prints as Media

• The Woodblock Print of Ukiyo-e were iterated
  media if not mass, then multiple-produced
  media.
• Unlike paintings, ukiyo-e prints could be
  produced rapidly, inexpensively and in large
  numbers,
• The production of a print involved an artist, a
  printing shop and a publisher.
• After a publisher's approval was secured, an
  artist's drawing went to a printing shop where a
  copyist traced it onto transparent paper.

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The Media Culture Link

• In this way, ukiyo-e were very responsive to
  daily life and culture.
• Here we see connections between media in
  particular ukiyo-e and advertising.
• Herein also lies a link between representation
  and cultural values/practices.

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Representation

• In terms of how it communicated, ukiyo-e employed
  certain approaches to subject and perspective
  that reveal both similarities and differences to
  contemporary advertising.

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Tropes of Representation 1 Serial and Set.
Views of a Subject

• Two of the most famous ukiyo-e artists,
  Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Ando Hiroshige
  (1797-1858), produced famous series of portraits
  revolving around the singular object, Mount Fuji.

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Serial and Set Hiroshige
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Serial and Set Hokusai
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Serial and Set Advertising

• In advertising, the fact that multiple scenes can
  be embedded in one communication can be exploited
  to create a serial/set effect.
• The result is often conveying a variety of
  perspectives, opening into discourse about
  various themes no different than ukiyo-e

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Serial and Set Advertising

• Here, a Pretz campaign employs the SMAP star,
  Goro, who engages in a succession of shared
  snacks/near-kisses with women and young girls

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Serial and Set Advertising

• Ranging in race, age, and attractiveness

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Serial and Set Advertising

• In the process, the ad builds discourse about
  topics such as monogamy

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Serial and Set Advertising

• Ethnic and/or international union

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Serial and Set Advertising

• Culture, Occupation, Class

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Serial and Set Advertising

• Pedophilia

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Serial and Set Advertising

• And identity

if not homosexuality
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Tropes of Representation II Shifting Perspective

• What ukiyo-e was less adept at handling (that ads
  can) is changes in perspective. While the former
  is rather uni-dimensional, the latter is more
  able to change viewpoints, as in the following
  example

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Deeper Ontologies II Structuration

• Social Structuration can be thought of in terms
  of elements such as
• Class
• Group
• Gender
• Economy
• Polity
• Institutions (such as family, religion, military,
  entertainment)

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Deeper Ontologies II Structuration

• Social Structuration in all these dimensions are
  present in both ukiyo-e and advertising

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Deeper Ontologies II Social Organization/Structu
ration

• Ukiyo-e perhaps unintentionally, via the simple
  representation of what was out there,
  effectively conveyed social configuration/order.
• Ads, of course, can do the same, but given the
  democratization of the public lifespace and the
  aim not to disenfranchise consumption
  communities, may do so less often.

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Deeper Ontologies II Class/Structuration

• The ukiyo-e of Edo, in particular was rife with
  images of samurai, as well as nobility, geisha
  and entertainers.
• All belonged to specific classes or orders in
  Japan of that tie.

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Deeper Ontologies II Class/Structuration

• Advertising, as well, is capable of capturing
  social grades from salaried workers, to
  celebrities who move in higher society, to people
  with money enough to engage in leisure pursuits.

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Deeper Ontologies II Group/Structuration

• Just as ukiyo-e depicted relations among people
  of like characteristics, ads often develop
  portraits of those within social groups.

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Deeper Ontologies II Group/Structuration

• So, too, do ads represent relations or accent
  differences between different groups.
• Something found less often in ukiyo-e.

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Deeper Ontologies II Gender/Structuration

• Ukiyo-e generally depicted women indoors
  occasionally they were engaged in domestic labor.
• Ads may be more extensive in the roles they
  allocate for women, but very often they are also
  indoors and performing domestic labor.

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Deeper Ontologies II Economic/Structuration

• Ukiyo-e was also effective at revealing the
  contours of the economic organization of Japan at
  that time.

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Deeper Ontologies II Economic/Structuration

• TV ads do the same revealing the contours of the
  economic organization of Japan today.

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Deeper Ontologies II Institution/Structuration

• Ukiyo-e occasionally represented institutions
  like religion, the military or family.

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Deeper Ontologies II Institution/Structuration

• For ads, it is more often the family, the
  corporation, and (increasingly) the
  celebrity/cultural entertainment system that
  receive attention.

81
Deeper Ontologies III Cultural Values

• Cultural values can be thought of in terms of
  ideas and practices embedded in these
  communications, such as
• Nature
• Sexuality/eroticism
• Groupism
• Consumption
• Celebrity
• Cultural Identity

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Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Nature

• Both ukiyo-e and ads focus on nature as a theme

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Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Nature

• Both ukiyo-e and ads focus on nature as a theme

both as central focus
84
Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Nature

• as well as feeling-inducing background

85
Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Sexuality/Eroticism

• This is a theme that continually appears in both
  media

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Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Sexuality/Eroticism

• A continuity that is meaningful in ways that help
  us see deep historical threads transcending media
  differences.

87
Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Sexuality/Eroticism

• Although ads are more chaste and tend to
  highlight female sexuality and same sex contact
  (as opposed to overt sexual acts).

88
Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Consumption

• While ukiyo-e did include images of consumption,
  this was not a central focus.

89
Deeper Ontologies IIICultural values concerning
Consumption

• Ads, of course, aim to stimulate consumption and
  so that is often what is depicted.
• Surprisingly, as I have shown in other work
  (Holden 1999) concerning product-least
  advertising, ads often de-emphasize or ignore
  consuming goods.

90
Deeper Ontologies III Cultural values
concerning Celebrity

• We have already considered how the aim of
  advertising Kabuki, Noh and their actors served
  as a major spur in the development of ukiyo-e.

91
Deeper Ontologies III Cultural values
concerning Celebrity

• It could be argued that the celebrity culture so
  pervasive in Japan today can be traced back to
  the Kabuki/Noh promotional culture of Edo.

92
Deeper Ontologies III Cultural values
concerning Celebrity

• Certainly, by today, the link between
  celebrity-star and advertising is firmly
  established.

93
Deeper Ontologies III Cultural values
concerning Cultural Identity

• Identity is a theme that courses through
  contemporary advertising it touches on self,
  class, gender, cultural, and national identity,
  among others.

94
Deeper Ontologies III Cultural values
concerning Cultural Identity

• Ukiyo-e, as a more privileged or targeted form of
  communication may have done this less, though
  identity discourse is present

95
Deeper Ontologies IVMedia and Surveillance

• Ukiyo-e, in its heyday, was about the
  representation of (if not the invitation into)
  private, privileged space.
• There was a furtive, surveilling element

96
Deeper Ontologies IVMedia and Surveillance

• This space was not accessible by all
• Though via consumption of the medium, there was
  an ability to gain access

97
Deeper Ontologies IVMedia and Surveillance
Ads work in the same way, treating us to stolen
glimpses inside
98
Deeper Ontologies IVMedia and Surveillance
The worlds of domestic athletes living and
playing in foreign lands
99
Deeper Ontologies IVMedia and Surveillance
Work Inside Corporations
100
Deeper Ontologies IVMedia and
SurveillanceFamily Life
101
Media Divergence
While we have spent much of this talk thinking
about similarities between media, there are
important ways in which they diverge. One is
their presence in contemporary culture
102
Ukiyo-e Today

• The style persists today

But often associated with erotica, divested of
the other cultural and social elements that
ukiyo-e was noted for.
103
Ukiyo-e Today
In some cases, the cultural and social elements
for which ukiyo-e was noted are still featured
above all, nature, performers and human
subjects.., although often in more grotesque or
aberrant ways.
104
Advertising The Truer Ukiyo-e of Today

• However, both in terms of quantity (ubiquity) and
  quality (themes covered) advertising comes closer
  to filling this social role today.
• It treats all the themes once at the heart of
  ukiyo-e
• i.e. privileged space, celebrity, social order,
  nature, and consumption

105
Media Divergence
Beyond this advertising performs communication
functions, such as education cultural
reproduction, but also historical reinvention
elements not exploited as much by ukiyo-e.
106
Intimacy and Uchi

• The claim that is harder to show in the context
  of this talk is the one that I pursue in my
  research on TV.
• Looking at Wideshows, Cooking Shows, News, Quiz,
  Dating and Reality shows, one see that way that
  uchi or an inclusive grouping is created via such
  media.
• Advertising plays a decided role by creating an
  invented, shared space, often invoking many of
  the same human figures and themes that exist out
  in the real world, as well as on the daily news
  and entertainment programs on TV.

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Ukiyo-ad, Intimacy and Uchi

• In some ways this takes us away from ukiyo-e, but
  in other ways it doesnt.
• For here, what we encounter is privileged,
  bracketed, inclusive but private space.
• Viewer-consumers are invited as spies, but are
  also made complicit in their participation.
• Ukiyo-ad is the medium that secures this social
  configuration and creates a national community.

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Conclusion Getting through So What?

• If it was only about similarity in the style or
  modes of representation, that would be nothing
  more than a curiosity
• To some it would also seem less than profound as
  we are talking about shared forms of expression
  in a society that possesses historical continuity.

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Conclusion Getting through So What?

• However, if it is about identical themes
  reproduced in two different forms of
  communication, separated by one to two hundred
  years of cultural development, then that actually
  stands as a fact of significance.

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Conclusion Getting through So What?

• Suddenly what we are talking about is
• Less FORM of expression than CONTENT being
  expressed
• Not simply framed activity, not only carefully
  staged scenes
• Social organization, practices and values which,
  despite major political, economic and cultural
  changes over the years, still bear great
  similarity.

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Conclusions

• As a form of communication, ukiyo-e barely
  persists today (or at least not with the impact
  and cultural position it once had)
• But as a means of concretizing Japan its social
  structure, cultural practices and values it
  stands as a vital communication precursor to the
  way we represent and interpret the world around
  us today.

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Finally

• A bit troubling is what this means for other
  theorization I have formulated concerning
  globalization (Holden 2003).
• There, I advance a notion of distinct careers
  that nations evince based on set of factors such
  as their resource and ethnic mix, political and
  economic institutions, and the like.

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Finally

• In light of todays paper, one must ask What
  does it mean if a nation like Japan has an
  exogenous profile based on temporal diversity a
  set of genotypically distinct careers but an
  endogenous profile based on continuity of
  cultural values?
• Is this a problem of ontology or of epistemology?
• But I will leave the adjudication of that dispute
  for another day.

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Thank You for your attention