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UTokyoX: UTokyo001x Visualizing Postwar Tokyo, Part 1

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the course, you will be able to:

  • list noteworthy factors which promoted the development and change of Tokyo in the postwar period
  • explain the impact of the U.S. occupation on the people and city of Tokyo
  • describe the change of “gazing” relationship between the emperor and people in Japan
  • explain the impact of Tokyo Olympic Games on the landscape of Tokyo
  • describe how Shinjuku achieved its development in the 1960s and identify the factors which led to its economic-cultural clash

NOTE

Please note that you cannot download the lecture videos due to the copyright issues.
Subtitles for the films in Japanese are provided by the University of Tokyo.

Modules and Themes  

Module 1: Occupation and Americanism    *(mm:ss) indicates the time for video lectures.

  1. Views from The U.S. Air Force (5:38)
  2. Views from People in Tokyo (4:18)
  3. The U.S. Army as a Camera (7:10)
  4. Sudden Americanized Lives (11:29)
  5. Occupation in the Center of Tokyo (6:51)
  6. Washington Heights and Harajuku (8:08)
  7. Shonan Beach (6:11)
  8. From a Military City to a Commercial City (12:45)
  9. Tokyo: Imperial City / Colonial City (12:29)

Module 2: Imperial Gaze and Royal Wedding

  1. Entrance and Disappearance of the Emperor (8:39)
  2. Tokyo: Imperial Capital (6:55)
  3. Occupying the Emperor's Image (9:32)
  4. Reconstructing the Emperor's Image (10:01)
  5. Imperial Palace after the War (10:31)
  6. The Royal Wedding (9:18)
  7. The Royal Family: Old and New (8:34)
  8. The Mass-Mediated Emperor System in Postwar Japan (10:21)
  9. TV Stations, the Occupation and the Post-Imperial City (7:35)
  10. The End of Showa and the Limits of the (Post-)Imperial Gaze (9:59)

Module 3: The Olympic City

  1. Celebrating the Economic Growth (11:41)
  2. Creating the National Heroes on TV (13:01)
  3. Olympic as GAIATSU (Outer Pressure) (11:39)
  4. The Tokyo Olympics 1940 (10:53)
  5. Failure of the War Damage Reconstruction Planning in Postwar Tokyo (13:27)
  6. From War Reconstruction to Olympic Construction　(8:21)
  7. From Military to Sports　(12:37)
  8. Tokyo Reaching for the Sky　(9:41)
  9. The Tokyo Olympics and Loneliness in the City (11:01)

Module 4: Economic-cultural Clash in Shinjuku

  1. Concentration and Urban Culture (12:49)
  2. Shinjuku as a Transportation Hub (8:22)
  3. Shinjuku as the New Buisiness Center (5:43)
  4. Shinjuku 1968 (10:24)
  5. Concentration of Culture in Shinjuku (7:15)
  6. Visualising Shinjuku 1 (7:41)
  7. Visualising Shinjuku 2 (9:14)
  8. Conclusion (9:29)

Books for Reference

For those who would like to study further, the following books are recommended by Professor Yoshimi. 

Module 1: Occupation and Americanism

  1. Dower, J. (1986). War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific. New York, NY: Pantheon.
  2. Dower, J. (1995). Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays. New York, NY: New Press.
  3. Igarashi, Y. (2000). Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  4. Klein, C. (2003). Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
  5. Molasky, M. S. (1999). The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and memory. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
  6. Gordon A. (Ed.). (1993). Postwar Japan as History. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
  7. Seidensticker, E. (1990). Tokyo Rising: The City since the Great Earthquake. New York, NY: Knopf.

Module 2: Imperial Gaze and Royal Wedding

  1. Brinckmann, H. (2014). Showa Japan: The Postwar Golden Age and Its Troubled Legacy. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle.
  2. Dower, J. (2000). Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York, NY: W W Norton.
  3. Field, N. (1993). In the Realm of a Dying Emperor. New York, NY: Vintage.
  4. Gilroy, P. (2000). Without Guarantees: In Honor of Stuart Hall. Brooklyn, NY: Verso.
  5. Low, M. (2012). Japan on Display: Photography and the Emperor. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
  6. Gluck C., & Graubard S. (Eds.). (1993). Showa: The Japan of Hirohito. New York, NY: W W Norton & Co Inc.
  7. Takashi, F. (1998). Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Module 3: The Olympic City

  1. Collins, S. (2008). The 1940 Tokyo Games: The Missing Olympics. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
  2. Yoda T., & Harootunian H. (Eds.). (2006). Japan after Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present. Durham, NC: Duke Univ Press.
  3. Gerteis C., & George T. S. (Eds.). (2013). Japan since 1945: From Postwar to Post-bubble. London,UK: Bloomsbury Academic.
  4. Lin, Z. (2010). Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
  5. Poulton E., & Roderick M. (Eds.). (2008). Sport in Films. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
  6. Tomlinson, A., & Young, C. (2006). National Identity and Global Sports Events. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
  7. Mangan J. A., Qing L., & Collins S. (Eds.). (2012). The Triple Asian Olympics – Asia Ascendant: Media, Politics, Geopolitics. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.

Module 4: Economic-cultural Clash in Shinjuku

  1. Condry, I. (2006). Hip-hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke Univ Press.
  2. Godoy, T., & Vartanian, I. (Eds.). (2007). Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books.
  3. Marotti, W. (2013). Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan. Durham, NC: Duke Univ Press.
  4. Moriyama, D. (2006). Daido Moriyama: Shinjuku 19xx-20xx. Ostfildern, BW: Hatje Cantz Pub.
  5. Sand, J. (2013). Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
  6. Standish, I. (2011). Politics, Porn and Protest: Japanese Avant-garde Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. New York, NY: Continuum.
  7. Hayashi M., Yoshitake M., & Sas M. (Eds.). (2012). Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-garde. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art.
  8. Turim, M. C. (1998). Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast. Oakland, CA: Univ of California Press.
  9. Whiting, R. (2000). Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan. New York, NY: Vintage.

Course Staff

Shunya Yoshimi

Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies
The University of Tokyo

Shunya Yoshimi is a Professor of Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Media Studies. He is the author of many books on cultural theory, urban culture, international exposition, media culture, information technology, the emperor system, and Americanization in modern Japan and East Asia. He has been a leading scholar in the field of Media and Cultural Studies in contemporary Japan. He has been a visiting fellow of El Colegio de Mexico (1993), Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sciences Sociales (1998), University of Western Sydney (1999), and Queensland University (2000). He is a member of the executive committee of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (Routledge), editorial board of Cultural Studies (Routledge), associate editors of Theory, Culture & Society (Sage), and the editorial advisory board of Japanese Studies (Carfax Publishing).

Sam Holden

Teaching Assistant

Sam recently completed a Master's Degree at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, conducting research in urban studies. He is currently an editor at Akasaka Bunka Co., a research and publishing company that focuses on Tokyo's postwar history and geography.