- Apr 11, 2013
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS! Japan Festival Boston
NEJETAA is excited to announce we will have a booth at The 2013 Japan Festival. This year the Japan Festival will focus on the theme of “matsuri,” to be held Sunday, May 19, 2013, 10:00am-6:00pm at Boston City Hall Plaza (Green line, Government Center station).
We are currently seeking volunteers willing to help plan, or to help staff the booth throughout the day, minimum 1 hour, but we’d love you if you stuck around for more :-). If you are interested, please email your availability to Stephanie: president at nejetaa.com
The Japan Society of Boston and Regge Life (director of Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story) will also have their own booths at the festival, and they’re looking for volunteers as well. Bhaird is still planning, and Regge would like to host fun activities or games for kids, in memory of Taylor’s role as an ALT. If you’re interested in helping out at their booths, please contact Bhaird Campbell at Campbell at JapanSocietyBoston dot org or Regge at theodore_life at emerson dot edu.
- Apr 10, 2013
As the start of April finally seems to be bringing some hints of spring, NEJETAA hopes you can join us in taking advantage of the nicer weather and longer days with a few of our upcoming events.
Our next General Meeting is on Tues. April 16 at 6pm at Uno’s in Harvard Square (Red Line T stop). Click here for a map.
We hope you can attend, especially if you’re thinking about running for an officer position in the next elections in May. Positions include Vice President, Treasurer, and Social Chair.
Please RSVP to Katie (social at nejetaa dot com) if you can attend. We hope you can join!
The next event for MIT Cool Japan: an exciting opportunity to hear Prof. David Novak (UC Santa Barbara) speak about his forthcoming book on the Japan noise music scene, Thursday, 4/4, 5pm, Room 4-231, MIT. FYI, he will also be giving a different talk at Boston University on 4/3 (Wed). Info on both are below.
David is an ethnomusicologist and musician who has spent years exploring the bizarre and fascinating global underground movement around noise performances. Free and open to the public, reception to follow. Please share with friends, colleagues, and students via lists, social media, etc.
MIT Cool Japan research project & Comparative Media Studies present:
The Cultural Feedback of Noise
Prof. David Novak
UC, Santa Barbara
Thurs., April 4
5:00 – 7:00 PM
Room 4-231, MIT (map)
free and open to public, reception to follow
David is author of a forthcoming book Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation
ABSTRACT: Noise, an underground music made through an amalgam of feedback, distortion, and electronic effects, first emerged in the 1980s, circulating on cassette tapes traded between fans in Japan, Europe and North America. With its cultivated obscurity, ear-shattering sound, and over-the-top performances, Noise captured the imagination of a small but passionate transnational audience, despite remaining deeply underground.
How did the submergent circulations of Noise become such a compelling metaphor for the complexities of globalization, intercultural exchange and participatory media at the turn of the millennium? Novak will trace the “cultural feedback” of Noise through the productive distortions of its mediated networks: its recorded forms, technologies of live performance, and into the lives and creative practices of musicians and listeners.
BIO: David Novak’s work deals with the globalization of popular music, media technologies, experimental culture, and social practices of listening. He is the author of recent essays in Public Culture, Cultural Anthropology, and Popular Music, as well as the book Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation (Duke University Press, June 2013).
Sponsors: MIT Cool Japan, MIT Comparative Media Studies, MIT Foreign Languages & Literatures
Contacts: fll-events at mit dot edu, Prof. Ian Condry, condry at mit.edu
More info on Boston University talk below.
Hope to see you there!
Best,
Ian
Ian Condry
Associate Professor, Head, Foreign Languages and Literatures
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Comparative Media Studies
MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Ian’s NEW BOOK: The Soul of Anime is OUT NOW. Read the Introduction free on scribd.com or buy on Amazon
DAVID NOVAK WILL ALSO TALK AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY ON 4/3 WED. Why not see both?
“Music, Media, and the Creative Destruction of Japanoise”
A lecture/book launch event at Boston University by
David Novak
Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology
University of Santa Barbara, California
Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 5-7 pm
CAS Room 116
Boston University
725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston MA
David’s forthcoming book Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation (Duke University Press, 2013) traces the transnational development of the underground genre Noise in Japan and North America. His recent research focuses on the politics of sound in urban Japan, particularly the impact of noise regulations on public culture, both in antinuclear protests and among homeless and migrant labor communities in South Osaka.
Sponsored by
BU Center for the Studies of Asia
BU Department of Anthropology
BU Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology