[ebooks] The Heart Of John Middleton by Elizabeth Gaskell in Arts-Photography

Description

Nuclear power has been a contentious issue in Japan since the 1950s; and in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster; the conflict has only grown. Government agencies and the nuclear industry continue to push a nuclear agenda; while the mainstream media adheres to the official line that nuclear power is Japans future. Public debate about nuclear energy is strongly discouraged. Nevertheless; antinuclear activism has swelled into one of the most popular and passionate movements in Japan; leading to a powerful wave of protest music. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music After Fukushima shows that music played a central role in expressing antinuclear sentiments and mobilizing political resistance in Japan. Combining musical analysis with ethnographic participation; author Noriko Manabe offers an innovative typology of the spaces central to the performance of protest music--cyberspace; demonstrations; festivals; and recordings. She argues that these four spaces encourage different modes of participation and methods of political messaging. The openness; mobile accessibility; and potential anonymity of cyberspace have allowed musicians to directly challenge the ethos of silence that permeated Japanese culture post-Fukushima. Moving from cyberspace to real space; Manabe shows how the performance and reception of music played at public demonstrations are shaped by the urban geographies of Japanese cities. While short on open public space; urban centers in Japan offer protesters a wide range of governmental and commercial spaces in which to demonstrate; with activist musicians tailoring their performances to the particular landscapes and soundscapes of each. Music festivals are a space apart from everyday life; encouraging musicians and audience members to freely engage in political expression through informative and immersive performances. Conversely; Japanese record companies and producers discourage major-label musicians from expressing political views in recordings; forcing antinuclear musicians to express dissent indirectly: through allegories; metaphors; and metonyms. The first book on Japans antinuclear music; The Revolution Will Not Be Televised provides a compelling new perspective on the role of music in political movements.