Imagining the Global

Abstract

Based on a series of case studies of globally distributed media and their reception in different parts of the world, Imagining the Global reflects on what contemporary global culture can teach us about transnational cultural dynamics in the 21st century. A focused multisited cultural analysis that reflects on the symbiotic relationship between the local, the national, and the global, it also explores how individuals’ consumption of global media shapes their imagination of both faraway places and their own local lives. Chosen for their continuing influence, historical relationships, and different geopolitical positions, the case sites of France, Japan, and the United States provide opportunities to move beyond common dichotomies between East and West, or United States and “the rest.” From a theoretical point of view, Imagining the Global endeavors to answer the question of how one locale can help us understand another locale. Drawing from a wealth of primary sources—several years of fieldwork; extensive participant observation; more than 80 formal interviews with some 160 media consumers (and occasionally producers) in France, Japan, and the United States; and analyses of media in different languages—author Fabienne Darling-Wolf considers how global culture intersects with other significant identity factors, including gender, race, class, and geography. Imagining the Global investigates who gets to participate in and who gets excluded from global media representation, as well as how and why the distinction matters.

We Heart Japan: Fan Citizenship and the Role of Institutions in the Response to Japanese Earthquakes

“…While interest in the U.S. market declined during the 1980s, official distribution never fully went away, despite fans’ claims that fansubbing filled a void lacking content at all. Darling-Wolf (2015) also reminds us that not all Western nations share the antagonism that has existed in the past between the United States and Japan that led to a resistance toward Japan and its popular culture that necessitated fans playing a role in bringing the content to the United States, with France in particular having a long-standing tradition of sharing culture with Japan that more easily facilitated the spread of anime into the nation.…”

Fukushima Fallout in Japanese Manga

“…Beyond Japan’s borders, manga and anime have enjoyed longstanding influence in the United States and Europe. Darling-Wolf (2015) connects the development of France’s visual culture to the influence of Japanese aesthetics, art, and fashion on the country, otherwise known as Japonisme. More contemporarily, to understand the importance of manga in a global context is to situate the literary form within the country’s cultural and economic policy of “Cool Japan” (Brienza, 2014).…”

The “Lost” Miyazaki: How a Swiss Girl Can Be Japanese and Why It Matters

“…As I have argued elsewhere, however, recognizing hybridity is but a necessary first step in understanding its significance. The more crucial question is what hybridity gets discussed in academic productions and why it matters (Darling‐Wolf, ). Thus, Napier () is correct here when she positions anime “at the forefront of creating an alternative cultural discourse that goes beyond the traditional categories of ‘native’ or ‘international’ to participate in what may well be a genuinely new form of global culture” (p. 292).…”

“…Taking Heidi seriously demonstrates that Japanese animation is more than a window on Japanese culture or an antidote to U.S. cultural imperialism. It is one contributor to the complex process of experiencing locality and globality as mutually constitutive elements (Darling‐Wolf, ).…”