William Andrews
@william-andrews
Working on: sociocultural history, radicalism, theatre, countercultures, New Left, memory, anti-Olympics, urbanism. Book on Adachi Masao out September 1. PhD on 1960s Japan in progress.
The 28-minute documents Adachi getting his photo taken in a small studio in Nezu, Tokyo, in his latest attempt to obtain a passport, something long denied him by the government due to his past activities.
New reading: issue of Spectator about historical itinerants and drifters in Japan.
International Association of Art Critics Japan has issued a statement opposing the Flag Desecration Bill out of fear that works of art that use the Japanese national flag might be subject to punishment under the new law. (Pictured: Yanagi Yukinori's World Flag Ant Farm.) critique.aicajapan.com/18358
Born into an elite Japanese family, the photographer Akihiko Okamura (1929-85) was an unlikely candidate to become one of the most perceptive chroniclers of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. aeon.co/videos/a-jap...
It gives me great pleasure to share the release of my decade-in-the-writing critical biography of filmmaker/activist Adachi Masao. Pink Auteur, Red Outlaw: Adachi Masao and Japan’s Cinema of Revolution is out September 1 via Awai Books. awaimedia.com/WilliamAndre...
Photographs as Action: The All-Japan Students’ Photo Association and the Making of Eco-Critical Photography in Japan, 1960s–2020s www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Photographic documentation by Matsumoto Michiko of the 1970s Women's Lib movement in Japan www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Seibu Kōdō and Punk in Kyoto: "This unit of Modern Kyoto Research looks at one of the city's more minor but nonetheless vibrant scenes: punk music in Kyoto." www.modernkyotoresearch.org/seibu-k%C5%8...
A millennium of Japanese history, as told through the samurai sword aeon.co/videos/a-mil...
The legendary student-run Yoshida Dormitory at Kyoto University will host GENIUS LOCI, a site-specific promenade theatre performance for three days from March 27. stage.corich.jp/stage/434675
New edited volume focuses on the student movement at Kyoto University in the late 1960s. Contributors include some big names like Ukai Satoshi, Fujihara Tatsushi, Ueno Chizuko, Fuke Takahiro. www.seidosha.co.jp/book/index.p...
Very pleased to receive my copy of Political Thought and Japan’s New Left Movements, newly published by Bloomsbury. I contributed a chapter on Takita Osamu. www.bloomsbury.com/uk/political...
"Japan’s Saipan island"? Apparently Roy Keane can time-travel back to pre-1944 days. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ja...
The Japanese avant-garde has long had a complicated relationship with commercialism (v. Terayama Shuji and Parco, etc.), but angura actor and butoh artist Maro Akaji fronting a winter campaign for United Arrows (with his son and daughter-in-law) was not something I expected to see any time soon.
NHK is broadcasting a two-part documentary about the Japanese Red Army. It features an interview with the group's former leader, Shigenobu Fusako – her first mainstream media appearance since her release from prison in 2022. www.web.nhk/tv/an/mikaik...
Artist Yoshinao Satoh spliced thousands of newspaper clippings and Steve Reich music into a transfixing short animation, Papers (1991). The result is "a mass-media collage that seems to anticipate the age of information overload". aeon.co/videos/japan...
Zengakuren has seemingly cemented its split from parent organization Chukaku-ha by doing what any New Left group does: publish its own newspaper. mosakusha.com?p=12411
Very pleased to receive my copy of this comprehensive look at the work of Yanagi Yukinori. It includes an interview with Yanagi surveying his career as well as new essays by Bert Winther-Tamaki, Jane Farver, and Reiko Tomii. I translated several texts in the book. blum-books.com/products/yuk...
You can engage with the perceived glamour of the district in the cultural imaginary, both at the time and since, but you shouldn't simply replicate it, especially when you are working in a visceral, popular medium like film with such a capacity for perpetuating misunderstandings. 5/
Personally, the most offending example is Sakuran, first a manga by Anno Moyoco and then a 2006 film directed by Ninagawa Mika with her usual penchant for vivid colour. It's a glossy film that, if memory serves, largely glosses over the realities of prostitution in Yoshiwara. 4/
Last year, we had the controversial exhibition at Tokyo University of the Arts showcasing the "glamorous culture of Edo's party zone". It was heavily criticized for misrepresenting human trafficking. 3/ www.tokyoartbeat.com/articles/-/d...
The current NHK Taiga Drama, Unbound, is also set partly in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters. 2/
Someone needs to do a deep dive into recent representations of Yoshiwara. The latest example is Tales of Edo Oiran, an immersive theatre event: "a beautiful, fleeting tale of the glamorous courtesans and the lively residents of the red-light district." 1/ immersivefort.com/show/tales-o...
While the 1970 Osaka expo attracted febrile opposition from Japanese artists, the response to the soon-to-close 2025 expo was more muted. An exhibition at Wako University revisits the 1970 anti-expo movement from the perspective of religion and the avant-garde. www.wako.ac.jp/library/news...
Tosho Shimbun is to shutter next March, bringing to a close the almost 80-year history of the newspaper, which mainly publishes book reviews and author interviews. toshoshimbun.com