The social, technical, and musical construction of deafness in Japan
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation explores the historical intersection of D/deafness, music, and technological and media spectacle in 20th century and contemporary Japan. Each chapter in this dissertation is focused on a different case study in which different actors attempted to delineate specific expectations of D/deafness, often through holding public musical events. Chapter 1 covers hearing aid manufacturers and public music performances after 1945. Chapter 2 explores non-commercial assistive technologies and public events held by deaf school teachers and cyberneticists in the 1950s and 60s. Chapter 3 traces the development of sign language musical performance from the 1960s to the 2000s. Finally, Chapter 4 follows the rise and fall of Samuragōchi Mamoru from the 1990s to the 2010s, who built a successful public persona as a "miracle" deaf composer of symphonies. In each case, I ask: whose interests are represented in these musical events? What kinds of technologies and forms of media are being mobilized, and to what purpose? What can they tell us about sociopolitical struggles to define Deafness? Ultimately, I argue that examining these technological, cultural, and musical events enhances our understanding of similar technological and cultural initiatives in contemporary Japan and across the globe. These events draw upon and inform academic and popular conceptions of what music and technology can bring to the Deaf body: bringing spoken language and personal fulfillment by prioritizing hearing-centered ideas of what music means and consists of. These mostly hearing stakeholders, however, have not acted unilaterally. Deaf community members have responded to these developments with musical movements of their own, deploying Japanese Sign Language (JSL) in service of Deaf-centered logics of musicality. These different stakeholders continue to exert influence over overlapping and competing domains in Japanese technological development, politics, and popular culture within a post-2020 Olympics landscape
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Mondelli, Frank Vito |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Levy, Indra A |
| Thesis advisor | Levy, Indra A |
| Thesis advisor | Denson, Shane |
| Thesis advisor | Inoue, Miyako, 1962- |
| Thesis advisor | Turner, Fred |
| Degree committee member | Denson, Shane |
| Degree committee member | Inoue, Miyako, 1962- |
| Degree committee member | Turner, Fred |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Frank Vito Mondelli |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022 |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/pk633cb0274 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Frank Vito Mondelli
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA).
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