Relay of Gazes

Carol Ota has a Ph.D. in film and television from the University of California, Los Angeles. This is her first book.

• Chapter 1 IntroductionChapter 2 The Gaze from Within: Part I: Dreamscapes of Contemporary Japanese Cinema Part II: Liminal Spaces and Allegorical Quests: Anime of Hayao MiyazakiChapter 3 The Gaze of the Visitor: Associative Thinking and "New Sociations" through Diaristic Travel NarrativesChapter 4 The Gaze from a Distance: False Quests in Contemporary Cross Cultural Film MusicalsChapter 5 American Televisual Gazes: Ambivalence and InterconnectednessChapter 6 ConclusionsChapter 7 FilmographyChapter 8 Supplemental Reading ListChapter 9 Bibliography

Carol Ota?s The Relay of Gazes is at once a study of contemporary Japan and Japanese culture, of media representations, and of the construction of places. Drawing upon a wide range of theorists, but especially John Urry, James Howard Kunstler, and Michel Foucault, she lays out the ways in which the gazes of the insider, the visitor, and the outsider, directed at Japan, tell us something important about each. In these multiple gazes Japan is alternately modern and primitive, a place within which people are rootless or rooted. In the gaze of the media, attempts to see the 'real' Japan inevitably turn in on themselves, telling us as much about the viewer as the viewed. Ota lays out her account through a series of case studies, of contemporary Japanese cinema and anime, of travel narratives and film musicals, and of television news reporting. Sensitive and thoughtful, the cases are certain to make the reader want to go back to the originals, to view in a new light, whether for the first time or onceagain, the materials of which she writes. The volume is sure to be of interest to students of film, television, and new media. But it should also be useful to those interested in contemporary East Asia, and more broadly in the nature of globalization.