I dropped out of this week’s voluntary documentary camera workshop, since it was not what I had expected and partly collided with the master course in Japanese that I had an idea of taking alongside my anthropology studies over the next two years.
I wrote the placement test on Tuesday, and it turned out to be quite a reality check. I failed miserably and will not be able to study Japanese on this level. How embarrassing, as I had elbowed myself into this course, which is normally only open for students of Japanology.
I remain optimistic though, and will continue my self-studies. After all, I spent the last month preparing for the placement test, thereby reviewing chapter 1-7 in Intermediate Japanese and continuing learning kanji from scratch, the way they learn it in the Japanese school system. I’m currently in fourth grade. I know more advanced kanji than that, but the idea is to get a thorough understanding of them and be able to write them properly – that’s what I’m hoping to achieve by doing this close learning of them. I think Japanese courses and text books in general make the mistake of not taking kanji seriously enough – it’s “too little, too late”. The result is that you learn each word twice: First in kana, then in kanji. Kanji must come first. Thereby it also becomes easier to understand the meaning of the words. So in conclusion: My Japanese has become fit again (if not master course fit) after I practiced it over the last month. That makes it inspiring to continue. I hope to be able to use Japanese in future anthropological field studies, so unlike before, I have a clear goal with my studies now.
Study
Qualitative Methods
- Fieldnotes assignment: Read Kyle’s fieldnotes
Japanese
- Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 8.
- Memrise: 62,700
- 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 14 → 560 of 2136 kanji learned
Other
Otaku papers
- Patrick W. Galbraith: ‘The Lolicon Guy:’ Some Observations on Researching Unpopular Topics in Japan. In Mark McLelland: The End of Cool Japan. Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture, 2016, p. 109-133. 👊
- Patrick W. Galbraith: Fujoshi: Fantasy Play and Transgressive Intimacy among “Rotten Girls” in Contemporary Japan. In Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 37, No. 1 (September 2011), pp. 219-240.
- Midori Suzuki: The possibilities of research on fujoshi in Japan. In Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 12: “Transnational boys’ love fan studies” (March 2013).
- Paul M. Malone: Transplanted boys’ love conventions and anti-shota polemics in a German manga: Fahr Sindram’s Losing Neverland. In Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 12: “Transnational boys’ love fan studies” (March 2013).
Articles
- The Daily Beast/Jake Adelstein: Japan’s Kiddie Porn Empire: Bye-Bye? (2014)
- The Daily Beast/Jake Adelstein: Amazon Japan’s Child Porn Problem? (2015)
- The Economist: Why personalities trump parties in Philippine politics
- The Economist: For the first time in years, Eritreans can leave their country freely
- The Economist: Did Saudi Arabia kill Jamal Khashoggi?
- The Economist: What it means if Saudi Arabia murdered a journalist in Turkey
- The Economist: The Nobel committee shines a spotlight on rape in conflict
- The Economist: Medicare for all is a meaningless slogan
- The Economist: Obituary: Alan Abel died on September 14th
- New Statesman: Francis Fukuyama interview: “Socialism ought to come back”
- Teen Vogue: What “Capitalism” Is and How It Affects People
- Bloomberg: Five Ways to Redesign Cities for the Scooter Era
Films and video
- Joshua Oppenheimer: The Act of Killing, Director’s Cut (2012, 159 min). This film blew my mind. Someone commented that it’s “like the Nazis would have won the war”, and that’s also what Joshua himself says in the interview below, that it was as if he had “wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust only to find the Nazis still in power”. The worst parts are not those where the perpetrators boast about their killings, but where civil society plays along as in a surreal TV show (1:47) or where a leader urges the masses to “exterminate” the communists in a “humane” way (1:55).
- Vice: Joshua Oppenheimer on “The Act of Killing” (2014, 54 min).
- Joshua Oppenheimer: The Look of Silence (2014, 104 min). Even better than the first one.
- SVT/Tom Alandh: Cornelis – dokumentären (2013, 89 min.)
- SVT/Sverige: Peter Dalle-intervju (16 min.) Genius.
- Andrew Jarecki interview on “Capturing the Friedmans” (2003)
- Hervé Martin-Delpierre: Game Over (2014, 52 min). Via Alexander Street.
- André Hörmann: Calcutta Calling (2006, 16 min). Via Alexander Street.
- Public Lecture Video: Japanese Popular Culture in the News. Exploring Debates about Sexual Norms and Politics. With Patrick W. Galbraith, Renato Rivera Rusca and Takashi Yamaguchi. (2014, 115 min.)
- The Nerdwriter: How Michael Jackson Crafted His First Solo Hit
- Kaiman Wong: Atomos Ninja V – The 4K Mirrorless Must-Have + Lok Eats a Sandwich
Podcasts
- Bubb.la: Japan uppges överväga neka inresevisum till medborgare i länder som vägrat samarbeta vid deportering
- Anthropod: AnthroBites: Queer Anthropology
Work
Filmed and did the audio for HAX’ explainer video:
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