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Dr Alistair David Swale

Contact

Department: Global, Cultural and Language Studies

Email: alistair.swale@canterbury.ac.nz

Direct Dial: +64 3 3690642

Office: Logie 504

Languages: English, Japanese

My main research interest is the history of cultural developments following the Meiji Restoration in Japan, along with cinematic anime more recently.
About
Research / Creative works
Projects
Methods & Equipment

Fields of Research

  • Japanese early modern history
  • History of print culture in Meiji Japan
  • Aesthetics of anime and animated cinema in Japan

Researcher Summary

I have a long-standing interest in the history of cultural and political developments following the Meiji Restoration of 1868.  This culminated in the publication of  The Meiji Restoration: Monarchism, Mass Media and Cnservative Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) More recently I also developed a focus of research examining the aesthetics of anime, with a particular emphasis on the animated features of directors such as Miyazaki Hayao, Kon Satoshi and Shinkai Makoto.  This led to the publication of Anime Aesthetics: Japanese Animation and the Post-Cinematic Imagination (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).  Since 2019 my research focus returned to the culture of the Meiji period with a renewed interest in visual culture and mass-circulated illustrated newspapers.  I held a research fellowship at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto from July 2019 to March 2020 coordinating a collaborative research team that examined discourse of "civilization and enlightenment" as mediated in popular culture in the period 1868 -1890.  This entailed a personal focus on illustrated newspapers and the role of traditional literati and artists in developing distinctive forms of news coverage in the tabloid press.  For my most recent research on this see "Gesaku and the renegotiation of ‘civilization and enlightenment’ through illustrated news" in Japan Forum (2020).

Subject Area: Disciplines

  • History, History of Art, Classics and Curatorial Studies: Modern History: Asian
  • Cinema Studies: Cinema Studies

Research/Scholarly/Creative Works

  • Swale A. (2022) Gesaku and the renegotiation of ‘civilization and enlightenment’ through illustrated news. Japan Forum 34(5): 568-600. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2020.1823453. (Journal Articles)
  • Swale A. (2021) Public Speaking and Serialized Novels: Kōdan and Social Movements in Early Meiji Tokyo. Japanese Studies 41(3): 343-360. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.2005460. (Journal Articles)
  • Swale A. (2017) Memory and forgetting: examining the treatment of traumatic historical memory in Grave of the Fireflies and The Wind Rises. Japan Forum 29(4): 518-536. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2017.1321570. (Journal Articles)
  • Swale A. (2015) Miyazaki Hayao and the Aesthetics of Imagination: Nostalgia and Memory in Spirited Away. Asian Studies Review 39(3): 413-429. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2015.1056086. (Journal Articles)
  • Swale AD. (2015) Anime aesthetics: Japanese animation and the “post-cinematic” imagination. 1-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137463357. (Authored Books)
  • Swale A. (2014) The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-century Japan by Maki Fukuoka. The Journal of Japanese Studies 40(1): 175-178. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jjs.2014.0044. (Journal Articles)
  • Swale A. (2013) The Political Thought of Mori Arinori: A STUDY OF MEIJI CONSERVATISM. 1-249. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315073521. (Authored Books)
  • Swale AD. (2009) The Meiji Restoration: Monarchism, Mass Communication and Conservative Revolution. 1-206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230245792. (Authored Books)
  • Swale A. (2008) America: 15 January-6 August 1872: The first stage in the quest for enlightenment. The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe: A New Assessment: 7-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203985632. (Chapters)
  • Swale A. (2008) History and the construction of collective memory: Positivist Historiography in the age of the imperial rescript on education. The Power of Memory in Modern Japan: 360-373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9781905246380.i-382. (Chapters)
  • Swale A. (2008) History and the construction of collective memory: Positivist historiography in the age of the imperial rescript on education. The Power of Memory in Modern Japan: 360-373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9781905246380.i-382.165. (Chapters)
  • Swale A. (2003) Tokutomi Soho and the problem of the nation-state in an imperialist world. Nationalism and Internationalism in Imperial Japan: Autonomy, Asian Brotherhood, or World Citizenship?: 69-88. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203989050. (Chapters)

Future Research

  • Cultural history of Meiji Japan 1890 - 1912
  • Meiji popular culture and the persistence of pre-Meiji traditions

Key Methodologies

  • Historiography
  • Blended methods from the empirical to the interpretative
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