This edited volume expands on what Aoyagi Hiroshi intended in the first decade of the new millennium to establish as a subfield of symbolic anthropology called “idology.” It brings together case studies of popular idolatry in Japan, but goes further to provide a transcultural perspective to guide anthropological investigations in different places and times. In proposing an integrated paradigm for the growing body of literature on idols, the volume redirects recurrent questions to more fundamental points of sociocultural inquiry. Contributions from scholars conducting ethnographic fieldwork, as well as those engaged in theoretical and historical analyses, facilitate comparative reading and critical thought. Exceeding a narrow focus on human idols, the chapters shed new light on virtual idols and YouTubers, cartoon characters and voices, robot idols and cybernetic systems. Science and technology studies thus comes together with theories of animation and anthropological work on life in more-than-human worlds.

This edited volume expands on what Aoyagi Hiroshi intended in the first decade of the new millennium to establish as a subfield of symbolic anthropology called "idology." It brings together case studies of popular idolatry in Japan, but goes further to provide a transcultural perspective to guide anthropological investigations in different places and times. In proposing an integrated paradigm for the growing body of literature on idols, the volume redirects recurrent questions to more fundamental points of sociocultural inquiry. Contributions from scholars conducting ethnographic fieldwork, as well as those engaged in theoretical and historical analyses, facilitate comparative reading and critical thought. Exceeding a narrow focus on human idols, the chapters shed new light on virtual idols and YouTubers, cartoon characters and voices, robot idols and cybernetic systems. Science and technology studies thus comes together with theories of animation and anthropological work on life in more-than-human worlds. Aoyagi Hiroshi is Professor in the School of Asia 21 at Kokushikan University in Tokyo. He is the author of Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2005). Patrick W. Galbraith is Associate Professor in the School of International Communication at Senshū University in Tokyo. He is the author and editor of many books on Japanese media and popular culture. Mateja Kovacic is Assistant Professor in the Animation and Media Arts program, Academy of Film, School of Communication, at Hong Kong Baptist University. She researches intersections between science, technology and popular culture.

A star-making factory without rival, the Japanese talent agency Johnny's Jimusho has brought fame to several generations of male stars – singers, actors and performers. Beyond the Male Idol Factory asks what the phenomenon of “Johnny's Idols” reveals about discourses of masculinity and national identity in contemporary Japan. Examining the pervasive presence of these stars across a wide range of Japanese media, the book explores how Johnny's Idols act as role models of ideal masculinity and good citizenship as well as entertainers. Taking a wide-ranging cultural studies approach, the book assesses the social, economic and demographic contexts of these familiar stars in post-industrial and post-Bubble Japanese society.

The 'Opening of Japan' has been central to the retelling of Japan's modern history. Reopening the Opening of Japan fundamentally reconsiders what that historical moment entailed. What did intensified connections between Japan and the world mean both inside and outside of the country, and what does this tell us about Japan's historical significance on a global scale? The chapters excavate a rich array of surprising cross-border connections, from the global trade in mummified mermaids to the Japanese-Russian intellectual links underpinning the work of Akira Kurosawa. Re-thinking connectivity through non-state transnational perspectives, the book guides readers to new ways of doing and writing history. Contributors are: Lewis Bremner, Natalia Doan, Manimporok Dotulong, Maki Fukuoka, Eiko Honda, Sho Konishi, Mateja Kovacic, Joel Littler, Chinami Oka, Yu Sakai, Olga Solovieva, and Warren Stanislaus.

Möbius Media explores the interplay of popular and traditional cultures, reminding readers that expressive cultural forms are never mutually exclusive but exist in a state of creative tension and interconnection, merging and (re)defining one another. With this insightful volume, editors Jeffrey Tolbert and Michael Dylan Foster build on their earlier work, The Folkloresque, by considering how folklore is understood and mobilized within a variety of popular discourses and commercial marketplaces. The collection challenges readers to consider the stakes of labeling something as folklore or folk. It demonstrates the rhetorical and political potency of ideas such as traditionality, heritage, and community in storytelling venues (including films, games, and even podcasts), in the construction and policing of genres, and in the selling of commodities. By interrogating popular media and expressions that make use of ideas such as folklore, tradition, authenticity, and heritage, Möbius Media further develops the theoretical applicability of the folkloresque concept and encourages productive interdisciplinary dialogue. Through the lens of the folkloresque, scholars can better see the hidden ideologies that inform the marketplace and influence contemporary modes of communication. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to scholars and students of cultural studies, media studies, popular culture, literature, anthropology, and related areas.

Transatlantic, Transcultural, and Transnational Dialogues on Identity, Culture, and Migration analyzes the diasporic experiences of migratory and postcolonial subjects through the lenses of cultural studies, critical race theory, narrative theory, and border studies. These narratives cover the United States, the U.S.-Mexico border, the Hispanophone Caribbean, and the Iberian Peninsula and illustrate a shared diasporic experience across the Atlantic. Through a transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational lens, this volume brings together essays on literature, film, and music from disparate geographic areas: Spain, Cuba and Jamaica, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Colombia. Throughout the volume, the contributors explore intertextual transatlantic dialogues, and migratory experiences of diasporic subjects and queer subjectivities. The chapters also examine the use of language to preserve Latinx culture, colonial and Spanish cultural exchanges, border identities, and race, gender, identity, and cultural production. In turn, these diasporic experiences result from transatlantic, transcultural, and transnational phenomena that converge in a globalized society and aid in questioning the artificial boundaries of nation states.

This is the most complete and compelling account of idols and celebrity in Japanese media culture to date. Engaging with the study of media, gender and celebrity, and sensitive to history and the contemporary scene, these interdisciplinary essays cover male and female idols, production and consumption, industrial structures and fan movements.

Boys Love Manga and Beyond looks at a range of literary, artistic and other cultural products that celebrate the beauty of adolescent boys and young men. In Japan, depiction of the “beautiful boy” has long been a romantic and sexualized trope for both sexes and commands a high degree of cultural visibility today across a range of genres from pop music to animation. In recent decades, “Boys Love” (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women. This genre was first developed in Japan in the early 1970s by a group of female artists who went on to establish themselves as major figures in Japan's manga industry. By the late 1970s many amateur women fans were getting involved in the BL phenomenon by creating and self-publishing homoerotic parodies of established male manga characters and popular media figures. The popularity of these fan-made products, sold and circulated at huge conventions, has led to an increase in the number of commercial titles available. Today, a wide range of products produced both by professionals and amateurs are brought together under the general rubric of “boys love,” and are rapidly gaining an audience throughout Asia and globally. This collection provides the first comprehensive overview in English of the BL phenomenon in Japan, its history and various subgenres and introduces translations of some key Japanese scholarship not otherwise available. Some chapters detail the historical and cultural contexts that helped BL emerge as a significant part of girls' culture in Japan. Others offer important case studies of BL production, consumption, and circulation and explain why BL has become a controversial topic in contemporary Japan.

Combining history of science and a history of universities with the new imperial history, Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918: A Social History of a Multilingual Space by Jan Surman analyzes the practice of scholarly migration and its lasting influence on the intellectual output in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburg Empire and its successor states were home to developments that shaped Central Europe's scholarship well into the twentieth century. Universities became centers of both state- and nation-building, as well as of confessional resistance, placing scholars if not in conflict, then certainly at odds with the neutral international orientation of academe. By going beyond national narratives, Surman reveals the Empire as a state with institutions divided by language but united by legislation, practices, and other influences. Such an approach allows readers a better view to how scholars turned gradually away from state-centric discourse to form distinct language communities after 1867; these influences affected scholarship, and by examining the scholarly record, Surman tracks the turn. Drawing on archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine, Surman analyzes the careers of several thousand scholars from the faculties of philosophy and medicine of a number of Habsburg universities, thus covering various moments in the history of the Empire for the widest view. Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918 focuses on the tension between the political and linguistic spaces scholars occupied and shows that this tension did not lead to a gradual dissolution of the monarchy’s academia, but rather to an ongoing development of new strategies to cope with the cultural and linguistic multitude.