Brooke McCorkle Okazaki – författare

In 1868 Japan opened its borders to the outside world and began a rapid modernization process which included importing European musical instruments, compositional practices, and repertoire. The operas and prose of Richard Wagner trickled into Japan during this time and, as in other parts of the world, agents in Japan manipulated the composer's prose and musical works to suit ideologies ranging from the fascist to the frivolous. Through the lens of global history, Japanese cultural studies, and musicology, this book presents a new way of understanding Wagnerism as it filtered through modern Japanese culture. Wagnerism is entangled in modernity, and in Japan these entanglements surfaced not only on the operatic stage, but also in sheet music, film, and popular literature. Author Brooke McCorkle Okazaki documents Wagner's opera premieres and utilizes mass media--such as film, magazines, and comics--to explore the interplay of modernity and Wagnerism in Japan. Okazaki first situates the discussion in the context of global historical methodologies, demonstrating how the story of Wagner's reception in Japan models a non-Eurocentric approach to one of musicology's most canonical composers. She then presents a series of case studies that consider how Wagnerism shaped individuals and institutions in Japan beginning from the late nineteenth century and to the present.

The tensions between utopian dreams and dystopian anxieties permeate science fiction as a genre, and nowhere is this tension more evident than in Star Trek. This book breaks new ground by exploring music and sound within the Star Trek franchise across decades and media, offering the first sustained look at the role of music in shaping this influential series. The chapters in this edited collection consider how the aural, visual, and narrative components of Star Trek combine as it constructs and deconstructs the utopian and dystopian, shedding new light on the series’ political, cultural, and aesthetic impact. Considering how the music of Star Trek defines and interprets religion, ideology, artificial intelligence, and more, while also considering fan interactions with the show’s audio, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of music, media studies, science fiction, and popular culture.

The tensions between utopian dreams and dystopian anxieties permeate science fiction as a genre, and nowhere is this tension more evident than in Star Trek. This book breaks new ground by exploring music and sound within the Star Trek franchise across decades and media, offering the first sustained look at the role of music in shaping this influential series. The chapters in this edited collection consider how the aural, visual, and narrative components of Star Trek combine as it constructs and deconstructs the utopian and dystopian, shedding new light on the series’ political, cultural, and aesthetic impact. Considering how the music of Star Trek defines and interprets religion, ideology, artificial intelligence, and more, while also considering fan interactions with the show’s audio, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of music, media studies, science fiction, and popular culture.

Shonen Knife—an all-female punk trio from Osaka, Japan—cultivated a global fan base that has included the likes of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. Their 1998 album Happy Hour, filled with tunes about delicacies ranging from sushi to banana chips, encapsulates the band’s charming fusion of cuteness with punk rock cool. Tracing histories of food and josei rock in Japan, McCorkle Okazaki outlines the ways Shonen Knife has, over the last forty years, consistently used seemingly straightforward songs about food to comment on gender stereotypes in popular culture.