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Both personally revealing and informed by years of immersive research, JAPANTHEM: Countercultural Experiences, Cross-Cultural Remixes is filled with honest vignettes that delve beyond the aspects of Japanese culture that have captivated the western world to portray a society's deep relationship with music, and what it means to listen and understand as a cultural outsider. Informed by a decade of back-and-forth across the Pacific and years of immersive research for a doctoral thesis in ethnomusicology, Jillian Marshall explores the music of contemporary Japan through a prism of serendipity, romance, learning life lessons the hard way, and an insatiable curiosity for the human spirit. The book's twenty vignettes--including what it's like to be subtly bullied by your Buddhist dance teacher, go to a secret rave in woods near Mt. Fuji, meet a pop star at a basement club, and experience a nuclear disaster unfold by the minute--are based on first-hand experiences, and illustrate music's fascinating relationship to Japanese society with honesty, intelligence, and humor. JAPANTHEM offers a uniquely nuanced portrayal of life in the Land of the Rising Sun--while encouraging us to listen more deeply in (and to) Japan in the process. (less)

Both personally revealing and informed by years of immersive research, JAPANTHEM: Countercultural Experiences, Cross-Cultural Remixes is filled with honest vignettes that delve beyond the aspects of Japanese culture that have captivated (…more)