Japanthem: Countercultural Experiences, Cross-Cultural Remixes

(Paperback)

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In this illuminating debut, Marshall offers an outsiders look into Japanese culture via its music . . . Throughout, her sharp observations are interspersed with moving moments of introspection . . . This transportive work is a thrilling escape. Publishers Weekly

Fulbright and mtvU sponsored scholar Jillian Marshall offers honest and often humorous vignettes that delve far beyond Western stereotypes of Japanese culture to portray a societys deep relationship with music, and what it means to listen and understand as a cultural outsider.

Following a decade of back-and-forth across the Pacific while researching her doctoral thesis in ethnomusicology, JAPANTHEM author Jillian Marshall reveals contemporary Japan through a prism of magic, serendipity, frustration, unique underground culture, learning life lessons the hard way, and an insatiable curiosity for the human spirit. The books twenty vignettes including what its 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 while tipsy, and experience a nuclear disaster unfold by the minute are based off first-hand experience, and illustrate musics 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.

Reviews

In awe-filled vignettes, she juxtaposes the inescapable noise of Tokyoand its manically happy train station jingleswith the quiet, formal, ritualistic atmosphere of a music festival in the rugged mountain town of Akita. She contemplates wabi sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that celebrates imperfect beauty; explores the seedier sides of locations not mentioned in tourist brochuresincluding Okinawas Kadena Military Base, where strip clubs butt up against all-night tattoo parlors; and dives into Osakas underground music scene, which is more about resisting conformity than it is the actual music. Throughout, her sharp observations are interspersed with moving moments of introspection, as when she quietly muses that Japan may be the only place in the world... where my heart feels like it can rest. This transportive work is a thrilling escape. Publishers Weekly

Jillian Marshall is a kindred spirit: I too love Japan, music, and champion the bridging of academia with the public sphere. What a fun, accessible journey in a place considered too often, and incorrectly, as inscrutable. Nancy Snow, Senior Adviser, Kreab Tokyo, author, Japans Information War

"Japanthem is a lively, sparkling, and very personal book, both about Japanese music and culture and about Marshalls ambivalent relationship to academia. Born as a doctoral dissertation, the book couldnt be further from the dry and scholarly reading experience of an academic book, which is the idea. Yet the authors expertise and lived experience as a researcher figure centrally in the story she tells, and her knowledge of Japans musics, culture, media, and language. Part travel writing, part memoir, part ethnography, Japanthem immerses you in the authors encounters with diverse facets of Japan and its music. The portrait of Japan that emerges is quirky, funny, and humane, both loving and, at times, appalled. Marshall closely observes Japanese musical culture and yet holds it at a certain distance, seen honestly through her outsiders eyes. Throughout, Marshalls writing crackles with wit and humor and emotional honesty, richly drawn characters and complicated situations. Aaron A. Fox, Associate Professor of Music, Columbia University

"Jill Marshalls writing is so utterly engaging . . . Her style reminds me of Molly Ivins at her most cutting and sarcastic and breathtakingly honest. Her methodology and her self-reflective authorial stance remind me of John Miller Chernoffs African Rhythm and African Sensibility (University of Chicago Press, 1978). Or the comedy of academic manners of David Lodges The Campus Trilogy novels. from the introduction by Steven F. Pond, Associate Professor, Cornell University; author, Herbie Hancocks Head Hunters: The Making of Jazzs First Platinum Album

Author Bio

Jillian Marshall grew up in a rural town in Vermont, just south of the French-Canadian border. After graduating from the University of Chicago in 2009, she moved to a fishing village in Japan to teach middle school English. She came back to the US to pursue a doctorate in ethnomusicology at Cornell University, frequently returning to Japan to conduct research on contemporary Japanese music. Following the completion of her PhD in 2018, she left academia +in pursuit of a more public intellectualism. In addition to writing, Jillian currently teaches the languages and history of Japan and China; she is also a lifelong musician, and plays trumpet and piano. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.