EVENT: Misora Hibari + The Popular Music of Cold War Japan: Mimesis, Alterity, Cosmopolitanism (4/11/2013)

A Lecture by Michael Bourdaghs (University of Chicago)

April 11, 2013 5-7PM
Kenmore Classroom Building Room 101
565 Commonwealth Avenue Boston MA
Sushi Reception to follow

Misora Hibari (1937-1989) was Cold War Japan’s most important and influential popular singer. In his book Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop (2012), Michael Bourdaghs explored Hibari’s performances as negotiations of the complex interrelationship between the ‘mimesis’ (‘imitation’) of American pop music and various icons of Japanese authenticity. In this lecture, Bourdaghs will revisit and rethink this argument in relation to Michael Taussig’s influential theories of mimesis, exploring particular the significance of the cosmopolitanism evident in many of Hibari’s recordings from the 1950s and 60s.

Sponsored by the BU Center for the Study of Asia, The Department of Anthropology, The Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, and The Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology.