Robert Dahlberg-Sears, Sophia University (Jōchi Daigaku, 上智大学), presents "Zinester Same As Punks: Constructing Punk Publics in Japan Through Print Materials." Dahlberg-Sears is a lecturer in the faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. This talk will be presented in hybrid format (in-person, with virtual option). This lecture is co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries.
Though punks do not have a monopoly on the creation of ephemeral musical materials, punk “zines” and their indebtedness to Do-It-Yourself attitude and production styles remain a well-known affiliated aspect of punk culture. While zine scholarship and recognition of their integral part in punk has only grown over the past two decades, the relationship between punk in Japan and the zines which circulate within it has not been widely researched. How do these zines function within the context of and in relation to an under-defined punk readership, and what kinds of topicality do they embrace in order to imagine their reading public? By examining the two longest running present-day punk zines in Japan, this presentation will demonstrate how these zines play an integral part in constructing and reifying musical histories as well as the punk present through portrayals of concerns, ideas, and circulating musical interests. In doing so, this presentation will also make an argument for reconsidering the usefulness of zines as a source of ethnographic data on punk and independently created music.
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Robert Dahlberg-Sears’ current research addresses punk music and its cultural circulation as a facet of musical and resistive culture in Japan. He seeks to address the significant gap in recognition of the role played by punk music in establishing independent music networks and the present-day “live house” music scene. His research has been generously supported by the Musicology area, the Office of International Affairs, the Center for Japan Studies, and Center for Folklore Studies of the Ohio State University, and by the Institute of Comparative Culture at Sophia University. He is currently busily completing his dissertation while working as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University (Jōchi Daigaku, 上智大学) in Tokyo, Japan.
Lectures in Musicology is co-sponsored by The Ohio State University Libraries.
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