ELECTRONIC DEMOSTRATION PORTFOLIOS
for Visual Anthropology Majors
Paper prepared for Journal of Educational Media, Special Themed Issue: Blended Learning.

What support strategies can be used to improve student learning and knowledge retention? For publication in Volume 29, 2004

FROM PURIKURA (Print Club) TO SHA-MAIL TO
PURIMO-DOS AND BACK:The Beat Goes On.

CELEBRATING LIFE AFTER DEATH:
The Appearance of Snapshots in Japanese Pet Grave Sites.
Within a larger study of Japanese personal photography in contexts of home media, home mode communication, and Japanese culture, this paper offers a detailed case study of how snapshots are used in a sample of pet cemeteries in contemporary Tokyo, Japan. Meanings of these images are discussed in terms of animism, memory, communication, household maintenance, pet-extended families and connections to patterns of human ancestor worship.

Paper in preparation for “Looking at Animals, Looking at Society”Special Issue of Visual Studies - Fall, 2004

EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS: A Photo Essay
(in process)
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Comments or Questions?

GHOST PHOTOGRAPHY:
Nihon No Shinrei Shashin as Home Media

ONE HOUR PHOTO
A Self-Interview
We are speaking with Dr. Richard Chalfen, Professor of Visual Anthropology at Temple. He has been a member of our faculty since 1972, and recently spent three years at Temple University Japan in Tokyo. The popularity of the recent feature film, One Hour Photo (OHP) prompted us to contact Dr. Chalfen.

To Appear as Home Page Paper #16
Summer, 2004

Comments or Questions?

LOOKING AT JAPANESE SOCIETY:
Hashiguchi George as Visual Sociologist
Paper prepared for IVSA ANNUAL MEETINGS
Southampton, UK - July 8, 2003

Abstract:
This paper examines how one Japanese documentary photo-grapher, Hashiguchi George (b. 1949) explores his own society and culture much like a visual sociologist. Little known in the U.S., Hashiguchi implicitly poses questions and provides pictorial responses to questions of social order and Japanese social organization.

Hashiguchi George’s work is marketed, sold and distributed as books, as a combination of fine art and documentary photography. His work seems to give a fine example of Howard Becker’s notion that “when art which is aimed at exploring society … [it] might just as well be social science information.”

Much of Hashiguchi’s work includes portrait photography, images that are accompanied by written transcriptions of a series of questions answered by his subjects. Working like a sociological ethnographer with a survey approach, he produces a unique overview, one that integrates the urban and rural, ranges of education and affluence. These themes are united by serious attention to the individual’s place in everyday Japanese contemporary life. The paper will speculate on how Hashiguchi George is offering a visual approach “to community, state, nation… [and hence] “enhancing social bonds and spirits of community” in ways that are not always acknowledged or understood.

This paper addresses the kinds of sociologically-centered questions and interpretations found in his work. How does he generalize from the individual to the group, society, culture? What are his methods? How does his photographic practice (systematic observation, working style, aesthetic perspective) compare to other better known examples, e.g. August Sander, Paul Strand, among others? How might this work be classified as a “study” and, in turn, contribute to “big dimensions” and “grand theory”?

This paper suggests that Hashiguchi George’s most valuable contribution to much Western thinking is contained in the scope of his choices of people and their geographic locations -- to present readers with a sense of considerable socio-cultural diversity in light of stereotypic reductions of Japan as a homogeneous entity. Examples will come from several of Hashiguchi’s photo-texts, namely, 17’s Map (1988), Father (1990), Couple (1992), 1991-1995 Work (1996), Ume (Dreams) (1997), and one made-for-television documentary (1998).

Visual Culture in Japan
Summer session at Temple University Japan, Minami Azabu (Tokyo)

May 14-July 1, 2004

Temple University offers several options for students considering a summer program of study in Tokyo, Japan. Japanese Visual Culture, described in this flier, is a six-week program scheduled for May 16-June 27, 2003, which focuses on the central theme of human visuality and specifically visual culture in modern Japan. Based at Temple's branch campus in Tokyo, Temple University Japan, the program is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students interested in Japan, Asian Studies, visual anthropology, visual sociology, media studies, or inter-cultural communication. Students enroll in two courses carrying three credits each for a total of six credits.

Temple University has the largest and longest surviving American University campus in Japan -- see http://www.tuj.ac.jp/newsite/main/index.html