East Asian Languages and Literatures Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing East Asian Languages and Literatures Theses and Dissertations by Author "Freedman, Alisa"

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    Binding a Universe: The Formation and Transmutations of the Best Japanese SF (Nenkan Nihon SF Kessakusen) Anthology Series
    (University of Oregon, 2016-11-21) Hirao, Akiko; Freedman, Alisa
    The annual science fiction anthology series The Best Japanese SF started publication in 2009 and showcases domestic writers old and new and from a wide range of publishing backgrounds. Although representative of the second golden era of Japanese science fiction in print in its diversity and with an emphasis on that year in science fiction, as the volumes progress the editors’ unspoken agenda has become more pronounced, which is to create a set of expectations for the genre and to uphold writers Project Itoh and EnJoe Toh as exemplary of this current golden era. This thesis analyzes the context of the anthology series’ publication, how the anthology is constructed, and these two writers’ contributions to the genre as integral to the anthologies and important to the younger generation of writers in the genre.
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    Inside the Boy Inside the Robot: Mobile Suit Gundam and Interiority
    (University of Oregon, 2018-04-10) Moore, John; Freedman, Alisa
    Mobile Suit Gundam (1979-1980) is an iconic series in the genre of television anime featuring giant fighting robots, embedded in a system of conventions developed across decades of media aimed at boys that emphasizes action and combat. In this thesis, I argue that Gundam foregrounds the interiority of its main character Amuro, challenging conventions governing the boy protagonist. Using Peter Verstraten's principles of film narratology and Thomas Lamarre’s theory of limited animation, I find in Gundam's narrative strategies sophisticated techniques developed to portray his inner life. These techniques of interiority generate ironic tensions with the traditionally exterior orientation of combat narratives. These tensions connect to a larger discourse of Japanese postwar media built into the very lines that draw characters and robots, leading Gundam to a spectacular confrontation with its own genre’s legacy of mechaphilia.
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    The Limits of Existential Therapy in the Fiction of Nakamura Fuminori
    (University of Oregon, 2016-02-23) Murnion, Stephen; Freedman, Alisa
    Written within an existentialist mode, Nakamura Fuminori’s early fictional works lend themselves to be read as therapeutic technologies reaching out to Japanese youth whose lives are marked by anxiety, isolation, and precariousness. Because English-language scholarship on Nakamura is lacking, this thesis analyzes two of his novels – Child of Dirt and Evil and the Mask – in order to introduce how Nakamura understands the human, how his texts function formally as therapeutic technologies, and how, in the final analysis, they exhibit a nascent sexism that borders on misogyny.