Kabuki Theatre Research Articles

Justified exoticism, or, Kabuki Theatre touring the Soviet Union in 1928

The article offers a detailed account of the first tour of a Kabuki troupe in theSoviet Union, commenting on its political and cultural significance. Kabuki performers were invited to theUSSRfor primarily political reasons: establishing contact between the two governments came first, and the tour was regarded as a success for Soviet diplomacy rather than an achievement of Japanese culture. However, the political hype soon subsided and more people realized the extraordinary significance of this tour for the history of the theatre. The tour became a nation-wide event. The authors cite numerous newspaper reviews of the Kabuki plays, as well as correspondence between politicians, who had anticipated a flop, but were amazed at the reaction of Soviet audiences to this Japanese ‘exoticism’ because the tour had been mostly targeted at the Japanese community. The latter saw the tour as a sign of the Soviets’ readiness for peaceful coexistence withJapan.

The role of the nursing team in the care of patients with Kabuki syndrome

Background: Kabuki syndrome is a rare genetic condition characterised by pathological changes within all the systems of the body, but with variable gene expression. All the patients described in the literature so far have specific facial features resembling the masks of actors from the Japanese Kabuki Theatre and mild to moderate mental impairment. Diagnosis is made based by genetic testing for mutations of the KMT2D and KDM6A genes. Therapy is mainly based on symptomatic alleviation of the effects of mutation, rehabilitation and improvement of the quality of patients’ life. Then prognosis of patients with Kabuki syndrome is closely related to the severity of symptoms, which is very variable. Aim of the study: The purpose of the study is to present the nursing problems based on the case report and to present complications caused by the disease entity. Material and methods: The criterion for including the patient in the study was the legal guardian’s (parent’s) consent for the child to participate in the study. Qualitative research was conducted using analysis of medical records, interview with the child and the child’s legal guardian, direct and indirect observation of the child for psycho-social changes related to the disease and interpretation of the data in the context of the theoretical knowledge and our own observations. Case report: The report is based on the case of a 16-year-old girl, diagnosed (at the age of fourteen) with rare genetic disorder – Kabuki syndrome. The patient experiences some characteristic symptoms – big, red lips, lowset and sticky-out ears, drooping eyelids and short fingers and toes. One of the first symptoms suggesting Kabuki syndrome were: spitting up during breastfeeding, problems with swallowing, motor clumsiness and epilepsy. The role of the nursing team during hospitalization was to take care because of habitual dislocation of patella, and to provide psychological suport. At present time the girl uses a wheelchair or she moves on her knees Results: The manifestations of chronic disease contribute to the feeling of excessive stress, regardless of the patient’s age. An adequate diet enriched with proteins contributes to the prevention of bedsores among individuals with Kabuki syndrome, immobilised to various degrees. Regular consultations with specialists, such as cardiologist, neurologist, gastroenterologist, orthopaedist, ophthalmologist, psychologist, orthodontist, speech therapist, immunologist, endocrinologist and dietician reduce the risk of complications associated with the disease in the patient with Kabuki syndrome. Early implementation of rehabilitation, focused to increase muscle tension, contributes to maintaining autonomy and self-care in patients with Kabuki syndrome.

Commune Kabuki: Development and Productivity Growth under Maoist China's Rural Collectives

ABSTRACTThe key question for a developing country with a fast‐growing population is how to increase savings rates and make productive investments that take advantage of high returns to capital. This study demonstrates that after the disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), China's commune system administered a nationwide agricultural modernization programme that was able to deliver continuous robust increases in agricultural productivity throughout the 1970s. Through the extraction of household savings primarily via the workpoint remuneration system, China's communes impoverished the local populace while funding investments that increased agricultural production. The workpoint remuneration system constituted a ‘kabuki theatre’ that used countless meetings about job allocations, work evaluations, and the exchange of points for cash or grain to draw members’ attention away from the extraction of their savings and towards the size of their own portion relative to other workers. China's research and extension system, which was nested into the commune and its sub‐units, prioritized locally appropriate capital investments and technical innovations that were both labour‐ and land‐saving. These two systems worked together to extract an increasing percentage of household savings and underwrite investments in productive capital and technology that produced a decade of rapid increases in food output.

A History of Japanese Theatre; Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost; Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater

<i>A History of Japanese Theatre</i>; <i>Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost</i>; <i>Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater</i>

Beauty is the Beast: Suzuki Sumiko and Prewar Japanese Horror Cinema

ABSTRACTThe 1930s were crucial years in the development of the horror film as an international genre of popular cinema. At the same time Hollywood hits like Dracula and Frankenstein made global icons of their stars, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, Japanese actress Suzuki Sumiko achieved a similar type of fame as her nation’s first horror star. In contrast to Hollywood ‘scream queens’ like Fay Wray, Suzuki most often played the monster, not its victim, making her place in horror history more akin to male stars like Lugosi and Karloff. Suzuki inaugurated a line of Japanese female film monster stars by portraying a traditional feminine monster of the kabuki theatre, the bakeneko or ‘ghost cat,’ and Suzuki and her successors’ bakeneko pictures often take on the style and motifs of Hollywood horror while still remaining true to native visual representations of the grotesque and monstrous in Japanese art and theatre that predate the advent of cinema. The result is a meeting of two distinct traditions in the body of the star actress that recasts a well-known monster of woodblock prints and the kabuki stage in the fashion of Lugosi’s hypnotic vampire Count Dracula.

Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka, and: Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost by Satoko Shimazaki

Reviewed by: Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka, and: Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost by Satoko Shimazaki Carolyn Morley Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. Pp. xvi + 256. $50.00 cloth, $30.00 paper. Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost by Satoko Shimazaki. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Pp. xiii + 372. $60.00 cloth, $59.99 e-book. The sprawling, raucous, boundary-bursting kabuki theater of the Edo period underwent a critical change as it adapted to a new era during the nineteenth century, transforming in the process from a popular to a classical theater. This shift is not so surprising considering the changes wrought in every sector of society with the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the advent of the Meiji period, a period that ushered in modernization, Westernization, and a new emphasis on the natural sciences. Mainstays of Edo kabuki—such as the onnagata 女方 (actors who specialize in women’s roles), the primacy of the actor over the written text, and, during the nineteenth century at least, the extremely graphic and convoluted stories—were antithetical to the new enlightened era. Two recent studies examine the arc of kabuki from its beginnings in the early seventeenth century to the present, questioning how scholars have interpreted the dynamic role of kabuki in society, the changes in audience reception, and the innovations in acting during the Edo period. Maki Isaka addresses the evolution of the onnagata through the lens of gender identity, while [End Page 230] Satoko Shimazaki explores the ever-changing performance text of kabuki. Modernization introduced a valorization of the written text and, with it, an anxiety over origins: the original written source of a play (Shimazaki’s focus), and the original site of a performance role (Isaka’s focus). Imitation—the transmission of both performance text and performing roles from one actor to the next in a lineage—was now considered second best, a copy. For the (male) onnagata, this new valorization of texts meant questioning the very basis of his performance: he could never “be a woman,” after all. For the performance texts themselves, this valorization meant an assertion that only one written version of a play, the so-called original, had merit and was part of the canon. This kind of essentialism was the antithesis of kabuki performance, which had long resisted any constraints. In Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki, Isaka offers “a case study of how gender has been constructed and naturalized, defined and redefined, theorized and practiced” (p. 15). She uses the onnagata as her example and follows the evolution of the art of the onnagata via the historical records of some of kabuki’s most renowned onnagata performers, from Yoshizawa Ayame 芳沢あやめ (a man, 1673–1729) through Ichikawa Kumehachi 市川久女八 (a woman, 1846?–1913). Isaka’s contribution is primarily not in the discovery of new material but in a new analysis of material already available in other sources. Her approach enables her to successfully situate onnagata within current discourse on gender identity. As a theater specialist, I found the framing of the argument in the vocabulary of gender studies to be at times irksome, but I am nevertheless grateful for the new insights offered into the art of role-play in traditional theater forms. Isaka turns her attention first to the evolution of the art of performing a woman on stage from its inception in early kabuki, which was performed primarily by women (okuni kabuki 阿国歌舞伎) and prostitutes (yūjo kabuki 遊女歌舞伎), to female impersonation in the young-boy troupes (wakashū kabuki 若衆歌舞伎) to the emergence of the onnagata in male-only performances (yarō kabuki 野郎歌舞伎) following the government edict banning women’s and young boys’ kabuki troupes. The reader may be familiar with the works of Katherine Mezur, Hattori Yukio 服部幸雄, and Gunji Masakatsu 郡司正勝, which trace the onnagata acting method to wakashū 若衆 (young boy) female [End Page 231] impersonations.1 Isaka does not dispute the connection: many of the boy actors drifted over to the male-only troupes to become...

Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater. Maki Isaka.

<i>Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater</i>. Maki Isaka.

Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka

Reviewed by: Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka Samuel L. Leiter (bio) Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater. By Maki Isaka. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2015. xvi, 256 pages. $50.00. Ever since it was born in 1603, Japan's kabuki theater has continued to evolve; that is one reason it still flourishes today, when it competes with multiple forms of entertainment, both traditional and modern. Just witness [End Page 423] the multimillion dollar demolition and complete reconstruction of its main Tokyo venue, the Kabuki-za, between 2010 and 2013. Despite being around for four centuries, however, kabuki's tradition of using men (onnagata) to play female roles not only has remained intact, its crossdressing stars are among the most celebrated stage artists in Japan. Kabuki's crossdressing tradition, which began before women were officially banned from the stage in 1629, has been challenged over the years. This was especially the case during the Meiji period, when women were again allowed to act in public (including in companies that mixed men and women), following the wave of Westernization that rushed in with the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate. Today as well, scholars and critics argue whether male or female actors are best suited to play kabuki's women characters, and this is a key element in Maki Isaka's Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater. Isaka reminds us, however, that the Tokugawa period itself saw women kabuki actors (okyōgenshi), who played male and female roles, although they performed for private audiences of samurai women and not for the public. From these okyōgenshi were born during the Meiji period professional performers called onna yakusha (female actors), whose exemplar, Ichikawa Kumehachi, was so good she was allowed to perform with male kabuki actors. Kumehachi, also treated in detail in several other English-language sources, played both males and females. Isaka closely diagnoses Kumehachi's female-role artistry in terms of its replication of the way men acted women. It was considered a compliment for her to be praised for acting women just as though she were a man, but Isaka reminds us that the important playwright Mayama Seika felt she should play such roles more "naturally," that is, by using her body's innate femininity. For women onnagata to have done so, however, would have excluded them from the mainstream kabuki tradition; Kumehachi, for all her alleged brilliance and adherence to tradition, was herself eventually marginalized within the kabuki world. Isaka's study is a blend of onnagata history and gender studies. Theater enthusiasts—especially those interested in kabuki—will find much of interest in her discussion of historical developments in onnagata acting, from the seventeenth century on; however, unless they are also intimate with gender theory, they may not fully appreciate her theoretical discussions, particularly when these become unreadably dense and riddled with jargon, such as "aporia," "illocution," "citationality," "constitutive," "enunciation," "performative," "différance," "gender economy," "constructionism," and "essentialism." Some expressions, like "insidious," pop up regularly, but not necessarily as many readers might otherwise understand them. The opposite is true for those mainly interested in the technicalities of gender theory but lacking background in kabuki traditions. For such readers, Isaka's [End Page 424] arguments may lack sufficient context; one could question, for example, her decision not to provide illustrations, "so readers could focus on the idea of gender as it was manifest in kabuki theatre." Isaka's is the latest in a series of recent English-language studies that grapple with gender issues in Japanese theater: Ayako Kano's Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan (2001); Katherine Mezur's Beautiful Boys/Outlaw Bodies: Devising Kabuki Female-Likeness (2005); Minoru Fujita and Michael Shapiro's edited volume, Transvestitism and the Onnagata Traditions in Shakespeare and Kabuki (2006); and Loren Edelson's Danjūrō's Girls: Women on the Kabuki Stage (2009). Isaka cites each of these, apart from Fujita and Shapiro, along with extensive Japanese sources. Perhaps because of its publication date, she overlooks my Kabuki at the Crossroads: Years of Crisis, 1952–1965 (2013), which touches on similar topics as they affected postwar kabuki, in particular the...

Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering In Kabuki Theatre by Mari Isaka

Reviewed by: Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering In Kabuki Theatre by Mari Isaka Colleen Lanki Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theatre. Mari Isaka. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. 272pp. Cloth, $50.00. Isaka offers one common definition of the term onnagata as “those in charge of women’s roles” in the kabuki theatre (p. 6). Many studies on onnagata modify this definition, replacing the nongendered pronoun “those” with the qualified noun “male actors,” implying that a male body is the only site for the onnagata’s performance of “womanliness.” In her book, Isaka argues against this gendered specificity through analysis of texts by and about famous onnagata and by presenting examples of women actors who were successful onnagata. In so doing, Isaka shows a fluidity of gender performance in the art of the onnagata, leading us into the labyrinth of “womanliness” that flows between the fictional world of the theatre and the real life of society in both male and female bodies. The book begins with a short introduction to kabuki, which allows the reader entrance into Isaka’s ideas on gendering and onnagata. Focusing on the original meaning of the word kabuku (to lean; to act and/or dress in a particular manner), kabuki is immediately defined as a “queer” theatre with a checkered history. Isaka does not spend a great deal of time describing kabuki performance but emphasizes that this book is an analysis of the literature of and about onnagata, particularly the geidan, the writings of kabuki actors [End Page 247] describing their artistic praxis. The book then “examines and inquires into how the gender performance of onnagata has been understood, conceptualized and theorized” (p. 15). Through an investigation of this literature, Isaka looks at the trajectory of what is appropriate, valued, or admired in onnagata gender performance through different time periods. From the futanarihira (androgynous beauties), who emerged from the early wakashu kabuki (kabuki performed by young men), to onnagata, who were especially admired when they passed as “real” women offstage as well as on, the book brings to light some new ideas on the art of onnagata. Through exploration of numerous texts Isaka shows that the performance of womanliness is complex, porous, and the result of intense cultivation (shugyō) and imitation. Chapter 6 changes somewhat, focusing more generally on the body in both kabuki and Japanese dance. It is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the transference of gei (acquired artistic technique) and how kabuki’s intense training “implants kabuki grammar in the actors body” (p. 90). At times, however, the chapter’s discussions on nō and nanba gait (where the left arm and leg move together rather in opposition) do not connect clearly to the art or theory of onnagata. Also in this chapter, the technique of ningyōburi (puppet gesture technique) is theorized and used as a way to problematize the binary of “natural” and “unnatural” movements. The idea that through intense physical training something deemed “unnatural” becomes “natural” is certainly connected to the art of the onnagata, but here it is discussed purely in the context of the Inoue school of Japanese dance. The points raised are strong, but some analysis of actual performance alongside the literature would have reinforced the argument. Another chapter of note deals with the Meiji-era development of the female actor in both kabuki and other forms of theatre. This is an important examination of women’s emerging place as both tachiyaku (male role actors) and onnagata. It looks at the impact of Ichikawa Kumehachi I and other female performers, discussing how their ability to embody authentic kabuki performances made them serious competition in an otherwise male world. What follows is an argument as to why contemporary onnagata theory evolved to assume that onnagata could only be performed by a male-sexed body. The catchphrase “more womanly than women” was designed to make modern onnagata “transcendent doers of femininity in isolation” (p. 151), and female-sexed beings were no longer included in the new paradigm. There are a few notable omissions in this book. Though it begins with a discussion of the origins of the word “kabuki,” there is no mention of kabuki’s...

Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater. By Maki Isaka . Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2016; pp. xvi + 256, $50 cloth, $50 e-book.

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Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka

Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka

Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost by Satoko Shimazaki, and: Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka

Edo Kabuki in Transition: From the Worlds of the Samurai to the Vengeful Female Ghost by Satoko Shimazaki, and: Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering in Kabuki Theater by Maki Isaka

Introduction: Shakespeare in Modern Japan

In Newsletter sent from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Lisa Peter writes:As Shakespeare is generally considered one of the most English playwrights, it is quite astonishing that his plays travel so well. After all, why should, for example, the story of a Scottish king like Macbeth be of any relevance to people in India or in China?1In my view, the story of Macbeth is relevant to people in Japan. Akira Kurosawa's Kumonosu-jo [Throne of Blood], a world famous film adaptation of Macbeth, proves the relevance. Seeking the beauty of Noh in it, he succeeded in fusing Shakespeare and Japanese culture.Shakespeare, a globe-trotter, arrived in Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century when she promoted her rapid Westernization or modernization. To the Japanese, being modern meant having an economic system of industrial capitalism and a political system of liberal constitutionalism built up in the United States and European countries. Calling Shakespeare Sao affectionately, the Japanese accepted him as a cultural hero, and read translations of his works and saw his plays adapted for the Japanese stage.A notable feature of Shakespeare appropriation in the Meiji era (1868-1927) was to adapt his plays for Kabuki theatre, because hardly anyone had seen European drama. This method was highly effective to popularize Shakespeare and disseminate Western culture as well as to give the Japanese an opportunity to know things European. The Japan premiere of Shakespearean drama was Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka [The season of Cherrry Blossoms: The World of Money], an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice which was dramatized by Hikozo Katsu and performed by the Nakamura Sojuro Kabuki Company in 1885. In 1884 Shoyo Tsubouchi translated Julius Caesar in Joruri (ballad drama) style, using the Japanese native poetic form of seven-five syllable metre used in tanka, haiku, and the dramatic form of Kabuki and Noh. This was a free and loose translation, whose title was Shizaru Kidan: Jiyu no Tachi Nagori no Kireaji [Caesar's Strange Tale: Residual Sharpness of the Sword of Freedom].Tsubouchi, who brought out the Shakespearean canon in Japanese during the period from 1909 to 1928, was the first to give a serious consideration to what the Japanese should learn from Shakespeare and how contemporary Japanese drama should be improved by his dramaturgy. His motto was to interpret Shakespeare from Japanese standpoint and to try to perform his drama for the Japanese sake. His Shizaru Kidan and Udagawa's Sakuradoki may be the fountainhead of Kurosawa's film adaptations and Yukio Ninagawa's stage adaptations in the half of the twentieth century.In the late Meiji era there was an enhanced interest in shingeki (new drama) which deliberately cut off traditional dramatic forms in favour of an intellectual and realistic approach. Shingeki movement expressed opposition to the established stage, and there was a tendency among directors and actors to separate from Kabuki and classics. The members of the movement thought Noh and Kabuki were out of date, and wanted to Westernize the theatre world. Tsubouchi was the leader of a group of amateurs working for a more cultivated theatre. In 1906 he established the Bungei Kyokai (The Association of Literature and Arts) and threw his energy into the training actors and the improvement of drama. His faithful translation of Hamlet produced by the Bungei Kyokai in 1911 is considered as the first presentation of shingeki. But Tsubouchi disbanded the Bungei Kyokai in 1913. Therefore, Kaoru Osanai and Yoshi Hijikata founded the Tsukiji Shogekijo (little theatre) as the base of shingeki in 1924.In 1939 World War II started, and Shakespeare's drama became chiefly the object of a scholary study. After the war ended, Hijikata directed Shakespeare's plays for the public. In 1955 Tsuneari Fukuda directed his translation of Hamlet. This performance was an epoch-making event on the history of Shakespearean stage in Japan. …

How Does the Billy-Goat Produce Milk? Sergei Eisenstein's Reconstitution of Kabuki Theatre

Through a close examination of Eisenstein's writings on the Kabuki theatre, Min Tian demonstrates in this article that Eisenstein's interpretation of Kabuki from the perspective of his theory displaced the techniques and principles of Kabuki theatre from its historical and aesthetic contexts. Predicated upon his ‘montage thinking’, Eisenstein reconstituted the techniques and principles integral to Kabuki as an organic whole in the context of his evolving and synthesizing theory. Min Tian has a PhD in theatre history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a doctorate at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. Currently teaching at the University of Iowa, he is the author of Mei Lanfang and the Twentieth-Century International Stage (2012) and The Poetics of Difference and Displacement: Twentieth-Century Chinese–Western Intercultural Theatre (2008), and editor of China's Greatest Operatic Male Actor of Female Roles: Documenting the Life and Art of Mei Lanfang, 1894–1961 (2010).

Education in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement: Kabuki theatre meets danse macabre

The Good Friday Agreement (1998) between the UK and Irish governments, and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland, heralded a significant step forward in securing peace and stability for this troubled region of the British Isles. From the new-found stability, the previous fits and starts of education reform were replaced by a determination for modernisation and innovation, infused with a new energy and momentum. This sense of purpose embraced a complex weave of ideas and ideals; all designed variously to smooth, celebrate and harness community differences for the collective good. Much progress has been made in the intervening years since 1998, particularly in political structures and relationships. However, the euphoria of the new dawn of the Agreement had barely begun to shape the future before entrenched ‘tribal’ tensions reproduced the same political and legislative impasses of former years and visited their all-too-familiar blight on the economic, cultural and educational landscapes. This paper focuses on two signature dimensions of education that have been sustained by this partisanship: segregation by religion and segregation by academic selection.

Takayuki Hioki, Kabuki during the Transitional Period: A History of Kabuki Theater from the Late Edo Period to the Early Meiji Period

Takayuki Hioki, Kabuki <i>during the Transitional Period: A History of Kabuki Theater from the Late Edo Period to the Early Meiji Period</i>

Speaking of Science: Introducing Notice and Comment into the Legislative Process

Congress enacts, on a nearly continuous basis, a variety of laws that affect scientific research and progress. Some of these laws have an unquestionably positive effect. For instance, Congress’s creation of the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences, and NASA; its various appropriations to fund ground-breaking research; and a multitude of other laws have incalculably advanced human knowledge, and it is to Congress’s great credit that these laws have been and are continuing to be enacted. However, not all laws that affect the progress of sciences are an unalloyed good. Quite the opposite, often the laws aim to, and in fact do, retard the progress of scientific research. The question is then whether the benefit from those laws outweighs the costs imposed on scientific progress. Congress, however, often does not fully consider the costs that the legislation imposes on science, either for lack of information or as a result of conscious disregard for the views of a politically insignificant group. The public is not able to hold Congress accountable because it lacks an ability to participate in the process and lacks an objective basis against which to measure congressional action. The problem is not congressional malfeasance or ignorance but rather the structure of the legislative process itself. The general public is often taught and told that lawmaking is a process that begins in a committee where the proposal is carefully studied, debated, amended, and voted on. The reality, of course, is much different. First, bills often skip the committee process, and amendments are often added last minute without a chance for a meaningful debate. But even where the process is followed, it is often hard to portray the committee hearings as a true deliberative process. Instead, they are often described as a Kabuki theater, where the Chair and the Ranking Member designate the witnesses they wish to call to support the preformulated position. Interested parties cannot provide testimony unless asked to do so by the relevant committee. Thus, oftentimes the people with the deepest knowledge, but low political skills, are cut out of the process. The end result is that Congress votes on legislation without fully understanding the implication thereof. The voters also are injured in that it is hard to hold Congress accountable if one cannot point out that it ignored the views of the scientific communities. This Article proposes a solution to the problem. Bills that affect the progress of science ought to be evaluated by an independent body similar to the Congressional Budget Office. Like the CBO, this body would not have any authority to block a bill, but it would be able to “score” it (i.e., provide information on the effect the bill will have on research). In order to accomplish its task, this newly created body would be required to provide notice of pending legislation and then seek comments from the interested parties, much like what is done in the administrative rulemaking process. The comments then would be collected and analyzed, and the final report would be presented to Congress before it votes. Congress would continue to be able to vote as it pleases, but with this process in place, it would be forced to do so with its eyes wide open. By understanding the full scope and the implication for the scientific progress of the bills it wishes to enact, Congress would produce better legislation, which would be less detrimental to the scientific progress.

Ordinary transvestitism: Imaginary body–real body in contemporary fashion

Abstract The study we are proposing here concerns the transition between clothes and the images that they convey. At the same time, we have given thought to the body and on the way in which it becomes incarnated in contemporary fashion. From a semiotic point of view, we are situated in a perspective which has been a little bit forgotten, by drawing on the category of Barthesian semblance and by questioning it in the light of new data. More precisely, our semiotic approach has been carried out by adopting other disciplines such as psychoanalysis, philosophy and Kabuki theatre (in this case, the character of onnagata). To do this, we have chosen to grasp what is at play concerning the body in present-day ready-to-wear clothes. To illustrate our remarks, we have based our work on a particular example, that being the universe of Yves Saint Laurent’s (YSL) house of fashion, more precisely their 2012 Men’s collection. In fact, these clothes reveal that what we see is within the realm of appearance, but, at the same time, they show that they are the appearance of the appearance. Indicating a radical dissociation between clothes and gender, YSL opens the enigma of One-body. This designer strips the gaze which refers less to the imaginary body and the gender comedy than the enigma of the real body defined in the psychoanalytic field.

에도 가부키의 무장(武將)형 연기 양식의 발상

에도 가부키의 무장(武將)형 연기 양식의 발상

Iona] Rozeal [Brown

[Iona] Rozeal [Brown] Charles H. Rowell Click for larger view View full resolution Photograph courtesy of Chester Higgins, Jr. / The New York Times / Redux Portfolio of Artwork 899-903 [End Page 805] Over the last decade the painter Iona Rozeal Brown has created a fantastical body of work that unites so many seemingly irreconcilable realities—Japanese ukiyo-e prints and hip-hop; voguing and Noh and Kabuki theater; West African adinkra symbols and graffiti; Byzantine religious painting and comic-book motifs—that it gives new meaning to the idealized space of the canvas. from Randy Kennedy, “Single Works with Myriad Influences,” New York Times, February 22, 2013 [Iona] Rozeal [Brown] (b. 1966), a native of Washington, DC, is a mixed media artist who graduated from the University of Maryland in 1991 with a BS in kinesiological sciences, and received the BFA at San Francisco School of Art (1999) and the MFA from Yale University (2002). She also studied at Pratt Institute and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. In solo and group shows, she has exhibited her artworks in museums, galleries, and other art venues in Milan (Italy), Montreal (Canada), Stockholm (Sweden), Dehli (India), Basel (Switzerland), and Wellington (New Zealand), as well as in such United States cities as Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Sacramento, and Hollywood. The Joyce Foundation Award, Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, and the US Japan Creative Artists Fellowship are but some of the honors she has received for her achievements as a visual artist. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. “I paint what I want to see,” Rozeal proclaimed to LeRonn P. Brooks, as he began recording with her a recent interview (July 3, 2015), “and they [my paintings] usually stem from questions about how I personally feel and about an outward thing or a question that is being presented about the world at large and my feelings about it. Ultimately, it is about something that I want to see.” BROOKS: You were talking about the “inner” discourse, in terms of what you feel inside and in the world. Do you feel you reveal yourself through your work? ROZEAL: Man, I try not to. I try to keep myself out of it. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but I don’t think I am very good at it. I think they’re so me. There is so much of me in them. It’s interesting hearing you talk about all these different time periods coexisting on the surfaces [of my paintings] and I think that is kind of how I am. I believe that’s how I grew up. My mom would be listening to gospel, my dad would be listening to jazz, and I would be listening to rap, R&B, and slow jams. It’s all existing at the same time, under the same roof. I think we’re all like that. I think if we grew up with elders that’s just inherently who people are. There’s always that. There’s what you have that’s you, who you’re discovering as you are a child, and you have whatever you are opting to take from your parents—your parents hoping it’s everything. BROOKS: If you are exposed to it, it’s there. ROZEAL: And you know it comes through food. It comes through music. It comes through clothes. It comes through our hairstyles. For me it comes through smell, [the senses] and, you know, the way that my body moves through the space. I have so much of both my parents [End Page 806] in me and in my facial expressions that that’s just who we are as people. I think it’s a very involuntary thing. It just happens. It’s like breathing. We just are who we are. We are either who we are or we are pretending to be something else, but if we are pretending to be something else that’s still who we are too. I think that sometimes the paintings are . . . well, in the legerity that I hold the paintings to there may be some specific lyric or there...