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Marvin D. SterlingAssistant Professor(812)
855-3858 | Email | Office
Hours
Geographical Areas of Specialization: Japan, Caribbean Topical Interests: Contemporary Japan, African Diasporic Culture, Critical Race Theory, Performance Theory, Transnationalism, Post-Colonial Theory Current Courses: on leave Selected PublicationsProfile:My research centers on the popularity of a range of Jamaican subcultural forms - primarily roots reggae, dancehall reggae, and Rastafari (an anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist, socioreligious movement emerging from within the Afro-Jamaican underclass) - in contemporary Japan . This research directly reflects several of my current theoretical interests. I am interested in performance and transnational theories, for instance, as means by which to ethnographically situate the local practices through which Japanese engage with these Jamaican cultural forms, as well as to understand how Japanese movement across African diasporic space informs and authenticates these local practices. In my most recent line of research I try to historicize the discursive life of the Western idea of race in modern Japan , such as inflected through minzokugaku (folklore studies); early Japanese anthropology; the nation's early modern negotiation of Western popular cultural forms in which the notion of race may be understood to significantly inhere (for instance, jazz); Japanese colonial and wartime propaganda; nihonjinron (theories of Japaneseness); and, today, kokusaika (internationalization). Selected Publications:
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