Media Theory in Japan

"This groundbreaking collection—striking for its contributions from a range of disciplines and perspectives—boldly delineates the key questions and paradigms for understanding Japanese media theories while providing insight into their social and intellectual contexts. At last, thanks to Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten, we can begin to make sense of the challenges and possibilities of Japanese media theory." - Thomas Lamarre, McGill University

"Fascinating and groundbreaking, this volume focuses our attention on a major paradox within the fields of English and German media theory—their twin obsession with Japanese media technologies and ignorance of media theory in Japan. Rectifying this situation, this volume reveals how context affects theory and how media theory is not a universal abstraction, but rather a series of local practices. A must read for all students and scholars of media theory." - Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, author of Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media

"An excellent selection of essays." - Aurelio Cianciotta, Neural

“Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten cleverly edited this collection of essays, and it will likely become an important reference for critical re-examination of media studies in Japan and for reconsidering this field in the West, which means a reconstruction of the field of media studies.” - Shin Mizukoshi, Designing Media Ecology

“A groundbreaking collection. . . . The diverse range of rigorous and engaging essays make the collection as a whole essential reading for an extensive range of audiences in media studies, Japan studies, and humanities-based area studies more broadly.” - Franz Prichard, Pacific Affairs

“This groundbreaking collection is a welcome contribution to recent writing that focuses on Japan not only as an object of study but as a location of theory. Media Theory in Japan is a valuable start to necessary cultural commutation, a kind of atlas of thinking on media in Japan that only makes me wish for more pages.” - Michael Raine, Critical Inquiry

"The question of how to recognize the complexity of new media at the scale which it intervenes in our collective consciousness and everyday life is one that Media Theory in Japan leaves its readers to grapple with on their own. . . . What this provocative set of essays ultimately points toward is a future media studies, both in and of Japan, where theory and method effectively collaborate in the construction of its evolving tower of babel." - Hoyt Long, Journal of Japanese Studies

"[A] rigorously conceived and realised tome that provides solid foundations for future research in a wealth of disciplines, not limited to media studies and Japanology, but also notably for the social sciences." - Tom Mes, New Books Asia