A Little Bit of PCA Talk and Some Animal Crossing
It feels a little odd sending a newsletter out late on a Friday night, but it was a busy week, I DID write something, and I want to keep this run going!
I'm mostly playing a combination of Promise Mascot Agency, which I've written about before, and Mechabellum, which I'm not sure I have but I don't have enough to say about just yet.
I spent quite a bit of time this week, largely under the auspices of it being work-related, looking into how to play the Japanese release of Animal Crossing, Doubutsu no Mori e+. This is largely but not entirely driven by my newfound conviction the next book needs an entire chapter on Animal Crossing. It's also... fun?
I'll have to work on my Japanese but I've been pleased with how well it's held up so far while playing Oideyo Doubutsu no Mori, the Japanese release of Animal Crossing: Wild World on DS. Truthfully there's not that much difference, really, between the English and Japanese language releases - but you know, it's one thing to know that Tom Nook goes by Mr. Tanuki in the Japanese games, it's another to live that reality. Also, and this is likely the limits of my Japanese, but Tanuki-san kind of comes across as a more blatant and self-aware jerk than Tom does. Maybe he's more honest.
Time will tell if the series does get its own chapter. I mean, it will if I can make it work. There's also the distinct, if admittedly now rather obscure, possibility that I craft an Animal Crossing and Death Stranding chapter, which is tempting but may not ultimately serve the book. I am still working through rough prospective tables of contents for the project, but at the moment the major featured chapter topics look like being:
- Medieval Japan / Samurai
- Meiji Period / Modernization / Reactions to imperialism
- Modernity in Japan (early twentieth century concepts)
- Japanese religion/culture and games
- Japan and the postwar world
- Environmental collapse, corporate power, and other fears of the 1970s
- Western periodization in Japanese play
I am increasingly making peace with the fact this has morphed into a Japanese history project as opposed to a global history one. The PCA helped: I saw some talks that provided great examples of how to intersect textual readings with historical arguments, and arguments from other disciplines.
I was on a great panel. Rian Johnson's work was a nice complement to my talk, looking at the meanings and symbologies of Japanese game genres and characters. Christina Xan had a great talk on games and the American south, though I am a little biased as I particularly enjoyed her close reading of the family and house in Resident Evil VII.
I saw too many talks to summarize here, including a fascinating discussion of Doki Doki Literature Club by Hannah Graham that was well done but convinced me I will never likely play that game (sorry Hannah!). Maybe my favorite, shamelessly colored by the fact that I like the game so much, was Marc Wagoner's discussion of vengeance in Elden Ring. Presenting a grounded academic reading of a game while diving full on into a lore debate is a very difficult thing to do, and Marc did it.
So, yeah. The Popular Cultural Association annual meeting is a good time if it sounds like your jam. You can also look out for regional meetings - that's how I found my way there. It's been a lot of fun for me. It's not true that all historical conferences go a certain way, but there are certain commonalities that when married to entirely justifiable early career anxieties can sometimes create a pretty challenging environment. The point of presenting work at an academic conference is to share your research. But whereas in History/Asian Studies circles I've often felt a need to justify my work, at the PCA I just feel the desire to share.
A lot of it is me. History conferences are also places where you are supposed to want to share, both in presenting your own work and listening to the work of others. There's a reason academics use the word "collegiality" so much. I just didn't get there, for a variety of reasons. Maybe I would have if the third book was another exploration of Christianity in China. But here we are.
Despite the last newsletter I might already be done with Oblivion. It's not the game; rather, I increasingly came to feel I had more or less played all the Oblivion I wanted to play in 2006. In the last couple of days I've pivoted to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I spent the opening of the game grumpy and skeptical, but it has won me over in a hurry. So my current gaming diet is a mix of anthropomorphic animal civic life and heavy sci-fi with Belle Epoque vibes. It's working for me so far.
Be safe everyone and have a great weekend.