On Wednesday, May 13, Jolyon B. Thomas, an A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present “Religious Frames of Mind: Viewing Japanese Religion through Anime,” in which he uses animated feature films and television series as source material for understanding contemporary Japanese religion. The lecture follows the screening of Ōtomo Katsuhiro’s 2013 film, “Short Peace,” at 5 p.m. in Leighton Hall Room 305. Both the film screening at 5 p.m. and Thomas’s lecture at 6:20 p.m. are free and open to the public.
While few people in contemporary Japan personally identify as "religious," animated feature films and television series are an ideal source material for understanding contemporary Japanese religion. Anime directors promote, critique, and create religions through their films, and some anime fans maintain what Thomas calls "religious frames of mind" by superimposing fictive worlds onto empirical reality.
In his lecture, Thomas will share some examples through analyses of films from directors such as Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), Isao Takahata (Pom Poko), Kon Satoshi (Paprika, Perfect Blue), Ōtomo Katsuhiro (Short Peace, Akira), and Anno Hideaki (Neon Genesis Evangelion) as well as anime created by and for religious organizations such as Happy Science (Kōfuku no Kagaku).
“Short Peace” is an anthology of four short animated films from some of Japan’s most talented creators of anime. Including “Possessions,” “Combustible,” “Gambo,” and “A Farewell to Weapons,” the series of short films was also released as a companion video game. “Combustible” won the Grand Prize at the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival” and “Possessions” was nominated for Best Animated Short at the 86th Academy Awards.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Thomas teaches courses in religious studies, East Asian studies, and history. His research covers the politics of religious freedom, religion and media, and relationships between religion, sex, and gender. Thomas is also editor of Asian traditions at the Marginalia Review of Books.
This event is sponsored by the Carleton College Departments of Asian Studies, Religion, and Cinema & Media Studies For more information, call (507) 222-4232. Leigthon Hall is located at the end of College Street on the Carleton campus, and is also accessible via Highway 19 in Northfield.
