Category: Academic-related

“Protect and Survive” and Nuclear Imagery

As noted in my post Splitting Atomic Symbolism: Differing Words, Images, and Sounds of a Nuclear World, I am due to give a paper related to symbolism of nuclear weapons (primarily) at a conference in May 2022. This paper fits with my on-going research on symbolism and Visual Packaging Culture, and also builds on the…

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Nuclear Imagery and Looking for Movies and TV Programmes

As part of my research on Visual Packaging Culture and also for a conference paper I am due to give in May 2022 (see Splitting Atomic Symbolism: Differing Words, Images, and Sounds of a Nuclear World, and building on my previous work on disaster movies (see, for example, Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?)…

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“The Divide” – A Disaster Movie at Its Worst

As noted in my work on disaster narratives – for example see  “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?” – there is no ‘Disaster’ genre per se. This means that when I have been doing my studies, as well as new movies that would fit with in my studies coming out still, I sometimes come…

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Plane Crash Recreated: JAL123/Japan

Further to my post about the TV series “Plane Crash Recreated” being shown on PBS America in the UK, this post covers one of the episodes – JAL123/Japan. There are two reasons for doing a separate post on this episode (my comments on the other episodes are in the original post). First, I have been…

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Plane Crash Recreated

There are many different documentary one-off programmes and series that deal with plane crashes. Some of the series have gone on for many seasons. It’s clearly a popular form of disaster narrative. Beyond any entertainment aspect, there’s also, naturally, the potential for them to be educational, to help inform the public, and, by extension, to…

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Preferring Live Action over Anime – Hadashi-no-Gen

Over the past week, for work on my the conference paper I will give in May (see Splitting Atomic Symbolism: Differing Words, Images, and Sounds of a Nuclear World), I have re-watched Hadashi-no-Gen (はだしのゲン) (Barefoot Gen) (dir. Masaki, 1983), watched Hadashi-no-Gen 2 (Barefoot Gen 2) (dir. Hirata, 1986) and watched Hadashi-no-Gen (Barefoot Gen) (dir. Nishiura…

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First look at “Bullet Train”

Having been conducting research about the shinkansen (‘bullet train’) for over 20 years, when I learnt of the book Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka, I knew that I had to get a copy and you can read my review on that here. In brief, however, I had many issues with the book – including the…

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Remembering MH370

Today (8 March) is the anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. To date MH370 hasn’t featured much in my research on memorialisation of plane crashes – see, for example, Developing a Model to Explain Modifications to Public Transportation Accident Memorials and my work on the JL123 crash, primarily, of course, because the…

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World Book Day – Like the Other 364 Days

Today is World Book Day, a day when we should celebrate books and many children will dress up as characters from favourite books. For me, World Book Day, is not that different to many other days of the year. My life is full of books. I have written before about the significant impact of movies/films…

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Getting to Japan: Mixed Signs

Further to a comment in my post on the latest BAJS Podcast episode, I am doing a post about what appear to be the latest developments for those of us trying to get Japan. Naturally, as I am based in the UK, the focus will be primarily on the situation for those of us trying…

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