Affiliation:
1. ISNI: 0000000404255983 SOAS University of London
2. ISNI: 0000000122898809 Kyoto University of the Arts
Abstract
Preoccupied with the historical contradictions of seawater as manifested in the early to mid-twentieth century popular music history surrounding Japan, the Introduction to the Special Issue: ‘Resonating Across Oceanic Currents: Maritime Histories of Popular Music in and from Japan, 1920s-60s’ addresses a potentiality of the maritime frame as a method for moving away from historical periodization in popular music studies, and for reconsidering the approaches to ‘the global music history’. Above all, by contributing to the growing scholarship that engages with the oceanic frames as methods ripe for deconstructing music histories, it argues for the potencies of the maritime frame that, in many respects, brings to centre personal narratives, shifting geopolitical positionalities and subjectivities of musicians, listeners and creators in the study of popular music history.