Reckoning with the Myths of Samurai Baseball: Japan's National Pastime in Literature, Film and Manga

The Japanese passion for the game of baseball stretches back over one hundred years to the beginnings of modern Japan in the Meiji period (1868-1912). Baseball has long been Japan's national pastime and constitutes an important part of the cultural fabric of Japan. In modern Japan, writers, filmmakers, and artists have used baseball-themed works alternately to affirm the time-honored myths of "Samurai baseball" or to challenge the rigid cultural values and assumptions propounded by those myths. Baseball has served in the modern era as a cultural touchstone to which artists have returned again and again. In this presentation, Dr. Christopher Keaveney (professor of Japanese at Linfield College) summarizes the content of his book ​Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball​: Cultural Representations of Japan's National Pastime and introduces some of the defining works of Japanese baseball fiction, film, and manga.