PhD candidate Mei M. Nan’s article, “Imperial Media Mix: Japan’s Failed Attempt at Asia’s First Transnational Girl Group,” has been published in volume 16, issue 1 of Mechademia: Second Arc (University of Minnesota Press) as part of a special issue on “media mix” edited by Marc Steinberg.
The article examines Columbia Records’ collaboration with the Japanese Empire in the 1940s to package and promote Three Girls Revitalizing Asia, Asia’s first transnational girl group. By investigating the debut and disbandment of Three Girls, it traces how Japan’s imperial expansions both enabled and necessitated the production of a transnational girl group as part of its pan-Asianism campaign. Through an examination of Three Girls, especially the central figure, Ri Kōran, as the concretization of an intricate web of technological, social, and cultural relations, it provides insights into a prototype of Asia’s transnational idol groups that have become global sensations today.
Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.
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