Rezensionen AAA Band 40 (2015) Heft 1-2 273 fentlichen sowie privaten Theater und der Hofbühnen mit den jeweiligen theaterpraktischen und ideologischen Eigenheiten zur Sprache kommen. Wie bereits erwähnt, werden diese Punkte wo immer möglich an konkreten Textpassagen vorgeführt, was den Studierenden im modularisierten Kurrikulum selten gewordene Einblicke in mittelalterliche Dramenformen wie dem Townley Cycle, das Drama Mankind (ca. 1464-71) oder die pageants zu Ehren des Lord Mayor of London gibt. Die Tragödie und Komödie der frühen Neuzeit werden in Subgenres bzw. Entwicklungsphasen unterteilt (revenge, de casibus, domestic; frühe Tudorkomödie, höfische Komödie, comedy of humours, city comedy, Tragikomödie) und auch hier durch Ausschnitte aus Dramentexten illustriert. Shakespeare ist jeweils ein Unterkapitel gewidmet, wodurch gleichzeitig dem besonderen Status des Barden im Kanon englischer Literatur sowie dem Reichtum an Stücken anderer Dramatiker Rechnung getragen wird. Kann man aus anderen Einführungen den Eindruck gewinnen, das frühneuzeitliche Drama sei eine rein Shakespeare‘sche Veranstaltung gewesen, so wird dieser hier gerade gerückt. Allein das Unterkapitel zu den Historiendramen bricht aus: zwar war das Genre in der Tat von Shakespeares Zyklus über die Zeit vor und während der Rosenkriege dominiert, doch wird hier mit Prince Hals Monolog aus Henry IV, Part 1 gerade ein solches Textbeispiel gegeben, das nicht so sehr die Eigenheiten des Historiendramas beleuchtet sondern auch aus einer Tragödie stammen könnte. Geschichtsdramen anderer Verfasser werden lediglich erwähnt. (Dieser Kritikpunkt reflektiert allerdings eher die Interessen dieser Leserin und wird vom eigentlichen, studentischen Zielpublikum wohl nicht als Mangel empfunden werden.) Insgesamt ist diese Einführung in die englische Literatur der frühen Neuzeit für die universitäre Lehre sehr zu empfehlen. Eingängig geschrieben und informativ, dürfte sie darüber hinaus auch bei einem breiteren Publikum als Leitfaden zu dieser faszinierenden Epoche und ihren literarischen Errungenschaften auf Interesse stoßen. Isabel Karremann Institut für Englische Philologie Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Iris-Aya Laemmerhirt, Embracing Differences: Transnational Cultural Flows between Japan and the United States. Bielefeld: transcript, 2013. Walter Grünzweig Why should a German Americanist study the transnational flows between Japan and the United States? Why should a German publisher include it in a Rezensionen 274 series on Culture and Theory? One might simply claim that in our globalized world any important phenomenon deserves critical scrutiny - and that anybody, anywhere, is entitled to engage in it. Located in a middle ground between these hemispheric cultures, European critics are uniquely positioned (spatially and historically) to examine Japan-U.S. exchanges. The specific interest Europeans have in understanding this (increasingly) special connection - which threatens to replace that other ‗special relationship,‘ between the U.S. and Britain - becomes readily apparent in the threats regularly made against those who dare to raise their voices against TTIP and other transatlantic trade frameworks. If we are unwilling to come to an agreement with our eurocentrically-inclined American brothers, they might turn their faces towards the East (or rather: West, from an American perspective, completing, in Whitman‘s words, Columbus‘ ―Passage to India‖). The deals that will emerge from those pacts will then become the standards to which we, too, will have to submit, whether we want to or not. If Europeans need to understand this emerging special relationship, Iris- Aya Laemmerhirt‘s book on the subject is indeed a very well researched beginning. It turns out that the Asian perspective has long been a part of America‘s vision. Early on, in the 19 th century, the United States forced open isolated Japan to global trade. This was a humiliating experience, which led the Japanese to reconsider their place in the world and to send their youth to Europe and America to learn - and master - the efficient technological and military ways of the West. In a paradoxical reversal, going west helped the nation to become strong enough to ensure the survival and core of Japanese identity. From the outset, Laemmerhirt details the strength and cleverness of Japanese transcultural strategies. While American imperialism was, of course, an orientalizing force (Said), the Japanese reply in turn ―occidentalized‖ the American trader-explorers and investigated them in a wonderfully-termed Japanese discipline called ―Barbarian Studies‖ (―bangaku,‖ 36). This is just the delightful pre-history of the phenomenon whose main chapters (in the book and in real life) take place in the past two to three decades. Out of the multiple transnational flows between Japan and the United States (many of which traverse Europe), Laemmerhirt‘s book focuses on three particularly interesting and pertinent mass phenomena: the Tokyo Disney Resort, Japanese Food in the United States (especially Sushi), and Hollywood movies dealing with Japan. Her model of transnationalism draws centrally from Peter Hitchcock‘s influential Imaginary States: Studies in Cultural Transnationalism (2003). Transnationalism amends a theoretical blindspot in the postcolonial paradigm. Whereas the binary ―Other‖ was subject to exploitation by the stronger power, transnationalism‘s ―differences‖, ―exchanges‖ and ―hybridity‖ grant the colonized a kind of agency, limiting, reducing, potentially even eradicating one-way exploitative antagonisms. Hitchcock, and to some degree Laemmerhirt‘s, message is therefore a happy one. Japan and America, while still suffering from the old orientalist and (to a lesser degree) occidentalist diseases, are experiencing a new para- Rezensionen 275 digm in their relationship. Whether this new paradigm is a result of the new phenomena studied here - or whether the paradigm itself has been eradicated, negated or simply forgotten - the earlier unequal and inimical footing of East and West is a question that remains somewhat open. Laemmerhirt‘s many delightful examples seem to suggest that in the age of the internet and globalization, cultural exchanges are indeed different in quantity and quality. Thus, while one might very well consider Disney or McDonald‘s as American companies pushing their own interests and cultural agenda, the consumers - the visitors, eaters, viewers - have become emancipated to such a degree that they can now watch out for their own interest(s). There is a good deal of reception theory (Iser) and British cultural studies (Birmingham) implied here, suggesting that the (playing, eating, reading, watching etc.) recipients now know better what to do with these goods that the companies might be trying to force upon foreign, unsuspecting customers. Multinational companies themselves have even recognized that in the age of globalization, they can no longer push a national, hegemonic agenda. When the Japanese visit Tokyo‘s Disney Resort, they are really enjoying ―the Mouse‖ on their own terms, rather than Disney‘s. Japanese Disney is about the Japanese view of America and thus about Japanese culture‘s interpretation of an American cultural product. When American sushi chefs trained by a California-based ―Sushi Academy‖ (the Bologna ECTS system with workloads and competencies might lend itself well for this venture in higher education) are adapting Japanese cuisine to the American palate (and then, to top it off, are actually re-exporting it to Japan under the label ―New York-Style-Sushi‖, 143), they are in fact self-consciously engaging in cultural hybridization and adaptation. When Hollywood allows Japanese characters to speak their own language (rather than dubbing them) and furnishes 19 th century American militarists with an insight gained through meaningful dialogue with the ―last Samurai,‖ this, too, suggests that the era of political correctness is affecting contemporary Japanese-American relations. I tend to believe Laemmerhirt that something has indeed happened in Japanese-American (and certainly also Japanese-European) relations. The contemporary saturation with Japaneseness not only in restaurants and movie theatres but also in our kids‘ playrooms from pokémon to manga suggests as much. Further, the electronic and digital foundations of these cultural networks makes adaptations and hybridizations that much easier. One must also admire Laemmerhirt‘s ability to bring together all these very different ‗texts.‘ She is indeed ‗reading‘ the set-up, structure and map, of Tokyo Disney alongside with its immortal cultural icons from the Ducks to the latter-day, Americanized and Nipponified Grimms. She masterfully reads sushi novels (Carla Lockwood‘s Dixieland Sushi) and Japanese cookbooks and places these texts next to Sushi restaurants (and menus) throughout the U.S. Finally, her readings of the - naturally - most accessible genre for interpretation, Hollywood movies, especially The Last Samurai and Lost in Translation, are very nicely done and truly insightful. To have brought these three areas together to formulate a coherent thesis about Japanese-American cultural relations is really one of the most produc- Rezensionen 276 tive results of this study and readers will very much enjoy the variety of areas and avenues to and into which these exchanges extend. However, the liberality of Birmingham might have profited by a bit of Frankfurt restrictiveness. Because while it is probably true that these cultural exchanges are now taking place on a more equitable plane, it is the democratic exchange of a profoundly commodified cultural world. While it is nice that Disney Tokyo is not dominated by Disney U.S., both have so deeply lost any cultural substance (in the Frankfurt, not the Birmingham sense), that maybe this equality no longer matters. The commodification has so far eradicated cultural substances in the majority of the examples Laemmerhirt is providing that the happy news she is bringing us, is maybe irrelevant politically. Or maybe not. Because this is not the fault of the author. She has truthfully - if maybe a bit enthusiastically - reported, commented and analyzed what she has observed, and what is, unfortunately, there. Possibly, after having read all of it and being left astounded, we sense why all of these ―cultural exchanges‖ are flowing so nicely - because there is no more substance that might resist this instantaneous movement between continents and around the world. As ―boundaries become increasingly permeable,‖ says the author at the very end of her engaging study, ―cross-pollination between Japan and the United States will continue. How these interactions will increase and what new scapes and dimensions of cultural flows will open in the future, remains to be seen.‖ (218) This may sound like a threat, but we should not worry. Following the cross-pollination, there will be neither material that flows, nor will it flow between places: the commodification will be so complete that the question of cultural flow will have to be completely rethought. What we can learn from this Asian-American relationship is that we need to find strategies to oppose the indiscriminate flows of capital - the virtue of these cultural forces may be that they will possibly block the flow. For that, too, Laemmerhirt‘s fine book will have prepared us. Walter Grünzweig English Department Technical University of Dortmund