About

Ian Condry is a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), affiliated with the Global Studies and Languages department and the Comparative Media Studies (CMS) program. His research focuses on Japanese popular culture, including music, anime, and media production, with particular attention to how these cultural forms relate to globalization, soft power, and social dynamics. Condry's ethnographic work explores the production and reception of Japanese rap music, anime, and digital media, analyzing how these cultural phenomena intersect with issues of authenticity, collaboration, and transnational influence. He has authored several books and articles examining the cultural and social aspects of Japanese media, such as 'Hip-Hop Japan,' which investigates the Japanese rap scene, and 'The Soul of Anime,' which looks at collaborative creativity in anime production. His work often emphasizes ethnographic methods, including fieldwork in Tokyo nightclubs, studios, and fan communities, to understand the ways in which Japanese popular culture is produced, consumed, and transformed in a global context. Condry's scholarship contributes to a deeper understanding of how media and popular culture serve as vehicles for social change, identity, and international influence.

Research topics

• Art
• Philosophy
• Linguistics
• Archaeology
• Aesthetics
• History
• Economics
• Social psychology
• Microeconomics
• Psychology
• Theology
• Communication

Selected publications

• 8. The Social Production of Difference: Imitation and and Authenticity in Japanese Rap Music

  Berghahn Books · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Aesthetics
  • Communication
  PublisherDOI

• 3. Genba Globalization and Locations of Power

  2020-11-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Soul of Anime

  Duke University Press eBooks · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • Philosophy
  • Linguistics
  PublisherDOI

• Review of E. Taylor Atkins. 2001. Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press

  DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · 2020-02-29

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  “Thank God for Japan! It’s turning out to be a second Nevada” (209). These words of an American booking agent in the 1960s capture some of the paradoxes of jazz in Japan. On one hand, it is a jazz paradise-where else can one find jazz coffee shops (jazu kissa) that prohibit talking, but offer patrons the opportunity to listen to extensive record collections over state-of-the-art speakers? And the Japanese are not only fans. Some of japan’s jazz musicians have achieved success in the international jazz world, notably pianist Akiyoshi Toshiko, who in 1980 received three top awards from Down Beat magazine. But still, for many musicians and commentators in the West (and for some in Japan as well) there persists the enduring image that Japanese jazzers, both the fans and the musicians alike, are somewhat akin to the faux Venetian canals in Las Vegas. Aren’t they trying to be something they cannot be?

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 7. Making Money, Japan-Style

  Duke University Press eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • History
  • Archaeology
  PublisherDOI

• 12. Love Revolution. Anime, Masculinity, and the Future

  2019-12-31 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 創発する日本へ : ポスト「失われた20年」のデッサン

  弘文堂 eBooks · 2018-01-01

  book
  Publisher

• Hatsune Miku

  2018-01-02 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Hatsune Miku is Japan's leading virtual idol. She began life as voice synthesizer software released in 2007 by Crypton Future Media, Inc., a company based in Sapporo in northern Japan. Miku's emergence as a crowd-sourced celebrity reveals how participation in media platforms can develop in unexpected ways and that this participation is not driven primarily by economic motivations. Creative communities are spaces where social value takes precedence over economic exchange, and, arguably, it was there that Miku changed from a singing voice instrument into a "vocal character." Miku illuminates how creative communities, often energized by non-economic motivations, can form the basis for the emergence of new businesses and industries. Music journalist Shiba Tomonori describes the effect of Miku as nothing less than "changing the world". A new culture is blossoming, nurturing collaborations across fields. Put simply, this is entrance to an era of "100 million creators".

  PublisherDOI

• Japanese Rappers, 9/11, and Soft Power

  University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2017-09-21

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This essay focuses on Japanese rappers but also explores arguably anti-American sentiments in popular culture otherwise seen as American. Condry is interested in the way Japanese rappers can be very provocative while simultaneously not being easily categorized as either “pro-Japanese” or “anti-American.” Instead he finds that they struggle to define an ethical politics across national boundaries. This essay exemplifies the ways that popular culture can be a vehicle for soft power, but makes a point of showing that it would be a mistake to view the spread of U.S. popular culture styles in itself as an effective national tool in world politics. Condry includes examples from Japanese rap musicians’ portrayals of 9/11 and the Iraq War. They may love hip-hop music and culture but still view U.S. government policies with skepticism. Provocatively, the essay asks how the analysis of soft power might be transformed if, instead of focusing on how American or Japanese soft power could be heightened, we instead asked how transnational goals of human rights, environmental protection, and fair trade (among others) could be made more “attractive” to the world as a whole.

  PublisherDOI

• 失われた20年と日本研究のこれから = The lost two decades and the future of Japanese studies ; 失われた20年と日本社会の変容 = The lost two decades and the transformation of Japanese society

  Medical Entomology and Zoology · 2017-01-01

  bookOpen accessSenior author
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• 寛之 北浦

  2 shared

• 一博 瀧井

  2 shared

• 聡史 待鳥

  2 shared

• 剛彦 苅谷

  2 shared

• 徹 篠田

  2 shared

• 恵美子 落合

  2 shared

• 奨治 山田

  2 shared

• 綾子 楠

  2 shared

Education

• B.A., Government

  Harvard

  1987

• Ph.D., Anthropology

  Yale

  1999

Awards & honors

• JMellon Faculty Grant, Center for Art, Science, Technology (…
• Japan Foundation Grant, "Uses of Social Media: A Japan-US Co…
• National Science Foundation, Cultural Anthropology Research…
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant for "Globa…
• Program on US-Japan Relations, Advanced Research Fellowship,…