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Yasunosuke Gonda

Yasunosuke Gonda 権田保之助
Born	(1887-05-17)May 17, 1887 Kanda, Tokyo
Died	January 5, 1951(1951-01-05) (aged 63)
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Sociologist
Known for	Popular culture studies

Yasunosuke Gonda (権田保之助, Gonda Yasunosuke) (17 May 1887 – 5 January 1951) was a Japanese sociologist and film theorist who played an important role in the study of popular entertainment and helped pioneer statistical studies of everyday life in Japan.

Career[edit]

Born in the Kanda area of Tokyo, Gonda was early attracted to the socialismofIsoo Abe, and his early political activities earned expulsion from Waseda High School.^[1] He later studied at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Tokyo University where he was influenced by German statistical sociology.^[1] His first book, The Principles and Applications of the Moving Pictures (Katsudō shashin no genri oyobi ōyō), was published in 1914, and was the first full-length monograph in Japan studying the medium of cinema.^[1] His later research on lower class life and popular play focused on how popular culture was generated from the bottom up and challenged top-down notions of national or modern culture.^[2]

Selected bibliography[edit]

• Gonda, Yasunosuke (1974–1975). Gonda Yasunosuke chosakushū (in Japanese). Bunwa Shobō.
• Gonda, Yasunosuke (December 2010). "The Principles and Applications of the Moving Pictures (Excerpts)". Review of Japanese Culture and Society. 22: 24–36. JSTOR 42800637.

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Harootunian, H. D. (2001). Overcome by Modernity. Princeton University Press.
• Silverberg, Miriam (1992). "Constructing the Japanese Ethnography of Modernity," Journal of Asian Studies 51.1 (February 1992): pp. 30-54.