Luca Proietti

Born in Rome, Italy, Luca Proietti worked in theatre for eight years, further developing thanks to his artistic career his already inherent interest in Japanese culture. 

Thanks to the inspiration from reading Murakami Haruki’s novels, watching Tsukamoto Shinya’s movies, and listening to Akita Masami’s music, his interest in Japan trespassed many borders among media and art forms. This interest has been intertwined with the Internet and the development of new technologies, thanks to his professional experiences as a social media manager, content creator, and social media manager. 

He achieved a BA in East Asian Languages and Civilisations at the Sapienza University of Rome with a dissertation about the graphic signs used in manga to represent the incommunicability between Japanese and Western speakers, referring to manga from the slice of life genre such as “Azumanga Daioh” and “Kin-iro Mosaic”, and others from the biographical genre such as "Isabella Bird in Wonderland: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan". Then, he completed his MA in Japanese Studies at SOAS University of London by working on a dissertation about the role of rock culture in Japanese theatre reworking, including as a reference angura subculture, the kabuki influence in David Bowie, and a punk transposition of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s “Drum of the Waves of Horikawa”. 

Currently, he is a PhD in Japanese Studies at SOAS, working on a research project focused on Japanese noise music and how it works as a form of cultural engagement tied with historical and cultural aspects from traditional folklore to contemporary pop culture. This project received support from SOAS Japan Research Centre (JRC), Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, and British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS). 

Member of the British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS), Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS), and Association for Asian Studies (AAS), he has been involved in the research network “Groups, Clubs, and Scenes: Informal Creative Practices in Japan” awarded an AHRC Network Grant to contribute for the research podcast “Artery. A podcast on art, authorship and anthropology”. He has been hosted as a Visiting Research Fellowship by the Department of Musicology and Theatre Studies at Osaka University. 

During his PhD, he also taught modules focused on East Asian civilisations and post-war history, contemporary Japanese society, and modern Japanese literature.

Broadly speaking, my research interests are focused on different forms of performing arts, media, and literature, and how they relate to Japanese subcultures as well as their transnational influence, interaction, and reworking. Given my broad interest in Japanese cultural engagement, I am eager to research topics that range from kabuki and angura theatre to cinema and literature, arriving at popular media such as music, manga/anime, and video games. 

Placing a focus on the post-war era to the contemporary age, my inquiries have the scope to research the ties with historical and cultural aspects of Japan, ranging from traditional folklore to contemporary pop culture. To research the relationship between arts and culture, I am aiming to underline it by focusing on specific communities and subcultures. 

In my research about the cultural engagement of Japanese noise music, I am working on placing it among different contexts according to the meaning and the message carried by performers, highlighting artists who addressed their music to the Fukushima disaster or to create engagement among the otaku community. I am interested in analysing this correlation with communities by also taking into account the role of technology and the growing importance of the Internet and social media that reached its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

I am also interested in how cultural awareness through media and arts can be addressed to inquire about an inherent historical and cultural continuity with Japanese history and folklore. In my research, I wish to point out distinct aspects and influences from Japan’s culture such as Edo-era kabuki and Shinto elements are employed to create a renewed form of Japanese identity in which the intertwinement with performing arts, popular culture, and underground subcultures work altogether to emphasize these traditional roots.