Investigating the politics of seeing and its effects, this book draws on Slavoj Žižek’s notion of fetish and Walter Benjamin’s notion of the optical unconscious to offer newer concepts: “tinted glasses”, through which we see the world; “unit-thinking”, which renders the world as consisting of discrete units; and “coherants”, which help fragmented experiences cohere into something intelligible. Examining experiences at a Japanese heritage language school, a study-abroad trip to Sierra Leone, as well as in college classrooms, this book reveals the workings of unit-thinking and fetishism in diverse contexts and explores possibilities for social change.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Tinted Glasses, Unit Thinking, and Coherants

Chapter 1. The Politics of Vision and the Fetish beyond Optical Unconscious: Towards Spectacle Pedagogy
Chapter 2. Seeing Failed Ninja, Ghost Samurai, and Last Samurai: Phantom Japan at a Weekend Japanese Language School in the US
Chapter 3. Seeing Angels: The Fetish of Smiling Angels in the “Poor but Happy” Discourse in Sierra Leone
Chapter 4. Seeing Holy Mouth Man: Fetish of Study Abroad Transformation Talk
Chapter 5. Seeing Dr Jekyll in Mr. Hyde: Political Others and Beyond Polarization of “Critical” and “Uncritical”
Chapter 6. Seeing Fairies and Anti-Spectacle Pedagogy: Cottingley Photographs of Fairies and Linguistic Landscape Project  
Chapter 7. Seeing Santa Claus and Elves: Swinging between Fantasy-World-for-Escape and Scrutinized-World-for-Change
Chapter 8. Seeing Robbers, Freaks, and Dirt: Seeing Maui’s Fishhook in Scorpio and Fetish of Us

Conclusion: Continuing Dialogues

References
Index