Tomorrow Wednesday at 7pm, Casa Asia offers a conference entitled Colonialism and Fascination: from ‘Madame Chrisanthéme’ to ‘Madama Butterfly’, included in the framework of the collaboration between this House and the TeatroReal, in parallel to its 2024 programme. Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly will be discussed.
Static chrysanthemums and graceful butterflies symbolise the cultural impact produced by the arrival of travellers, missionaries and diplomats from the West in Japan in the last quarter of the 19th century. Two metaphors for Japanese women to explain the origin and development of one of the most fertile myths in the cultural history of modernity.
The event will be presented by Emilio de Miguel, director of the Casa Asia Centre-Madrid, and the speaker will be Carlos Rubio, doctorate from the University of California (Berkeley, 1979) and professor at the University of Tokyo (1985-1991). Translator, alone or in collaboration, of more than thirty classic and modern works of Japanese literature, and author of books on this subject (Claves y textos, Los mitos de Japón, El Japón de Murakami). In 2012 he received the Medal of Culture from the Japanese Government and in 2014 the Order of the Rising Sun from the Imperial House of Japan. He regularly collaborates with Casa Asia and Fundación Japón giving courses and lectures. Free activity with prior registration.
