@article{ART003312594},
author={June-Seok Lee},
title={A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba},
journal={The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art},
issn={1229-0246},
year={2026},
volume={77},
pages={302-328}
TY - JOUR
AU - June-Seok Lee
TI - A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
JO - The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art
PY - 2026
VL - 77
IS - null
PB - 한국미학예술학회
SP - 302
EP - 328
SN - 1229-0246
AB - This study reinterprets samurai swords, often invoked in contemporary popular media, not as mere props or weapons but as technological objects with active agencies. It analyzes four visual media works — Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (a major success in Korea in 2025), Rurouni Kenshin, Last Samurai Standing, and Onimusha — through the theoretical frameworks of actor-network theory, object-oriented ontology, and new materialism. Across these cases, swords emerge as central actants that compose human–nonhuman assemblages by “intra-acting” with samurai’s bodies, intentions, and affects. Rather than functioning as simple instruments swords mediate ethical imperatives, translate identities, and provide material-semiotic channels through which protagonists’ inner conflicts and subject formations are explored. The study further situates these representations within Japanese modernization process, tracing sociotechnical imaginaries that posit swords as ‘conventional’ technologies against rifles as “modernized” ones. Although swords can be read as material origins of modernization, modern Japan government effaces the sword–samurai assemblage, making swords as mothers that gave birth to a conjoined child (modern Japan) which tries to devour its own mothers (the swords), thus performing matriphagy. Also, swords operate as cosmopolitical tools by which main characters seek to establish a better society.
KW - Actor-network theory (ANT);New materialism;Object-oriented ontology (OOO);Samurai sword;Sociotechnical imaginaries
DO -
UR -
ER -
June-Seok Lee. (2026). A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, 77, 302-328.
June-Seok Lee. 2026, "A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba", The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, vol.77, pp.302-328.
June-Seok Lee "A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 77 pp.302-328 (2026) : 302.
June-Seok Lee. A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. 2026; 77 302-328.
June-Seok Lee. "A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 77(2026) : 302-328.
June-Seok Lee. A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, 77, 302-328.
June-Seok Lee. A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art. 2026; 77 302-328.
June-Seok Lee. A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. 2026; 77 302-328.
June-Seok Lee. "A New Materialist Understanding of the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Sword as a Technology Projected in Media: Focusing on Four Visual Media Works, Including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba" The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art 77(2026) : 302-328.
