In the 1930s and ’40s, Japanese rulers in Manchukuo enlisted writers and artists to promote imperial Japan’s modernization program. Ironically, the cultural producers chosen to spread the imperialist message were once left-wing politically in Japan, where their work strongly favoured modernist, even avant-garde, styles of expression.In Glorify the Empire, Annika A. Culver explores how these once anti-imperialist intellectuals produced avant-garde works celebrating the modernity of a fascist state and reflecting a complicated picture of complicity with, and ambivalence toward, Japan’s utopian project. Manchurian-themed cultural representations accelerated during the eruption of conflict with China, and later during the Second World War, when Manchukuo served as a template for Japanese-occupied areas in Southeast Asia. A groundbreaking work, Glorify the Empire magnifies the intersection between politics and art in a rarely examined period of Japanese history.
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An investigation into the intersection of Japanese imperialist politics and left-wing, avant-garde arts and culture in 1930s and ’40s Manchukuo.
Introduction: Propaganda in the Manchukuo Context, 1932-451 Laying the Groundwork for the Japanese Avant-Garde Propagandists2 Literature in Service of the State: Yamada Seizaburô and Right-Wing Proletarianism, 1931-433 Surrealism in Service of the State: Fukuzawa Ichirô and Associates, 1935-364 The Lure of Artistic Vision and Commercial Prerogative: Ai Mitsu and the Burden of Representation, 1935 and 19435 Reflections of Labour and the Construction of the New State: Fuchikami Hakuyô and Manchuria Graph, 1933-416 The Manchukuo Publicity and News Bureau’s War of Words and Images: Mutô Tomio and the Discourse of Culture, 1938-437 The Legitimization of a Multi-Ethnic Literary Culture in Manchukuo: Kawabata Yasunari’s Promotion of Manchurian Literature, 1941-44Conclusion: The Reflected Utopia Darkens: Manchukuo, Imperial Japan’s Surrender, and Postwar IssuesNotesBibliographyIndex
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Glorify the Empire is a deeply fascinating study in the culture of Japanese imperialism. Culver shows how many left-wing Japanese intellectuals, writers, and artists came to support Japanese colonial expansionism in China’s northeast, not solely in response to intimidation by their authoritarian state, but because Manchukuo represented a vision of East Asian modernity those leftists found genuinely inspirational.
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A provocative work examining how Japanese rulers in Manchukuo enlisted formerly left-wing writers and artists from Japan to produce modernist works extolling the virtues of the fascist state’s new utopian empire.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780774824361
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
University of British Columbia Press
Vekt
540 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
284
Forfatter
Om bidragsyterne
Annika A. Culver is an associate professor of East Asian history at Florida State University. She also serves as a scholar in the US-Japan Network for the Future.