April 12, 2023 | 7:00PM-8:30 PM EST | REGISTER FOR ZOOM
Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2023)
Author: Gennifer Weisenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University
Discussant: David Fedman, Associate Professor of History, UC Irvine
The Modern Japan History Association invites the wider community to a conversation with Gennifer Weisenfeld (Professor of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University). Professor Weisenfeld will be speaking about her new book, Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Gas Mask Nation explores the multilayered construction of an anxious yet perversely pleasurable visual culture of Japanese civil air defense—or bōkū—through a diverse range of artworks, photographs, films and newsreels, magazine illustrations, postcards, cartoons, advertising, fashion, everyday goods, government posters, and state propaganda. Professor Weisenfeld reveals the immersive aspects of this culture, in which Japan’s imperial subjects were mobilized to regularly perform highly orchestrated civil air defense drills throughout the country. David Fedman (Associate Professor of History, UC Irvine) will serve as discussant.
The Modern Japan History Association is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by member contributions.
