Re-imaging Japan: Photographing a "New Cultural Nation" under the Allied Occupation, 1945-1952
| dc.contributor.advisor | Hanes, Jeffrey | |
| dc.contributor.author | Cole, Emily | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-10-04T20:49:01Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-10-04 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation examines the role that photography played in re-imaging Japanese cultural identity during the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952). It argues that photographers viewed the camera as a tool with which they could engage the postwar discourse on Japanese culture and identity. Eager to renounce the militarism and ultra-nationalism that had previously pervaded society, photographers endeavored to re-image Japan as a “new cultural nation” (shin bunka kokka). Inspired by American photojournalism and European human-interest photography, photographers captured telling scenes of Japanese society and culture. Photographers invoked symbols of tradition (e.g., rural villages, cherry blossoms, Buddhist monks) as well as icons of modernity (e.g., trendy fashions, movie theaters, urban neighborhoods). They photographed men and women at work, at home, and enjoying moments of leisure, and they snapped children at play. Photographers documented social and economic recovery, and they also captured scenes of poverty and material deprivation. Their photos illuminated changing social values and gender roles, foreign cultural influences, and life under the Occupation. As they took pictures of their postwar world, Japanese photographers also quietly addressed the authority of the Occupation, sometimes positively and at other times critically. Images of brawny Japanese athletes who competed—and (sometimes) won—against the U.S. on a world stage connoted an implicit challenge to America authority. At the same time, photos of American GIs in uniform strolling along Japanese streets and training on military bases projected American dominance in Japan. Most American photographers, on the other hand, tended to tout the Occupation as a transformative intervention aimed at helping Japan recover from the devastation of war and embrace the supposedly superior American way of life. In the turbulence of the first postwar decade, Japanese and American photographers were extraordinarily active in documenting and interpreting the complex engagement of Japan with America. By taking a close look at the photographs taken by the Occupied Japanese and the Occupying Americans alike, we gain valuable insight into how they perceived, experienced, and documented each other at the moment of this epochal historical encounter. | en_US |
| dc.description.embargo | 2024-08-09 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27663 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Allied Occupation of Japan | en_US |
| dc.subject | Culture | en_US |
| dc.subject | Identity | en_US |
| dc.subject | Japan | en_US |
| dc.subject | Photography | en_US |
| dc.subject | Postwar | en_US |
| dc.title | Re-imaging Japan: Photographing a "New Cultural Nation" under the Allied Occupation, 1945-1952 | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of History | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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