Special event preceding (EAJRS) Conference, Leiden, September 16-19, 2015
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP“IMAGES OF WOMEN IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION:PRINT CULTURE IN EARLY MODERN AND MODERN JAPAN”
Tuesday, September 15, 2015, Leiden University
Supported by The Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) Cultural Foundation, Tokyo
The Stichting Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation, Leiden
Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden
The Heinz M. Kaempfer FondOne widely accepted way to reconstruct the past is to stress narratives of history’s turningpoints: the singular moments seen as causing massive historical changes. The Battle of Sekigahara of1600 and the Meiji Restoration of 1868 are commonly perceived as these. However, history’s turning
points are not limited to political events: an equally important role is played by technologicaldevelopments such as printing. The first woodblock printing boom in the seventeenth-century, theintroduction of lithography in 1880s profoundly transformed Japan, corroborating Walter Benjamin’s
seminal observations on the manifold socio-political consequences of mechanical reproduction. Theseevents serve as benchmarks for the alleged shifts between the pre-modern, the early-modern andmodern periods characterized by different political systems, social lives and cultures. Despite the factthat modernities are historical blends (Gluck, 1998), narratives of discontinuity are pervasive. Thesenotions have greatly influenced interpretations of Japan’s visual culture.
This tendency is particularly observable in printed representations of women. Images ofwomen in Japan’s print culture from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries reveal anastonishing diversity of formats and functions including images of exemplary women depicted injokunsho (conduct books for women), “portraits” of prostitutes, images of modern girls (moga)
endorsing commercial products on posters, representations of “good wives and wise mothers” (ryōsaikenbo) in women’s magazines, images of “beauties” displayed at art exhibitions, and many others.
However, printed representations of women have rarely been studied in terms of their commonfeatures. Instead, they have generally been divided into different categories enforced by the concepts of“modern”, “early modern” and “pre-modern” informed by discrete conceptual and ideological premises.
This workshop aims at complicating these classifications. It will address the following
questions: how have printed representations of women changed, and why? What role has the mediumof print as a technological condition played in the processes of representation? What are theconsequences of mechanical reproduction for the construction of history? Examination of printed
images of women can be a valuable contribution to debates about Japan’s visual culture andhistoriography for at least two reasons. First, as printing gave birth to a preference for the new andinnovative it played a key role in the emergence of modernity (Luhmann, 1992). Second, the female
body has been constituted as a site of culturally contested meanings (Butler, 1989), and as such it
narrates diverse histories. Through the investigation of printed images of women this workshop willcontribute to the current debates about the constructions of history and media-saturated reality.
Confirmed speakers include (in alphabetical order): Jaqueline Berndt (Kyoto SeikaUniversity), Matthi Forrer (National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden), Yukihiro Hirayoshi (KyotoInstitute of Technology Museum and Archives), Ewa Machotka (Leiden University), Masato Naitō(Keio University), Sharalyn Orbaugh (University of British Columbia), Sabine Schenk (MunichUniversity) and Sawako Takemura (Leiden University). All presentations will be given in English.
Organizer: Dr. Ewa Machotka
Date: 15 September 2015
Time: 9:30-17:00
Venue: LIPSIUS Bldg., Room 147, Leiden University, Cleveringa plaats 1, Leiden
Attendance is free but registration is required. Please register by 7 September 2015.
Registration/enquiries: Dr. Ewa Machotka e.machotka@hum.leidenuniv.nl12