Glorify the Empire
Subtitle: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 284
ISBN-13: 9780774824361
Subjects: Propaganda, japanese; Arts, china; World war, 1939-1945, china; Artists, japan; Modernism (art)
Description: "In the 1930s and '40s, Japanese political architects of the Manchukuo project in occupied northeast China realized the importance of using various cultural media to promote a modernization program in the region, as well as its expansion into other parts of Asia. Ironically, the writers and artists chosen to spread this imperialist message had left-wing political roots in Japan, where their work strongly favoured modernist, even avant-garde, styles of expression. In Glorify the Empire, Annika Culver explores how these once anti-imperialist intellectuals produced modernist works celebrating the modernity of a fascist state and reflecting a complicated picture of complicity with, and ambivalence towards, Japan's utopian project. During the war, literary and artistic representations of Manchuria accelerated, and the Japanese-led culture in Manchukuo served as a template for occupied areas in Southeast Asia. A groundbreaking work, Glorify the Empire magnifies the intersection between politics and art in a rarely examined period in Japanese history."--Publisher's website.