Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923
Gennifer S. WeisenfeldGennifer Weisenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Distinguished Professor of Art & Art History at Duke Univ. Her field of research is modern & contemporary Japanese art history, design, & visual culture. Her 1st book, Mavo: Japanese Artists & the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931 (UC Press, 2002) addresses the relationship between high art & mass culture in the aesthetic politics of the avant-garde in 1920s Japan. Her 2nd book, Imaging Disaster: Tokyo & the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 (UC Press, 2012; Japanese edition Seidosha, 2014) examines how visual culture has mediated the historical understanding of Japan’s worst national disaster of the twentieth century. Her 3rd book, Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2023) explores the anxious pleasures of Japanese visual culture during World War II. She has published extensively on the history of Japanese design, including a core essay for MIT’s award-winning website Visualizing Cultures on the Shiseido cosmetic company’s advertising…