Bodies of evidence

This book addresses the question of public response to civil war through changes in the representation of the female body in the popular print art of mid-1800s Japan. Close reading of the presentation of the female body in ukiyo-e woodblock prints of the Bakumatsu era reveals a discourse of national anxieties expressed and mediated through popular imagery. Though each genre of ukiyo-e engages with the image of the female body in its own way, an overall trend is discernible in the use of the image of the female body to articulate and attempt to treat the causes and affects of national anxieties during civil war.

Autorentext

Jennifer is a PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She has recieved a Japanese Government Scholarship at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and completed archival research at the Library of Congress on a Kluge fellowship. Her research interests include the mediation of national anxieties through images of the female body.