January – 2016 – Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia

Friday, January 29, 4:30-6:30pm, CWAC 153

Defining Manga Anew in 1928: Ippei, a Book, and History

Miriam Wattles
Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture, UCSB

It wasn’t until the explosion of mass media in the 1920s that the word “manga” began to be used for comics and cartoons in Japan. Reformulations of the past were integral to the redefinition of the word. Okamoto Ippei (1886-1948), hugely popular with the public and head of a newly formed manga circle, wove a new historical sensibility into his prescriptions for the future of manga in his book Shin manga no kakikata (How To Make New Manga, 1928). The larger genus he employed was “minshûga,” or “pictures of the people.” In proposing this term at this particular historical moment, Ippei was responding to deep underlying tensions between elite and popular culture, individualism and collectivism, and nationalism and cosmopolitanism. This talk counters present amnesia around Ippei and his definition of manga and gives a surprising history of public ownership of one particular copy of Shin manga no kakikata.

Friday, January 29, 4:30-6:30pm, CWAC 153
Persons with concerns regarding accessibility please contact xizh@uchicago.edu

Friday, January 15, 4:30 to 6:30pm, CWAC156

Money Talks: Monetary Disputes in Early Eighteenth-Century Japan

Federico Marcon

Professor of Japanese History at Princeton University

AT THE TURN OF THE eighteenth century, as the lavish splendor of the Genroku era waned into a decade of economic stagnation and social unrest, two scholars debated on the nature of money and its proper administration. The dispute revealed not only the extent of the monetary integration of Japanese society only after a century of Tokugawa rule, but also the sophistication of samurai’s understanding of financial dynamics. The story of the clash of the two views of what money is, the bullionism of Arai Hakuseki and the contractualism of Ogiwara Shigehide and Ogyū Sorai, bespeaks a turning point in the economic politics of early modern Japan—a turning point of transnational relevance, as in contemporaneous England economic thinkers were debating analogous issues.

Friday, January 15, 4:30 to 6:30pm, CWAC156

Persons with concerns regarding accessibility please contact Ben at benjamin2@uchicago.edu or Xi at xizh@uchicago.edu

Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia is proud to present our schedule for Winter 2016.
All sessions unless otherwise noted will take place in the Cochrane-Woods Art Center (CWAC)

Fridays, 4:30-6:30 pm
Room 156

By CC

January 15   Federico Marcon, Assistant Professor
East Asian Studies, Princeton University
TBD
(Co-coordinated with Trans-regional Workshop; This event is sponsored by CEAS Committee on Japanese Studies)
January 29   Miriam Wattles, Associate Professor
History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara
Rethinking Kiyochika
(Co-coordinated with APEA Workshop; This event is sponsored by CEAS Committee on Japanese Studies)
February 12   Christian de Pee, Associate Professor
History, University of Michigan
The City Organic: Writing the Commercial Streetscape in Eleventh-Century China
February 26   Thomas Kelly, Ph.D Candidate
East Asian Studies, University of Chicago
Luminescent Surfaces: Picturing a Ming Rhinoceros Horn Cup
March 11   Anne Feng, Ph.D Candidate
Art History, University of Chicago
Water, Ice, Lapis Lazuli: The Making of a Buddhist Paradise through the Sixteen Meditations

Month: January 2016

Jan 29 Miriam Wattles

January 15 Federico Marcon

Winter 2016 Schedule