This symposium rethinks the divide in Japanese Arts and Culture between the Edo and Meiji Period in terms of continuity and rebirth. The aim is to organize an international conference on the theme of Japan’s artistic and cultural self-construction in the 19th century, especially across the historical divide of ‘régime change’ c.1850-80.
The conference will challenge the prevailing assumption of a caesura between Edo and Meiji’s artistic production, and suggest that despite radical political changes, artistic and wider cultural transitions were deeply informed by the concept of an abiding cultural legacy. The aim of this event is to give insights into the changing boundaries and concepts of Japanese and wider East Asian art in the 19th century. In particular, we hope to review prevailing assumptions such as the caesura between Edo and Meiji, the birth of Modern Art and the Historiography of Japanese Art as a whole, and the fragmentation of Japanese from East Asian Art in the 19th century. We will also address questions of what kind of methodology should be used to re-construct an Asian art history.
Six lead speakers will be Christine Guth (V&A, Royal College of Art), Naoyuki Kinoshita (University of Tokyo), Noriaki Kitazawa (Joshibi University of Art and Design), Tamaki Maeda (University of Washington), Dōshin Satō (Tokyo University of the Arts), Bert Winther-Tamaki (University of California, Irvine).
This event is free but booking recommend to guarantee a place: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1U33M1UERbHvPqdFu15T7mLZexTzzZIkuB03zpwHB4iw/viewform
For more information, please see the SOAS webpage for the Symposium
Symposium Poster: Modern Japanese Art History Poster 2013
This Symposium has been organised by SOAS JRC in collaboration with Japan Foundation, SISJAC and JSPS