Taking Pictures in Postwar Japan (1945-1955)- a talk with Dr. Emily Cole, UT Tyler
bis
Will C. Hogg Building (WCH), 4.118, Travis
ABSTRACT As the Asia-Pacific War came to an end, Japan faced catastrophic defeat, the disintegration of its empire, the utter ruin of its cities, and a foreign military occupation that embarked on an extensive demilitarization and democratization program to eliminate Japan’s ability to wage war. And yet against this background of destruction and deprivation, Japan’s photography world flourished. Dr. Cole's talk will dive into the emerging world of early postwar amateur photography, examining how and why ordinary people—or those outside the ranks of political, intellectual, economic, or cultural elites—perceived, interpreted, and documented the precarious postwar world. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Emily E. Cole is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at the University of Texas at Tyler where she teaches widely on East Asian and Global History. Dr. Cole received her Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of Oregon in 2022 and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies (Harvard University) from 2022 – 2023. A historian of modern Japan, her research interests include photography and visual culture, cultural identity and representation, and Japan’s twentieth-century history of empire, war, and occupation.