Kerry Ross, Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Cameras and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

During the early decades of the twentieth century, before Canon and Nikon became global brands—and long before photographers such as Moriyama Daidō and Araki Nobuyoshi rose to prominence in the eyes of critics and curators across the world—a vibrant culture of amateur photography had already emerged in Japan. Kerry Ross's Photography for Everyone introduces readers to the world that pre-1945 Japanese amateur photographers would have encountered, going into the shops where they bought their cameras and beyond. It is a welcome addition to the historiography of Japanese photography, which, as Ross points out, has tended to focus on art photography and works of major auteurs. Instead, this book seeks to highlight the significance not only of amateur photography, but also of processes such as camera production, retail, and marketing in the making of Japan's photographic culture (3–5). By focusing on the overwhelmingly male-dominated world of amateur photography in prewar Japan, Photography for Everyone also draws our attention to the ways in which camera makers, retailers, and publishers envisioned middle-class, male consumers during a historical period that has been better known for the rise of their female counterparts

“Consuming Japan in Cold War America”. A review of Meghan Warner Mettler, How to Reach Japan by Subway: America’s Fascination with Japanese Culture, 1945-1965 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018). 294 pp. $50.00 (hardcover).

One of the most striking aspects of Meghan Warner Mettler’s lucid and groundbreaking portrayal of postwar American engagement with Japanese culture is the sheer breadth of the phenomenon. Mettler starts out by analyzing the critical acclaim that was received by three Japanese films that arrived to American art house theaters during the course of a relatively short period of time: Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon in 1951, which was followed by the 1954 release of Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu and Teinosuke Kinugawa’s Gates of Hell. The book goes on to highlight the origins of American fascination with ikebana flower arrangement and bonsai trees, both of which first emerged as popular hobbies for Americans stationed in Japan during the Allied Occupation before gaining popularity among a growing number of middle-class suburbanites across the United States. As the next chapter reveals, however, the influence of Japanese aesthetics on the American lifestyle proved even more far-reaching, leading to the adoption of Japanese architectural and landscaping techniques in American homes as well as the proliferation of Japanese home furnishing goods during the 1950s and 1960s. Turing from home interiors to inner lives, the book culminates in two chapters that are dedicated to the short-lived but nonetheless remarkable “Zen Boom” that transpired between 1957 and 1960, during which Zen Buddhism captured the attention of not only suburban consumers of self-help literature but also of prominent intellectuals and spiritual leaders, such as Erich Fromm and Thomas Merton, and even Beat icons, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg

Meiji at 150 Podcast. Episode 036, Dr. Hiromu Nagahara (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

In this episode, Dr. Nagahara charts the popular music of the Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa eras, noting the politics of music and sounding the potential of songs to voice popular discontent. We discuss the formation of national music in the Meiji Period, the spread of protest tunes in the Popular Rights Movement, the lingering popularity of wartime propaganda anthems, and the counterculture sentiments of postwar jazz standards and Enka ballads.Arts, Faculty ofHistory, Department ofNon UBCUnreviewedFacult