In the 1930s and '40s, Japanese rulers in Manchukuo enlisted writers and artists to promote imperial Japan's modernization program. Ironically, the cultural producers chosen to spread the imperialist message were once left-wing politically in Japan, where their work strongly favoured modernist, even avant-garde, styles of expression.

In Glorify the Empire, Annika A. Culver explores how these once anti-imperialist intellectuals produced avant-garde works celebrating the modernity of a fascist state and reflecting a complicated picture of complicity with, and ambivalence toward, Japan's utopian project. Manchurian-themed cultural representations accelerated during the eruption of conflict with China, and later during the Second World War, when Manchukuo served as a template for Japanese-occupied areas in Southeast Asia. A groundbreaking work, Glorify the Empire magnifies the intersection between politics and art in a rarely examined period of Japanese history.

A provocative work examining how Japanese rulers in Manchukuo enlisted formerly left-wing writers and artists from Japan to produce modernist works extolling the virtues of the fascist state's new utopian empire.

About the Author

Annika A. Culver is an associate professor of East Asian history at Florida State University. She also serves as a scholar in the US-Japan Network for the Future.

Awards
Winner of Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies Book Prize 2014 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9780774824378
Author Annika A. Culver
Format Paperback
Page Count 284
Imprint University of British Columbia Press
Publisher University of British Columbia Press
Weight(grams) 420g