History Soirée—Our Spirit Against Their Steel: Mobilizing Culture for War

Presented by the History Program and Department of Ethnic, Gender, Historical, and Philosophical Studies

- Friday, April 26
  2:15 pm – 3:45 pm
Online event

A portrait of a man smiling, next to a World War II era Japanese cartoon

This presentation, based on Chapter 8 of A History of Popular Culture in Japan, From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, second edition, examines the involvement of popular culture in Japan’s major wars: the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), and Second World War (1937-45). In all of these cases, popular entertainment was not regarded as trivial, but essential for mobilizing support, communicating war aims, and fortifying Japanese spirits for self-sacrifice. The relationship between Japanese popular culture and war was symbiotic.

Join us for this interesting examination via Zoom.
Meeting ID: 986 7288 6486
Passcode: 227564

Speaker: Dr. E. Taylor Atkins (Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, Northern Illinois University).
Dr. Atkins is the author of A History of Popular Culture in Japan, from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (Bloomsbury, 2022), Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-45 (University of California Press, 2010), and Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Duke University Press, 2001).

If you have questions about this event, contact Sumiko Otsubo at sumiko.otsubo@metrostate.edu.