Dr. Doug Slaymaker, "The Japanese Desire for France: Japanese Artists in 1920s Paris"
Thursday September 20, 2007; 2:30-4:00pm; Ford Hall Room 407
The Center for Asian Democracy presents:
The Japanese Desire for France: Japanese Artists in 1920s Paris
This presentation will focus on the life and art of FUJITA Tsuguharu (1886-1968) one of the most colorful, and one of the most troubling, of twentieth-century Japanese artists. He was one of the most recognized artists working overseas early in the twentieth-century and his name became synonymous with Paris. He returned to Japan during the war years and painted "war paintings" and was thus branded as a collaborator. He returned to France after the war where he took French Citizenship and converted to Catholicism. This presentation will discuss the negotiation of Japanese identity, and the articulations of being Japanese, especially when resident abroad. Fujita’s total identity with France and the concomitant rejection of Japan is not unique. Dr. Slaymaker will explore the ramifications of this and think about them in terms of national identity in the twentieth century.
Dr. Doug Slaymaker
Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Kentucky
Dr. Doug Slaymaker is currently associate professor of Japanese at the University of Kentucky where he also serves as co-director of the Asia Center and as Director of the Division of Russian and Eastern Studies. His current research focuses on artists working outside of Japan during the early twentieth-century. The Body in Postwar Fiction: Japanese Fiction after the War was published by Routledge in 2004. He has edited several volumes, among them Confluences: Postwar Japan and France (University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 2002), and Yoko Tawada: Voices from Everywhere. (Lexington Books, 2007).
Thursday, September 20, 2007
2:30-4:00pm
Ford Hall 407
Refreshments will be Provided
For information, please contact: Stacey Schoen, Administrative Associate for the Center for Asian Democracy, at 502-852-2667, stacey.schoen@louisville.edu or visit the Center for Asian Democracy webpage: http://www.louisville.edu/asiandemocracy
AAS/SEC 49th Annual Meeting
