History Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing History Theses and Dissertations by Subject "Allied Occupation of Japan"

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    Re-imaging Japan: Photographing a "New Cultural Nation" under the Allied Occupation, 1945-1952
    (University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Cole, Emily; Hanes, Jeffrey
    This dissertation examines the role that photography played in re-imaging Japanese cultural identity during the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952). It argues that photographers viewed the camera as a tool with which they could engage the postwar discourse on Japanese culture and identity. Eager to renounce the militarism and ultra-nationalism that had previously pervaded society, photographers endeavored to re-image Japan as a “new cultural nation” (shin bunka kokka). Inspired by American photojournalism and European human-interest photography, photographers captured telling scenes of Japanese society and culture. Photographers invoked symbols of tradition (e.g., rural villages, cherry blossoms, Buddhist monks) as well as icons of modernity (e.g., trendy fashions, movie theaters, urban neighborhoods). They photographed men and women at work, at home, and enjoying moments of leisure, and they snapped children at play. Photographers documented social and economic recovery, and they also captured scenes of poverty and material deprivation. Their photos illuminated changing social values and gender roles, foreign cultural influences, and life under the Occupation. As they took pictures of their postwar world, Japanese photographers also quietly addressed the authority of the Occupation, sometimes positively and at other times critically. Images of brawny Japanese athletes who competed—and (sometimes) won—against the U.S. on a world stage connoted an implicit challenge to America authority. At the same time, photos of American GIs in uniform strolling along Japanese streets and training on military bases projected American dominance in Japan. Most American photographers, on the other hand, tended to tout the Occupation as a transformative intervention aimed at helping Japan recover from the devastation of war and embrace the supposedly superior American way of life. In the turbulence of the first postwar decade, Japanese and American photographers were extraordinarily active in documenting and interpreting the complex engagement of Japan with America. By taking a close look at the photographs taken by the Occupied Japanese and the Occupying Americans alike, we gain valuable insight into how they perceived, experienced, and documented each other at the moment of this epochal historical encounter.
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    Towards a New Way of Seeing: Finding Reality in Postwar Japanese Photography, 1945-1970
    (University of Oregon, 2015-08-18) Cole, Emily; Hanes, Jeffrey
    This study examines postwar Japanese photography and the influence of World War Two, the Allied Occupation (1945-1952), and social and economic transformations during the Era of High-Speed Growth (1955-1970) on ways in which photographers approached and depicted reality. In the late 1940s, censorship erased the reality of a devastated society and evidence of the Allied Occupation from photography magazines. Once censorship ended in 1949, photographers reacted to miserable living conditions, as well as the experience of producing wartime propaganda, by confronting reality directly. Finally, photographers responded to social transformations and resulting challenges during the Era of High-Speed Growth by shifting from an objective reporting to a subjective critique of reality. A study of photography from 1945 to 1970 not only demonstrates how socio-historical forces influence photography but also reveals key changes in Japanese society and the urban landscape as Japan transitioned from a defeated, occupied nation to an economic powerhouse.