ECR French Nineteenth-Century Art Network Research Forum:
Fleshly Japonisme: Japanese Aesthetics and Sensing Bodies at the Turn of the Century
Weds 19 April // 1400 (BST) // 1300 (CEST) 0900 (EDT)
PLEASE NOTE: This event will take place at 1400 BST
Japonisme, or the taste for Japan, was a pivotal cultural phenomenon in nineteenth-century Europe and North America, giving rise to modernism and providing opportunities to unlearn the norms of one’s home culture in the act of self-invention. One of japonisme’s most outstanding iterations, however, has eluded critical scrutiny: middle-class women’s bodily experiences of Japanese and Japan-inspired goods. Ideas of Japan reached women as something capable of physically and psychologically affecting their bodies, as they handled and purchased Japanese images and objects, donned kimonos, and applied cosmetics scented with “Japanese” fragrances. Through a series of case studies, this book explores ways that japonisme allowed women to reimagine themselves beyond Western gender norms.
Hyoungee Kong is an Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow of Art History at NYU Shanghai. She received her PhD in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University. Her work focuses broadly on queer subjectivities that formed through cross-cultural consumption between East Asia and the West. Her primary research and teaching areas include visual and material cultures of France and Japan in the nineteenth–twentieth centuries; gender and sexuality studies; queer theory; and history of photography in East Asia.
Dr. Kong’s current book project, Fleshly Japonisme, examines queer potentials of japonisme, or the Western taste for Japan, that catered to middle-class women in Belle Epoque France. Through intermedial analyses of advertisements, paintings, postcards, garments, and literature, the book explores the ways that ideas of Japan helped these women reimagine their bodily pleasures and desires beyond Western bourgeois conventions of femininity.
PLEASE NOTE: This event will take place at 1400 BST
This is a virtual event - the Zoom link will be sent out on the day. For any issues please get in contact via email and we will try and help as best we can.
This event is open to anyone with an interest in the topic discussed.
About the Research Forum:
ECR French Nineteenth-Century Art Network Research Forum is a virtually held research forum that allows recent PhD graduates, early career researchers as well as research fellows to present their most recent research. The forum aims to expose new and emerging scholarship and scholars engaging in exciting areas of research. The sessions will last around one hour, including an opportunity for questions and answers after the presentation. The events are open to all.
About the Network:
The network is formed of current PhD students and ECRs working in nineteenth-century visual culture. We have monthly sessions for ECRs to present virtually , allowing them to develop their skills and share their research. It is global, open to those located anywhere in the world who wish to join. Feel free to join and participate, and we hope to create an engaging, diverse, fun and rewarding community.
For further updates and information on forthcoming events please look at our website or sign up to our mailing list . If you wish, drop us an email info@ecrfrenchart.com