Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on one landmark catastrophic event in the history of an emerging modern nation - the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo and surrounding areas in 1923, this volume examines the history of the visual production of the disaster.
Trade Review"Gorgeous and thoughtful... A wonderful and compelling book." -- Carla Nappi New Bks In East Asian Stds "This is an outstanding example of specialist scholarship that has much to offer design historians." Design History "A fascinating volume." -- Gennifer Weisenfeld Interaction "[Imaging Disaster] opens many important larger questions, and it organizes the giant archive it presents to us in a clear, well-organized, readable format. Weisenfeld handles difficult issues with grace and lucidity... [her] work offers a framework through which we can grasp the formation of the visual and media cultures of such central sites of destruction and reconstruction, even while attending to the incommensurate views and meanings of each specific event." Journal of Japanese Studies
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Earthquakes in Japan: A Brief Prehistory 2. The Media Scale of Catastrophe 3. Disaster as Spectacle 4. The Sublime Nature of Ruins 5. Reclaiming Disaster: Altruism and Corrosion 6. Reconstruction's Visual Rhetoric 7. Remembrance 8. Epilogue: Afterlives Notes Selected Bibliography List of Illustrations Index
