Pictures and Voices from a Paper Empire: Late Meiji (1868-1912) Magazines and Modern Japanese Mass Culture

The turn of the century was a watershed moment for periodical publishing in Japan, as a highly literate populace began subscribing to magazines in the many thousands. This talk will examine the roles of industrially reproduced photographic images and oral performance genres in the development of mass market-oriented discursive spaces for Japanese literary writing and modern popular culture.