Nathan Shockey (Bard College): "'Books Are Useless': Collecting, Excess, and Bibliophile Culture in Prewar Japan" (Fall 2023 George Parker Winship Lecture, co-sponsored by Harvard-Yenching Library and the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies)
Date and Time
October 11, 2023
05:30PM - 05:30PM EDT
Location
Edison and Newman Room, Floor 1, Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Fall 2023 George Parker Winship Lecture
Professor Nathan Shockey (Bard College) presents the Fall 2023 George Parker Winship Lecture. His talk explores changing attitudes towards the materiality of modern Japanese books in the early 20th century. Shockey describes how the expansion of the commercial book industry set off a speculators’ market for rare books, creating anxieties about commodification. At the same time, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 reduced countless thousands of volumes to ash, prompting the critic Uchida Roan to champion the practice of over-accumulation and praise unread books as vectors for the transmission of knowledge and literary culture.
Reception to follow. Co-sponsored by Harvard-Yenching Library and the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies.
Professor Nathan Shockey (Bard College) presents the Fall 2023 George Parker Winship Lecture. His talk explores changing attitudes towards the materiality of modern Japanese books in the early 20th century. Shockey describes how the expansion of the commercial book industry set off a speculators’ market for rare books, creating anxieties about commodification. At the same time, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 reduced countless thousands of volumes to ash, prompting the critic Uchida Roan to champion the practice of over-accumulation and praise unread books as vectors for the transmission of knowledge and literary culture.
Reception to follow. Co-sponsored by Harvard-Yenching Library and the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies.