“Exhibiting Erotic Art & the Problem of Obscenity in..."
Lecture by Amaury Garcia
“Exhibiting Erotic Art (shunga) and the Problem of Obscenity
in the 20th Century Japan”
In Japan today there is an informal prohibition against public exhibitions of erotic prints, or shunga, from the Edo period (1603-1868). For most of the 20th century they were considered obscene, and their publication was required to follow regulations stipulating that any bodily representation should be arranged or altered so that the genitals and pubic hair be kept hidden. Dr. Garcia, Professor of the Center for Asian and Africa Studies, El Colegio de Mexico, will discuss the history of modern discourses regarding the changing nature of shunga’s multiple identities, from commodity and popular entertainment to “obscenity,” and then to “art”; that is, how they were interpreted and then censored in later periods for reasons far beyond their original cultural context.
Sponsor: Asian Studies. Co-sponsors: Visual Arts Department and the Dresher Center for the Humanities