IGS International Symposium, “Democracy’s Poster Girls: Beauty Queens and Fashion Models in Cold War Japan”
Date: Friday, 2 JUN, 18:30-20:30
Venue: Room 101, Inter-Faculty Building 2, Ochanomizu University
Big business in early Cold War Japan, American-style beauty pageants launched modeling careers, national heroes, and overnight celebrity. The beauty queen’s iconic uniforms from swimsuit to tiara shaped her as a cultural figure and a cautionary tale about the allure and dangers of Americanization in 1950s Japan. What do her victories tell us about Japan-U.S. diplomatic and commercial alliances and attitudes toward women’s new freedoms in the 1950s? Popular again in Japan, but including a broader range of bodies, what do today’s beauty pageants signal about notions of Japanese identity, gender, and labor?
| Coordinator | Laura Nenzi (Professor, IGS, Ochanomizu University/ University of Tennessee) |
| Speaker | Jan Bardsley (Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) |
| Discussant | Mary A. Knighton (Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University) |
| Kazue Sakamoto (Professor, Ochanomizu University) |
*Simultaneous interpretation available(English-Japanese)
*Prior registration required ☛Registration form
(Admission Free)
Organizer: Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University