Sponsored by the Institute of 20th Century Media, this exhibition features Juro Fukushima’s collection of magazines to commemorate the Institute’s 100th meeting. The Institute was established at Waseda University in 2001 to conduct research on media and censorship during the occupation period.
Fukushima (1936 – 2006), a scholar and collector of printed publications, was an influential member of the Institute. He started collecting magazines from the 1950s and accumulated over 10,000 items in total, including publications during the 6 years and 8 months of the occupation of Japan after World War II. His collection was donated to the Waseda University Library in 2007.
The selected items on display range from women’s magazines, illustrated children’s magazines, science magazines, literary magazines, magazines on film, weekly magazines, magazines from local areas and more. A part of these rare items is the kasutori zasshi (a magazine printed on cheap, low-quality paper), which met the needs of people hungry for print and information at the time. Supposedly, the word kasutori derives from a strong, poor-quality sake popular back then. In addition, Juro Fukushima’s collection holds rare newspaper articles and periodicals which are not part of University of Maryland’s Gordon W. Prange Collection, known for owning nearly a complete set of publications during the occupation years. Magazine articles related to Waseda are also on exhibit as well.
Occupied Japan in Magazines from the Juro Fukushima Collection
Exhibition Information
- Open: September 1 (Thurs) to September 21 (Wed), Monday to Saturday, 10:00AM – 18:00PM
- Venue: 125th Anniversary Room on the 10th floor of Building 26
- Closed: Sundays and Holidays *with the exception of September 18 (Sun)
- Free admission
Organized by the Institute of 20th Century Media
With the support of Global Japanese Studies
With the cooperation of Cultural Affairs Division and Waseda University Library
Symposium Outline
- Date: September 18 (Sun), 13:00PM – 17:00PM
- Symposium venue: Room 305 in Building 3
- Free admission, no reservations required
- MC: Kenko Kawasaki (Japan Institute of the Moving Image)
Part 1
1) Taketoshi Yamamoto (Professor Emeritus, Waseda University) “The Institute of 20th Century Media and Occupation History”
2) Louise Young (University of Wisconsin – Madison) “Rethinking Occupation History in the New Millennium” (interpreted by Takane Suzuki of Toho University)
3) Kazushige Munataka (Waseda University) “The Origins of the Fukushima Collection”
Part 2
4) Takumi Ishikawa (Rikkyo University) “Current Research on Kasutori Magazines”
5) Kaoru Mitani (Scholar of published art) “Children’s Magazines During the Occupation: A Focus on Illustrated Stories”
6) Reiko Tsuchiya (Waseda University) “Current Affairs Magazines During the Occupation”
