HARVARD EAST ASIAN MONOGRAPHS
Cover: Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook Culture and the <i>Kibyōshi</i> of Edo Japan, Second Edition, With a New Preface, from Harvard University PressCover: Manga from the Floating World in PAPERBACK

Harvard East Asian Monographs 279

Manga from the Floating World

Comicbook Culture and the Kibyōshi of Edo Japan, Second Edition, With a New Preface

Product Details

PAPERBACK

$45.00 • £39.95 • €40.95

ISBN 9780674241763

Publication Date: 06/04/2019

Text

606 pages

8-1/2 x 11 inches

118 photos, 10 color photos

Harvard University Asia Center > Harvard East Asian Monographs

World

Also Available As

Jacket: Manga from the Floating World

HARDCOVER | $95.00

ISBN 9780674241787

Text

Add to Cart

Media Requests:

Related Subjects

Manga from the Floating World is the first full-length study in English of the kibyōshi, a genre of woodblock-printed comic book widely read in late-eighteenth-century Japan. By combining analysis of the socioeconomic and historical milieus in which the genre was produced and consumed with three annotated translations of works by major author-artist Santō Kyōden (1761–1816) that closely reproduce the experience of encountering the originals, Adam Kern offers a sustained close reading of the vibrant popular imagination of the mid-Edo period. The kibyōshi, Kern argues, became an influential form of political satire that seemed poised to transform the uniquely Edoesque brand of urban commoner culture into something more, perhaps even a national culture, until the shogunal government intervened.

Based on extensive research using primary sources in their original Edo editions, the volume is copiously illustrated with rare prints from Japanese archival collections. It serves as an introduction not only to the kibyōshi but also to the genre’s readers and critics, narratological conventions, modes of visuality, format, and relationship to the modern Japanese manga and to the popular literature and wit of Edo. Filled with graphic puns and caricatures, these entertaining works will appeal to the general reader as well as to the more experienced student of Japanese cultural history—and anyone interested in the global history of comics, graphic novels, and manga.

Recent News

Black lives matter. Black voices matter. A statement from HUP »

From Our Blog

Jacket: Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, by Peter Wilson, from Harvard University Press

A Lesson in German Military History with Peter Wilson

In his landmark book Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, acclaimed historian Peter H. Wilson offers a masterful reappraisal of German militarism and warfighting over the last five centuries, leading to the rise of Prussia and the world wars. Below, Wilson answers our questions about this complex history,