In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan (Lecture by Alicia Volk)
On June 9, 2025, Alicia Volk, Professor of Japanese Art at the University of Maryland, discussed her new book, In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan. This publication unearths an immensely creative yet almost entirely overlooked body of Japanese art. Introducing captivating but little-known paintings, prints, and sculpture made during the US occupation (1945–1952), her talk shows how the forgotten art of a country in the shadow of the Japanese and American empires variously accommodated and resisted the Cold War global realignment that followed on the heels of World War II.