Kabuki's Nineteenth Century examines the theater culture of nineteenth-century Japan from the perspective of the history and materiality of the book, the nature of reception, and the making and making use of images. The aim of this book is to rediscover the kabuki theater of nineteenth-century Japan by shifting our critical focus from performance to print and the public sphere, and thus embedding theater history within the larger world of printed matter by means of which theatricality circulated beyond the stage and through which performance was most often consumed. Fundamental to Kabuki's Nineteenth Century is a reconsideration of the nature of the printed archive itself. The book argues that the archive of printed material related to the theater in nineteenth-century Japan (playbills, actor critiques, theater guides, maps, actor prints, calendars, and broadsheets) is something more than--and more complicated than--a set of materials out of which we might reconstitute the always transient event of performance. Rather, the archive constitutes an object of inquiry unto itself, an object that reveals as much about the interrelations between and among various printed media and genres circulating beyond the confines of the theater as it does about what happened on stage. Even as we use these materials to examine the history of performance, a series of different questions might be asked: what can the production, consumption, and collecting of this enormous body of printed matter tell us about such problems as the role of print in everyday life, the construction of specialized knowledges, and the manner in which a culture archives itself?

Kabuki's Nineteenth Century examines the theater culture of nineteenth-century Japan from the perspective of the history and materiality of the book, the nature of reception, and the making and making use of images. The aim of this book is to rediscover the kabuki theater of nineteenth-century Japan by shifting our critical focus from performance to print and the public sphere, and thus embedding theater history within the larger world of printed matter by means of which theatricality circulated beyond the stage and through which performance was most often consumed. Fundamental to Kabuki's Nineteenth Century is a reconsideration of the nature of the printed archive itself. The book argues that the archive of printed material related to the theater in nineteenth-century Japan (playbills, actor critiques, theater guides, maps, actor prints, calendars, and broadsheets) is something more than—and more complicated than—a set of materials out of which we might reconstitute the always transient event of performance. Rather, the archive constitutes an object of inquiry unto itself, an object that reveals as much about the interrelations between and among various printed media and genres circulating beyond the confines of the theater as it does about what happened on stage. Even as we use these materials to examine the history of performance, a series of different questions might be asked: what can the production, consumption, and collecting of this enormous body of printed matter tell us about such problems as the role of print in everyday life, the construction of specialized knowledges, and the manner in which a culture archives itself?

Gale Researcher Guide for: Japanese Theatrical Tradition: Kabuki is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

The creation of celebrity and fame is a topic easily understandable in today's world of pop idol competitions and reality TV shows. This exhibition and catalogue will focus on a similar phenomenon of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when urban Osaka and Tokyo created superstar actors, and will show how this was a stimulus for the creation of theatre, visual arts and poetry. Visitors to the exhibition will be struck by a colourful and varied visual display through which actors were portrayed as legendary urban heroes. The dates of items included will range from about 1780 until the 1830s; but the core of the exhibition will cover the period 1800-1821, and focus on the fierce rivalry between the two Osaka Kabuki superstars, Arashi Kichisaburo II (Rikan I, 1769-1821) and Nakamura Utaemon III (Shikan I, 1778-1838). Books, surimono, single sheet actor prints and albums will highlight the different ways in which actors and performances were represented, and show how this was part of a complex strategy to create celebrity for the actors, poets and artists involved.

Exhibition catalog giving highlights of National Museum Scotland's collection of nineteenth century Japanese woodblock prints featuring kabuki performances - a combination of drama, dance, music, and acrobatics.

"The history of the book in nineteenth-century Japan follows an uneven course that resists the simple chronology often used to mark the divide between premodern and modern literary history.By examining the obscured histories of publication, circulation, and reception of widely consumed literary works from late Edo to the early Meiji period, Jonathan Zwicker traces a genealogy of the literary field across a long nineteenth century: one that stresses continuities between the generic conventions of early modern fiction and the modern novel. In the literature of sentiment Zwicker locates a tear-streaked lens through which to view literary practices and readerly expectations that evolved across the century.Practices of the Sentimental Imagination emphasizes both qualitative and quantitative aspects of literary production and consumption, balancing close readings of canonical and noncanonical texts, sophisticated applications of critical theory, and careful archival research into the holdings of nineteenth-century lending libraries and private collections. By exploring the relationships between and among Japanese literary works and texts from late imperial China, Europe, and America, Zwicker also situates the Japanese novel within a larger literary history of the novel across the global nineteenth century."