Envisioning the Empress illuminates dynamic and powerful empresses who impacted not only women in their own time, but whose influence extended to later generations of royalty, creating a greater role for imperial women and elevating the status of women’s roles at a crucial juncture in Japanese history. The central focus of this book is visual monarchy, exploring how the empress' biographies were primarily expressed in visual culture, and how their images worked in support of Japan’s imperial policies in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Available for pre-order in November, 2024.

More information here.

Edited volume released by Brill in 2024.

Includes my chapter, “Painting the Imperial Imaginary: Memories of Empire at the Seitoku kinen kaigakan.”

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Edited volume released by Routledge in 2022.

Includes my chapter, “Imaging Industry: Woodblock Prints, Factory Women, and Sericulture in Meiji Japan.”

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Listen to a conversation with myself, Ayelet Zohar, and Jingyi Li on the New Books Network podcast, April 2022.

Reviewed in Japan Forum, 2023.

Reviewed in Early Popular Visual Culture, 2022.