Gennifer Weisenfeld | Scholars@Duke

Gennifer Weisenfeld
Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies

Gennifer Weisenfeld received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in Japanese Art History. Her field of research is modern and contemporary Japanese art history, design, and visual culture. Her work explores the impact of Japan's modern sociopolitical transformations on artistic production and practice; the cultural formations of nation and empire building; Japanese modernism; the politics of the avant-garde; the visual culture of disaster; commercial design; and the relationship between high art and popular culture.

Office Hours

Wednesdays 11:30-1:00

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013
Interim Director of Graduate Studies of the PhD in Art History, Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2022
Core Faculty in the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, Asian Pacific Studies Institute, Office of Global Affairs 1998

Contact Information

114 S. Buchanan Blvd. Smith Warehouse 10, Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708
gennifer.weisenfeld@duke.edu (919) 684-6051

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Princeton University 1997
- M.A., Princeton University 1992
- B.A., Wesleyan University 1987
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Dean of the Humanities, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Duke University 2016 - 2019
- Associate Professor of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2005 - 2013
- Director of Graduate Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2006 - 2012
- Assistant Professor of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1998 - 2005
- Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2001 - 2002
Recognition
In the News
- MAY 4, 2023 Duke Today
  
  Duke Awards 44 Distinguished Professorships
- MAR 2, 2023 Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
  
  ’Gas Mask Nation‘ Explores Japan’s Wartime Air Defense Campaigns
- FEB 14, 2023 Duke Today
  
  Spring Books from Duke Authors from Wittgenstein to Capoeira
- AUG 12, 2021 Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
  
  A Laboratory Is The Ideal Place to Study ... the Humanities
- AUG 12, 2021 Trinity College of Arts and Sciences
  
  Four HBCU Humanities Scholars to Collaborate with Trinity College Faculty and Students
- JUN 17, 2019
  
  Duke Welcomes NCCU, Durham Tech, Liberal Arts Collaborators to Humanities Unbounded initiative
- APR 4, 2019
  
  Weisenfeld Reappointed as Dean of the Humanities for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
- MAY 3, 2018
  
  Q&A: Gennifer Weisenfeld on Duke's Plan for New Humanities Labs
- APR 11, 2016
  
  Art Historian Gennifer Weisenfeld Appointed Dean of Humanities
- DEC 16, 2015
  
  Gennifer Weisenfeld Discusses Use of Active Learning Techniques in Seminars
Awards & Honors
- Distinguished Speakers Bureau. Association for Asian Studies, Northeast Asia Council. 2014
- Thomas Langford Lectureship Award. Duke University. 2005
Expertise
Subject Headings
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - Japan (Country)
- Research
  - Japan (Country)
- Teaching
  - Asia (Continent)
Research
Fellowships, Supported Research, & Other Grants
- Advanced Research Grant awarded by The Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies 2016
- Collaborative Scholarly Projects Grant awarded by Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University 2016 - 2017
- Publication Grant awarded by Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts 2012
- Short Travel Grant awarded by Northeast Asia Council 2012 - 2013
- Residential Research Fellowship awarded by National Humanities Center 2009 - 2010
- Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellowship awarded by Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, SOAS University of London 2005 - 2006
- Seminar Fellow awarded by John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University 2004 - 2005
- Research Fellowship awarded by Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation 2004 - 2005
- Publication Grant awarded by College Art Association, Millard Meiss Publication Fund 2002
- Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship awarded by Fulbright-Hays 2001 - 2002
- Fellowship for university teachers awarded by National Endowment for the Humanities 2001 - 2002
- Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by J. Paul Getty Research Institute 2001 - 2002
- Faculty Research Fellowship awarded by Japan Foundation 2001 - 2002
- Grants for advanced research on Japan awarded by Social Science Research Council 2000 - 2001
- Short Travel Grant awarded by Northeast Asia Council, Association for Asian Studies 1999 - 2000
- Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University 1997 - 1998
- Dissertation write-up fellowship awarded by Social Science Research Council 1995
- Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship awarded by Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art 1995 - 1997
- Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by Fullbright-IIE 1993 - 1995
- Graduate Fellowship awarded by Blakemore Foundation 1992
- Graduate Fellowship awarded by Princeton University, Council for Regional Studies 1991
- Graduate fellowship for doctoral program awarded by Princeton University 1989 - 1994
- Fellowship awarded by Stanford University 1988 - 1989
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023.
  - Levine, G., A. Watsky, and G. Weisenfeld, eds. Crossing the Sea: Essays on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Yoshiaki Shimizu. Princeton University Press, 2012.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2012.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905-1931. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2002.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan (In preparation), n.d.
- Academic Articles
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Gas Mask Parade: Japan’s Anxious Modernism,” 2014.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Publicity and Propaganda in 1930s Japan: Modernism as Method.” Design Issues 25, no. 4 (October 2009): 13–28.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “‘From Baby’s First Bath’: Kao Soap and Modern Japanese Commercial Design.” The Art Bulletin LXXXVI, no. 3 (September 2004): 573–98.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Nihon ni okeru Shōgyō Dezainshi to Sono Kenkyū (Art History and the Study of Japanese Commercial Design).” Bijutsu Forum 21 (November 2001): 123–30.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Touring Japan-as-Museum: NIPPON and Other Japanese Imperialist Travelogues.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 8, no. 3 (December 1, 2000): 747–93.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Guest Editor's Introduction: Visual Cultures of Japanese Imperialism.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 8, no. 3 (2000): 591–603.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Designing After Disaster: Barrack Decoration and the Great Kanto Earthquake.” Japanese Studies 18, no. 3 (1998): 229–46.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Mavo’s ‘Conscious Constructivism’: Art, Individualism, and Daily Life in Interwar Japan.” Art Journal 55, no. 3 (October 1996): 64–73.
    Open Access Copy
- Book Sections
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Industrial Poisoning Minamata, 1972.” In Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News, edited by J. Hill and V. R. Schwartz, 94–96. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
    Link to Item
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Laughing in the Face of Calamity: Visual Satire after the Great Kantô Earthquake.” In Disaster as Image: Iconographies and Media Strategies across Europe and Asia, 125–34. Schnell und Steiner, 2014.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Die Verbildlichung der Katastrophe in Japan.” In Von Atlantis Bis Heute: Mensch, Natur, Katastrophe, 155–61. Mannheim, Germany: Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, 2014.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Western-Style Painting in Japan: Mimesis, Individualism, and Japanese Nationhood.” In Modern Art in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: An Introduction to Global Modernisms, edited by E. O. Brien, E. Nicodemus, and M. Chiu, 165–80. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Shiseido Chic: The Cosmopolitan Aesthetics of Japanese Cosmetics.” In Crossing the Sea: Essays on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Yoshiaki Shimizu, edited by G. Levine, A. Watsky, and G. Weisenfeld, 159–79. Princeton, P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 2012.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Japanese Typographic Design and the Art of Letterforms.” In Bridges to Heaven: Essays on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Wen C. Fong, edited by G. S. Silbergeld, Jerome, G. S. Ching, Dora C. Y., G. S. Smith, Judith G., and G. S. Murck, Alfreda, 827–48. Princeton, NJ: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 2011.
    Open Access Copy
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “The Expanding Arts of the Interwar Period.” In Since Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868-2000, edited by J. T. Rimer, 66–98. University of Hawaii Press, 2011.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Publicité et Propagande Dans le Japon des Années 1930: Le Modernisme Comme Méthode.” In La Société Japonaise Devant La Montée Du Militarisme: Culture Populaire et Contrôle Social Dans Les Années 1930, edited by J. -. J. Tschudin and C. Hamon, 47–70. Editions Philippe Picquier, 2007.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Reinscribing Tradition in a Transnational Art World.” In Asian Art History in the Twenty-First Century, edited by V. N. Desai, 181–98. Williamstown, Mass. : Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute ; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
    Open Access Copy
  - Yasunori, Tano, ed. “Saigai to Shikaku: Kantō Daishinsai no Shikaku Hyōshō o Megutte” (Disaster and Vision: On the Visual Representations of the Great Kantō Earthquake).” In Kioku to Rekishi: Nihon Ni Okeru Kako No Shikakuka o Megutte (Memory and History: Visualising the Past in Japan), 42–53. Waseda Daigaku Aizu Yaiichi Kinen Hakubutsukan, 2007.
  - Silbergeld, Jerome, and Dora C. Y. Ching, eds. “Women and Words: Two Language Artists in Contemporary Japan.” In Persistence/Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing, 59–85. P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 2006.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Tada Hokuu no Kōkoku Bigaku to Josei no Shōchōsei (Tada Hokuu’s Advertising Aesthetics and the Symbolic Value of Women).” In Manazashi No Yukue: Tada Hokuu to Sono Shigoto-Ten. Utsunomiya Museum of Art, Japan, 2003.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Japanese Modernism and Consumerism: Forging the New Artistic Field of Shōgyō Bijutsu.” In Being Modern in Japan, edited by E. Tipton and J. Clark, 75–98. Sydney, Australian Humanities Research Foundation, 2000.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Imaging Calamity: Artists in the Capital after the Great Kantô Earthquake.” In MOBO MOGA/ Modern Boy, Modern Girl: Japanese Modern Art 1910-1935. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1998.
- Book Reviews
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Hokusai’s Great Wave: Biography of a Global Icon.” caa.reviews, January 7, 2017.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Maximum Embodiment: Yōga, The Western Painting of Japan, 1912-1955 by Bert Winther-Tamaki.” Journal of Japanese Studies, 2014.
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Nihonga, Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting 1868-1968 by By Ellen Conant, Steven Owyoung, and J. Thomas Rimer.” Journal of Asian Studies, November 1998.
- Digital Publications
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “On Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan's Great Earthquake of 1923.” The Asia-Pacific Journal, February 9, 2015.
    Link to Item
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Selling Shiseido: Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan,” n.d.
    Link to Item
  - Weisenfeld, G. S. “Imaging Kantō,” n.d.
    Link to Item
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

In the News

Awards & Honors

Subject Headings

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Research

Teaching

Fellowships, Supported Research, & Other Grants

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Book Reviews

Digital Publications

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession