Book Launch: Professor Namiko Kunimoto, Imperial Animations in Transpacific Contemporary Art

Join the Center for Ethnic Studies for the launch of Professor Namiko Kunimoto's most recent book, Imperial Animations in Transpacific Contemporary Art (University of California Press, 2026). Dr. Kunimoto serves as the Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies and is an Associate Professor of History of Art. 

Imperial Animations in Transpacific Contemporary Art situates the Japanese Empire as a world-historical event that persists today through pervasive and deep impacts on regional and global politics. Considering contemporary artwork from across the transpacific region, Kunimoto documents efforts to expose colonial trauma and reveal its presence in shaping political liberalism in Japan as well as the global rise of aspirational fascism. At the heart of these artistic endeavors is a drive to animate, both in the sense of digitalization and performance and in the urge to enliven, mobilize and reveal the continuities of imperialism today. The animate art addressed in this book urges us to think critically about imperialism and its links to the digital age, land, racism, and violence, thereby inviting us to re-envision our collective future.

RSVPs are requested: 

RSVP here. 

Dr. Namiko Kunimoto is the Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art at the Ohio State University. She specializes in modern and contemporary Japanese art, with research interests in diasporic art, gender, race, photography, visual culture, transnationalism and nation formation.

This event is free, open to the public and welcoming to everyone.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Ethnic Studies, the Humanities Institute, the Department of History of Art, the Humanities Institute, and the Institute for Japanese Studies.