Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene
Katsushika Hokusai's 1829 woodblock print, “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” is the world's most iconic portrait of ocean waves. It has been reproduced, quoted, and repurposed over the last two centuries in a widening circle of representations of the unruly, powerful sea. Today's reimagi...
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| Format: | Article |
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Duke University Press
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114600 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0859-5881 |
| _version_ | 1826210474828496896 |
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| author | Helmreich, Stefan |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program Helmreich, Stefan |
| author_sort | Helmreich, Stefan |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Katsushika Hokusai's 1829 woodblock print, “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” is the world's most iconic portrait of ocean waves. It has been reproduced, quoted, and repurposed over the last two centuries in a widening circle of representations of the unruly, powerful sea. Today's reimaginings of this storied Japanese image often remark upon the dangerous, damaged state of the contemporary ocean. Such commentaries sometimes refer directly to the 2011 tsunami and to its associated Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. But adaptations of Hokusai's Wave these days also increasingly point to more general anxieties about catastrophic climate change and to worries about ocean pollution, acidification, and plastification. In such usages, the Wave operates as a synecdoche for, a symbolic capture of, the difficult-to-apprehend vastness of the ever-moving, interconnecting, and possibly threatening sea. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:50:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/114600 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:50:30Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Duke University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1146002022-09-29T10:54:04Z Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene Helmreich, Stefan Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthropology Program Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Helmreich, Stefan Katsushika Hokusai's 1829 woodblock print, “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” is the world's most iconic portrait of ocean waves. It has been reproduced, quoted, and repurposed over the last two centuries in a widening circle of representations of the unruly, powerful sea. Today's reimaginings of this storied Japanese image often remark upon the dangerous, damaged state of the contemporary ocean. Such commentaries sometimes refer directly to the 2011 tsunami and to its associated Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. But adaptations of Hokusai's Wave these days also increasingly point to more general anxieties about catastrophic climate change and to worries about ocean pollution, acidification, and plastification. In such usages, the Wave operates as a synecdoche for, a symbolic capture of, the difficult-to-apprehend vastness of the ever-moving, interconnecting, and possibly threatening sea. 2018-04-06T19:23:19Z 2018-04-06T19:23:19Z 2016-05 2018-03-12T15:21:38Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2201-1919 2201-1919 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114600 Helmreich, Stefan. “Hokusai’s Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene.” Environmental Humanities 7, no. 1 (2015): 203–217. © 2105 Stefan Helmreich https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0859-5881 http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3616407 Environmental Humanities Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ application/pdf Duke University Press Duke University Press |
| spellingShingle | Helmreich, Stefan Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene |
| title | Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene |
| title_full | Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene |
| title_fullStr | Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene |
| title_full_unstemmed | Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene |
| title_short | Hokusai's Great Wave Enters the Anthropocene |
| title_sort | hokusai s great wave enters the anthropocene |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114600 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0859-5881 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT helmreichstefan hokusaisgreatwaveenterstheanthropocene |