Margaret Bryan

My current research investigates the cultural and social significance of folk-art collectives and movements in early twentieth-century Japan and beyond. I look at how nōmin bijutsu (Farmers’ Art) and its related movements formed a wider cultural network that operated separate from, in opposition to, and at times transcendent of the concurrent state-centred narrative. I map this network via case studies in Japan, Taiwan, and former Manchukuo that serve as exemplary nodes of local and transcultural connectivity. In this counternarrative, folk art becomes a metonymic agent for a conception of modernity that, in departure from the West-centric conception of cultural progress, favours multiplicity over standardisation and is predicated on the variation of both natural geographies and cultural elements across different localities, as well as the pivotal role that these factors play in human development.

Originally from Maine, I completed my B.A. in Art History and French at Bowdoin College. After graduating, I taught English in a village in Nagano for three years, which sparked an interest in rural art and education that has since been a driving force behind my subsequent research. Upon my return, I briefly worked and volunteered in the education and sustainability sectors back home before completing my M.A. in art history at Carleton University in Ottawa, with my thesis focusing on artist and educator Yamamoto Kanae. Now, when not diligently working on my doctoral thesis, I can be found cultivating my new love of korfball at Iffley, bingeing Korean dramas, and running in Uni Parks while pondering a second career in grounds keeping (I love my research, but I also love gardening). My research is generously supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, benevolent relatives, and a summer of waiting tables and forklift operating.

College: St. Cross College

Department: Faculty of History

Supervisor: Professor Sho Konishi