Naoko Shimazu: "Visualising Diplomacy in Cold War Asia"
- Date
- 23 September 2025, 10:15–12:00
- Location
- Thunberg Lecture Hall, Linneanum, Villavägen 6c, Uppsala
- Type
- Seminar
- Web page
- https://www.swedishcollegium.se/
- Organiser
- Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS)
- Contact person
- Mattias Bolkéus Blom
Naoko Shimazu (Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study & Tokyo College, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Tokyo) will give a seminar on the topic "Visualising Diplomacy in Cold War Asia". The seminar will be followed by a Q&A session. Hybrid event - see the webpage for the Zoom link.
ABSTRACT:
In our everyday understanding of diplomacy, we are accustomed to seeing images of diplomatic events. In many instances, such images might consist of one statesman visiting another, looking stiff as they shake hands in front of the few selected diplomatic photographers, to enable the taking of the stock diplomatic images. These images are so cliched that not many observers would think twice about the potential power of the choreographed meanings embedded in such public displays of diplomatic relationships. Nevertheless, such images can embody powerful symbolic meanings and demonstrably so in Cold War Asia. Visual sources can offer new insights into understanding global diplomacy as illustrated from case studies in my recently published edited volume, Cold War Asia: A Visual History of Global Diplomacy (edited with Matthew Phillips, Cambridge University Press 2025).