University of Essex

Department Member, Art History and Theory

Other Affiliations: Saitama University, Cultural Sciences
SOAS University of London, History
University of Cambridge, History of Art

Thesis Title: Communicating Vessels: Surrealism in Japan, 1923-70.

About

Majella Munro is an art historian, journalist and Japanologist, whose research focuses on censorship and cultural repression. She is interested in art production under totalitarian political regimes, inter- and trans-national exchange within the avant-garde, and the sociological study of erotic art. 


Majella  completed her undergraduate degree in  History of Art at the University of Cambridge,  where  she  was  awarded  first  class  honours,  and  is  an honourary senior scholar of Gonville and Caius College. She completed her Master's degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where she majored in the study of modern Japanese history and received the annual award for distinguished academic performance. Her Master's dissertation, on Surrealism in Japan during the Second World War, was awarded the Ivan Morris Essay Prize by the British Association for Japanese Studies in 2009.  Majella began PhD research on the Japanese Surrealist movement under the supervision of Professor Dawn Ades at the University of Essex in 2008 as an Arts and Humanities Research Council candidate. During 2010 she was a Special Researcher at Saitama University, Japan.


Her first book, on Japanese erotic art, was published by Erotic Review Books in November 2008.

Since August 2009, Majella has served as Executive Editor of the postgraduate journal Modern Art Asia.

Majella is an expert on Japanese avant-garde and contemporary art, an accomplished public speaker and an experienced freelance journalist.  Her research interests include Japanese erotic art, Surrealism and Dada in Japan, and the history of psychoanalysis. If you would like to make contact regarding a professional opportunity please email enquiries@majellamunro.com


About my current research:

Current research project  Communicating Vessels: Surrealism in Japan 1923-70.

Histories of Surrealism typically concentrate on the provocations of French practitioners against the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.  The case of Japan, where Surrealists were directly imprisoned by wartime authorities, presents an apposite study of the interaction of state and avant-garde, yet the Japanese contribution is marginalised in existing accounts.  Japan forms an excellent case study in the tensions and problematics inherent in Surrealism, since it encompasses tensions between East and West; Imperialism and anti-colonialism; totalitarianism and avant-garde radicalism; and issues of cultural assimilation and exchange.

Existing scholarship on Japanese Surrealism is limited, marred by inadequate attention to context, and by ideological and connoisseurial biases.  Recently, increasing interest in Eastern European, Latin American and other Surrealist movements has created a new context for scholarship, in which discourse can be geographically expanded, and in which the Japanese movement can be reassessed.  Investigating the specific cultural and political contexts of Japanese Surrealism contributes to an understanding of the Surrealist movement as an international whole.  Japanese practitioners were thought to be isolated from the Parisian 'core' of the movement, but the relationships of Japanese artists with prominent European Surrealists allows the provincial, derivative character given to Japanese Surrealism in previous accounts to be confronted, and opens the critical reception and transmutation of European ideas to enquiry.  By examining France and Japan comparatively, this volume provides a model of the dialogue between the Parisian 'core' and the Japanese 'periphery'.

This enquiry also contributes to the wider field of Japanese art history.  Scholarship on Japanese art is dominated by enquiry into traditional, pre-modern art; research into modern and avant-garde art, particularly work produced before the end of World War II, has been less forthcoming.  Thus, this thesis, positioned at an intersection between discourse on the Surrealist movement as an international collective; on Japanese modernism; and on the non-western avant-garde, contributes to several emergent areas of enquiry, and interrogates how cultural movements might transcend nation' and 'ideology' during times of conflict.