Come celebrate the launch of a new Duke faculty publication, The Fine Art of Persuasion: Corporate Advertising Design, Nation, and Empire in Modern Japan (Duke University Press, 2025), by Walter H. Annenberg Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History Gennifer Weisenfeld. The book examines the evolution of Japanese advertising graphic design from the early 1900s through the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a pivotal design event that rebranded Japan on the world stage.

Professor Weisenfeld will discuss her new book with Paul Jaskot, Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. A book-signing will follow the discussion.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase. Registration optional but encouraged to help estimate attendance.

Co-sponsored by Duke University Press

About the Author

Gennifer Weisenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University. She is the author of Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan; Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923; and Mavo: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931—all of which are available in print and ebook format through the Duke University Libraries.

Read the OA Edition

The Fine Art of Persuasion is published by Duke University Press and will be released as a physical monograph for purchase, but also as a free open access ebook, made possible by Duke University’s participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. Funding from Duke University Libraries made it possible to open this publication to the world.