This volume is a multifaceted study of the development of modernism in Japan, with authors from Japan, the United States, and Australia spanning the fields of art history, social history, and literature. Being Modern in Japan raises many issues about Japanese modernity and its contested meanings.

This volume is a multifaceted study of the development of modernism in Japan, with authors from Japan, the United States, and Australia spanning the fields of art history, social history, and literature. Being Modern in Japan raises many issues about Japanese modernity and its contested meanings. Writers explore what it means to be modern in Japan from the 1910s to the 1930s, but many subjects discussed are relevant to modernity elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and North America. Certain aesthetic concerns in Japanese art occurred spontaneously, while others reflected the adoption of a common formal modernist language. Being modern in the Taisho and early Showa periods became integral to the society of the time. The practices and spaces of modernity changed in their meaning, or took on multiple meanings, during the 1920s, and by the early 1930s Japan was widely perceived by Japanese themselves as "modern."