JOHN SZOSTAK
Assistant Professor & Graduate Chair

John Szostak is assistant professor of Japanese art history.  He received his B.A. from Colgate University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, completing his doctoral research at Kyoto University as a Fulbright research fellow. 

John's research focuses on the field of traditional Japanese painting of the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa eras (mid-19th to early 20th centuries).  He has published articles on Meiji-era Japanese war propaganda prints, and on the appropriation of traditional Buddhist imagery and iconography by modernist Japanese painters. His current book project explores the efforts of a Kyoto-based painting collective called the Kokuga Society (Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai), active in the 1910s-20s, to modernize and internationalize traditional Japanese painting and exhibition practice. 

John's other interests include Japanese aesthetics, experimental Japanese photography and film, and developments in contemporary Japan art.