Politics of the Visible and the Invisible

Abstract

In this article, we analyze and compare photographic images from some of the most widely circulated Japanese and American high school history textbooks regarding their treatment of the Pacific War. We focus on the visual component of war technology, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the visibility or invisibility of women, especially regarding the comfort women issue. We argue that images in the textbooks are articulated by a dialectic relationship between the visible and the invisible as a political question, thinking about the “off-screen space” as the structural principle of what we see. The textbooks’ visual memories about the Pacific War are not only influenced by what is shown but also by what is omitted and virtually depicted in the surrounding media.