This page was created by Maren Ehlers. 

Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Explore a woodblock-printed advertisement from 1856.

Scroll down for questions to guide your exploration of the flyer.

To view the flyer in detail and read the annotations, hover over the image (no need to click). Each annotation consists of a blue part (an English translation, or [in brackets] commentary) and a black part (a transcription of the text). To view the flyer without annotations, click on SOURCE FILE. 

There is no particular order in which to view the flyer, but it is best to divide the flyer into four sections and read each of them separately, approaching the texts from right to left. Be sure to read all annotations before answering the questions. 

Note for the specialist reader: The glosses (furigana) in the transcriptions of the text boxes on the upper left and lower right sections refer to glosses printed on the flyer itself. The furigana in most of the other transcriptions were added by me to assist reading. 
Describe the images on the flyer. What kinds of scenes and processes are being displayed in the lower left and upper right segments? 

How does the flyer represent parents and children? What can their conversations tell us about the assumptions its creators made about people's attitudes toward vaccinations?

What does the flyer make of the fact that vaccinations were a technology imported from abroad? 

Identify as many references to religion as you can find on this flyer. What might the authors have intended by connecting vaccination to these various religious traditions? 

Look at language and writing style. What can you infer from these about the intended audience of the flyer? 

In sum, how does the flyer try to persuade its readers? 


Go back to The Spatio-Temporality of Virus and Vaccine.

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