Powers of the Real analyzes the cultural politics of cinema's persuasive sensory realism in interwar Japan. Examining cultural criticism, art, news media, literature, and film, Lewis offers new perspectives on media history, the commodification of intimacy and emotion, film realism, and gender politics in the "age of the mass society" in Japan.

Powers of the Real analyzes the cultural politics of cinema's persuasive sensory realism in interwar Japan. Examining cultural criticism, art, news media, literature, and film, Lewis offers new perspectives on media history, the commodification of intimacy and emotion, film realism, and gender politics in the "age of the mass society" in Japan.