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Author : Ben-Ami Shillony
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Japan
ISBN : 0198202601
This analysis of the politics and culture of Japan during the period of World War II argues that the wartime regime, repressive as it was, was very different from contemporary totalitarian states.
Author : Asato Ikeda
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 165 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2018-05-31
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780824872120
This book examines a set of paintings produced in Japan during the 1930s and early 1940s that have received little scholarly attention. Asato Ikeda views the work of four prominent artists of the time—Yokoyama Taikan, Yasuda Yukihiko, Uemura Shōen, and Fujita Tsuguharu—through the lens of fascism, showing how their seemingly straightforward paintings of Mount Fuji, samurai, beautiful women, and the countryside supported the war by reinforcing a state ideology that justified violence in the name of the country’s cultural authenticity. She highlights the politics of “apolitical” art and challenges the postwar labeling of battle paintings—those depicting scenes of war and combat—as uniquely problematic. Yokoyama Taikan produced countless paintings of Mount Fuji as the embodiment of Japan’s “national body” and spirituality, in contrast to the modern West’s individualism and materialism. Yasuda Yukihiko located Japan in the Minamoto warriors of the medieval period, depicting them in the yamato-e style, which is defined as classically Japanese. Uemura Shōen sought to paint the quintessential Japanese woman, drawing on the Edo-period bijin-ga (beautiful women) genre while alluding to noh aesthetics and wartime gender expectations. For his subjects, Fujita Tsuguharu looked to the rural snow country, where, it was believed, authentic Japanese traditions could still be found. Although these artists employed different styles and favored different subjects, each maintained close ties with the state and presented what he considered to be the most representative and authentic portrayal of Japan. Throughout Ikeda takes into account the changing relationships between visual iconography/artistic style and its significance by carefully situating artworks within their specific historical and cultural moments. She reveals the global dimensions of wartime nationalist Japanese art and opens up the possibility of dialogue with scholarship on art produced in other countries around the same time, particularly Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Politics of Painting will be welcomed by those interested in modern Japanese art and visual culture, and war art and fascism. Its analysis of painters and painting within larger currents in intellectual history will attract scholars of modern Japanese and East Asian studies.
Author : Laura Hein
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2018-02-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350025790
In late 1945 local Japanese turned their energies toward creating new behaviors and institutions that would give young people better skills to combat repression at home and coercion abroad. They rapidly transformed their political culture-policies, institutions, and public opinion-to create a more equitable, democratic and peaceful society. Post-Fascist Japan explores this phenomenon, focusing on a group of highly educated Japanese based in the city of Kamakura, where the new political culture was particularly visible. The book argues that these leftist elites, many of whom had been seen as 'the enemy' during the war, saw the problem as one of fascism, an ideology that had succeeded because it had addressed real problems. They turned their efforts to overtly political-legal systems but also to ostensibly non-political and community institutions such as universities, art museums, local tourism, and environmental policies, aiming not only for reconciliation over the past but also to reduce the anxieties that had drawn so many towards fascism. By focusing on people who had an outsized influence on Japan's political culture, Hein's study is local, national, and transnational. She grounds her discussion using specific personalities, showing their ideas about 'post-fascism', how they implemented them and how they interacted with the American occupiers.
Author : Blai Guarné,Artur Lozano-Méndez,Dolores P. Martinez
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2019-03-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781785339608
From melodramas to experimental documentaries to anime, mass media in Japan constitute a key site in which the nation’s social memory is articulated, disseminated, and contested. Through a series of stimulating case studies, this volume examines the political and cultural representations of Japan’s past, showing how they have reinforced personal and collective narratives while also formulating new cultural meanings, both on a local scale and in the context of transnational media production and consumption. Drawing upon diverse disciplinary insights and methodologies, these studies collectively offer a nuanced account in which mass media function as much more than a simple ideological tool.
Author : Paul Morris,Naoko Shimazu,Edward Vickers
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2014-03-26
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781134684977
In the decades since her defeat in the Second World War, Japan has continued to loom large in the national imagination of many of her East Asian neighbours. While for many, Japan still conjures up images of rampant military brutality, at different times and in different communities, alternative images of the Japanese ‘Other’ have vied for predominance – in ways that remain poorly understood, not least within Japan itself. Imagining Japan in Postwar East Asia analyses the portrayal of Japan in the societies of East and Southeast Asia, and asks how and why this has changed in recent decades, and what these changing images of Japan reveal about the ways in which these societies construct their own identities. It examines the role played by an imagined ‘Japan’ in the construction of national selves across the East Asian region, as mediated through a broad range of media ranging from school curricula and textbooks to film, television, literature and comics. Commencing with an extensive thematic and comparative overview chapter, the volume also includes contributions focusing specifically on Chinese societies (the mainland PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan), Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. These studies show how changes in the representation of Japan have been related to political, social and cultural shifts within the societies of East Asia – and in particular to the ways in which these societies have imagined or constructed their own identities. Bringing together contributors working in the fields of education, anthropology, history, sociology, political science and media studies, this interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to all students and scholars concerned with issues of identity, politics and culture in the societies of East Asia, and to those seeking a deeper understanding of Japan’s fraught relations with its regional neighbours.
Author : Takeshi Ishida
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2024-06-02
Category : History
ISBN : 1412826829
This volume provides a perceptive background to modern Japanese culture. Ishida attempts a balanced evaluation of modern Japan, seeking to explain why the basic characteristics of Japanese society permit two almost opposite assessments. He divides the development of modern Japan into two stages: first, the period starting from the Meiji Restoration (1868) up to the end of World War II; second, from the defeat of Japan in World War II up to the present. Ishida investigates the essential features of the modern Japanese value system and the social structure, which comprise both traditional and modern elements. He examines how Japanese society has adapted Western influences to suit its own needs-the real "miracle" of modern Japan. As the Japanese economy grows and Japan becomes an economic superpower, political self-confidence is also emerging. Ishida, however, remains critical of Japanese society, because he feels that Japan lacked the internal resources to change the political system from within until its defeat by the Allies forced it to introduce various reforms ordered by the occupation authorities. Despite the rapid changes taking place in Japanese society, certain attitudes, such as conformity and competition, are common to both the prewar and postwar periods. The final section is devoted to the field of peace research. Ishida presents differences of meaning in the concepts of peace in ancient Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Chinese, and Indian cultures in order to characterize the Japanese concept of peace, which, akin to the Chinese, emphasizes harmony rather than justice. He goes on to discuss Japan's images of Gandhi, which, according to the author, were projections of ultranationalist prejudice and missed the significance of his nonviolent direct action. Ishida emphasizes the importance of such nonviolent action as a means to carry out social change toward the realization of justice.
Author : Elise K. Tipton
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2017-09-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317672401
This thoroughly revised and updated third edition of Modern Japan provides a concise and fascinating introduction to the social, cultural and political history of modern Japan. Ranging from the Tokugawa period to the present day, Tipton links everyday lives with major historical developments, charting the country’s evolution into a modernized, economic and political world power. Drawing on the latest research, the book features new material on the global financial crisis, the Fukushima nuclear disaster and continuing political instability. While retaining analysis of women's issues, minorities and popular culture, this third edition's expanded coverage of Japan's role in the Second World War, life in the empire and the history of science, medicine and technology contributes to a sense of the complexity and diversity of modern Japan. Including an updated chronology, glossary and guide to further reading, as well as new maps and illustrations to help students to engage directly with the subject matter, this highly accessible and comprehensive textbook is an essential resource for students, scholars and teachers of Japanese history, politics, culture and society.
Author : Paul Morris,Naoko Shimazu,Edward Vickers
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2014-03-26
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781134684908
In the decades since her defeat in the Second World War, Japan has continued to loom large in the national imagination of many of her East Asian neighbours. While for many, Japan still conjures up images of rampant military brutality, at different times and in different communities, alternative images of the Japanese ‘Other’ have vied for predominance – in ways that remain poorly understood, not least within Japan itself. Imagining Japan in Postwar East Asia analyses the portrayal of Japan in the societies of East and Southeast Asia, and asks how and why this has changed in recent decades, and what these changing images of Japan reveal about the ways in which these societies construct their own identities. It examines the role played by an imagined ‘Japan’ in the construction of national selves across the East Asian region, as mediated through a broad range of media ranging from school curricula and textbooks to film, television, literature and comics. Commencing with an extensive thematic and comparative overview chapter, the volume also includes contributions focusing specifically on Chinese societies (the mainland PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan), Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. These studies show how changes in the representation of Japan have been related to political, social and cultural shifts within the societies of East Asia – and in particular to the ways in which these societies have imagined or constructed their own identities. Bringing together contributors working in the fields of education, anthropology, history, sociology, political science and media studies, this interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to all students and scholars concerned with issues of identity, politics and culture in the societies of East Asia, and to those seeking a deeper understanding of Japan’s fraught relations with its regional neighbours.
Author : John W. Dower
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2000-06-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393345247
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the 1999 National Book Award for Nonfiction, finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Embracing Defeat is John W. Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II. Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order. John W. Dower is the Elting E. Morison Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for War Without Mercy.
Author : Yoshikuni Igarashi
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2012-01-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781400842988
Japan and the United States became close political allies so quickly after the end of World War II, that it seemed as though the two countries had easily forgotten the war they had fought. Here Yoshikuni Igarashi offers a provocative look at how Japanese postwar society struggled to understand its war loss and the resulting national trauma, even as forces within the society sought to suppress these memories. Igarashi argues that Japan's nationhood survived the war's destruction in part through a popular culture that expressed memories of loss and devastation more readily than political discourse ever could. He shows how the desire to represent the past motivated Japan's cultural productions in the first twenty-five years of the postwar period. Japanese war experiences were often described through narrative devices that downplayed the war's disruptive effects on Japan's history. Rather than treat these narratives as obstacles to historical inquiry, Igarashi reads them along with counter-narratives that attempted to register the original impact of the war. He traces the tensions between remembering and forgetting by focusing on the body as the central site for Japan's production of the past. This approach leads to fascinating discussions of such diverse topics as the use of the atomic bomb, hygiene policies under the U.S. occupation, the monstrous body of Godzilla, the first Western professional wrestling matches in Japan, the transformation of Tokyo and the athletic body for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and the writer Yukio Mishima's dramatic suicide, while providing a fresh critical perspective on the war legacy of Japan.
Author : John W. Dower
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Japan
ISBN : 0006863469
This collection of essays highlights the resemblances between wartime, postwar and contemporary Japan. The essays are particularly concerned with the nature of Japanese capitalism and the country's nationalistic doctrines of racial superiority.
Author : Ann Sherif
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2009-03-05
Category : History
ISBN : 023151834X
Critics and cultural historians take Japan's postwar insularity for granted, rarely acknowledging the role of Cold War concerns in the shaping of Japanese society and culture. Nuclear anxiety, polarized ideologies, gendered tropes of nationhood, and new myths of progress, among other developments, profoundly transformed Japanese literature, criticism, and art during this era and fueled the country's desire to recast itself as a democratic nation and culture. By rereading the pivotal events, iconic figures, and crucial texts of Japan's literary and artistic life through the lens of the Cold War, Ann Sherif places this supposedly insular nation at the center of a global battle. Each of her chapters focuses on a major moment, spectacle, or critical debate highlighting Japan's entanglement with cultural Cold War politics. Film director Kurosawa Akira, atomic bomb writer Hara Tamiki, singer and movie star Ishihara Yujiro, and even Godzilla and the Japanese translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover all reveal the trends and controversies that helped Japan carve out a postwar literary canon, a definition of obscenity, an idea of the artist's function in society, and modern modes of expression and knowledge. Sherif's comparative approach not only recontextualizes seemingly anomalous texts and ideas, but binds culture firmly to the domestic and international events that defined the decades following World War II. By integrating the art and criticism of Japan into larger social fabrics, Japan's Cold War offers a truly unique perspective on the critical and creative acts of a country remaking itself in the aftermath of war.
Author : Shunsuke Tsurumi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 132 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2013-10-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781136139543
First published in 1986. By the middle of the nineteenth century Japan had been a closed country for more than two hundred years. Then a period of constant communication between Japan and the outside world suddenly began. The Fifteen Years' War was in effect the intensification of relations between already warring nations. During the struggle of 1931 to 1945, Japan was engaged in incessant international activity. This book is based on lectures given at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, from 1979 to 1980.
Author : Keith L. Camacho
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2011-03-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9780824860318
In 1941 the Japanese military attacked the US naval base Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu. Although much has been debated about this event and the wider American and Japanese involvement in the war, few scholars have explored the Pacific War’s impact on Pacific Islanders. Cultures of Commemoration fills this crucial gap in the historiography by advancing scholarly understanding of Pacific Islander relations with and knowledge of American and Japanese colonialisms in the twentieth century. Drawing from an extensive archival base of government, military, and popular records, Chamorro scholar Keith L Camacho traces the formation of divergent colonial and indigenous histories in the Mariana Islands, an archipelago located in the western Pacific and home to the Chamorro people. He shows that US colonial governance of Guam, the southernmost island, and that of Japan in the Northern Mariana Islands created competing colonial histories that would later inform how Americans, Chamorros, and Japanese experienced and remembered the war and its aftermath. Central to this discussion is the American and Japanese administrative development of "loyalty" and "liberation" as concepts of social control, collective identity, and national belonging. Just how various Chamorros from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands negotiated their multiple identities and subjectivities is explored with respect to the processes of history and memory-making among this "Americanized" and "Japanized" Pacific Islander population. In addition, Camacho emphasizes the rise of war commemorations as sites for the study of American national historic landmarks, Chamorro Liberation Day festivities, and Japanese bone-collecting missions and peace pilgrimages. Ultimately, Cultures of Commemoration demonstrates that the past is made meaningful and at times violent by competing cultures of American, Chamorro, and Japanese commemorative practices.
Author : W. Puck Brecher,Michael W. Myers
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2019-10-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9780824879679
This wide-ranging collection seeks to reassess conventional understanding of Japan’s Asia-Pacific War by defamiliarizing and expanding the rhetorical narrative. Its nine chapters, diverse in theme and method, are united in their goal to recover a measured historicity about the conflict by either introducing new areas of knowledge or reinterpreting existing ones. Collectively, they cast doubt on the war as familiar and recognizable, compelling readers to view it with fresh eyes. Following an introduction that problematizes timeworn narratives about a “unified Japan” and its “illegal war” or “race war,” early chapters on the destruction of Japan’s diplomatic records and government interest in an egalitarian health care policy before, during, and after the war oblige us to question selective histories and moral judgments about wartime Japan. The discussion then turns to artistic/cultural production and self-determination, specifically to Osaka rakugo performers who used comedy to contend with state oppression and to the role of women in creating care packages for soldiers abroad. Other chapters cast doubt on well-trod stereotypes (Japan’s lack of pragmatism in its diplomatic relations with neutral nations and its irrational and fatalistic military leadership) and examine resistance to the war by a prominent Japanese Christian intellectual. The volume concludes with two nuanced responses to race in wartime Japan, one maintaining the importance of racial categories while recognizing the “performance of Japaneseness,” the other observing that communities often reflected official government policies through nationality rather than race. Contrasting findings like these underscore the need to ask new questions and fill old gaps in our understanding of a historical event that, after more than seventy years, remains as provocative and divisive as ever. Defamiliarizing Japan’s Asia-Pacific War will find a ready audience among World War II historians as well as specialists in war and society, social history, and the growing fields of material culture and civic history.