Jason G. Karlin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838263
- eISBN:
- 9780824871451
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838263.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines how the revival of a particular past centered on the tastes of the Edo period was expressed through the aestheticization of the culture of everyday life. It first considers how ...
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This chapter examines how the revival of a particular past centered on the tastes of the Edo period was expressed through the aestheticization of the culture of everyday life. It first considers how the values of loyalism and honor were put to the test in the early Meiji period following the collapse of the shogunate in 1867. It then explores how rapid changes in the early Meiji era generated disillusionments that gave rise to feelings of dislocation and nostalgia, as shown by the artist Kobayashi Kiyochika in his landscape prints of Tokyo. It also discusses the tricentennial celebration of the founding of Edo in 1889 and the commercialization of tradition through the consumption of the fashions and styles of the Genroku era during the late Meiji period. The chapter argues that nostalgia for Genroku-era tastes in the form of female bodies adorned in Genroku-style fashions was an expression of the eroticization of the past.Less
This chapter examines how the revival of a particular past centered on the tastes of the Edo period was expressed through the aestheticization of the culture of everyday life. It first considers how the values of loyalism and honor were put to the test in the early Meiji period following the collapse of the shogunate in 1867. It then explores how rapid changes in the early Meiji era generated disillusionments that gave rise to feelings of dislocation and nostalgia, as shown by the artist Kobayashi Kiyochika in his landscape prints of Tokyo. It also discusses the tricentennial celebration of the founding of Edo in 1889 and the commercialization of tradition through the consumption of the fashions and styles of the Genroku era during the late Meiji period. The chapter argues that nostalgia for Genroku-era tastes in the form of female bodies adorned in Genroku-style fashions was an expression of the eroticization of the past.
Ken K. Ito
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757775
- eISBN:
- 9780804779623
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757775.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, Japanese fiction pulsed with an urge to render good and evil in ways that evoked dramatic emotions. This book examines four ...
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At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, Japanese fiction pulsed with an urge to render good and evil in ways that evoked dramatic emotions. This book examines four enormously popular novels from this period by interweaving two threads of argument. Using approaches to melodrama developed in Western literary and film criticism, it first shows how these texts used their binary morality to construct a semblance of moral certainty in a moment of social transformation. The book then examines how the novels responded to a particular set of ideologies of the family, which the Japanese state attempted to use as an instrument of social control. The melodramatic novels of the Meiji period generated a plethora of alternative family models that explored the myriad ways in which human beings could connect in a modernizing culture. The fictional families in these works revealed the ties of the family to the nation, delineated traumatic changes in social hierarchy, and showed the effects of new discourses of gender. These powerful portrayals and the social discourses which surround them reveal that melodrama was a central mode of sensibility in Meiji culture.Less
At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, Japanese fiction pulsed with an urge to render good and evil in ways that evoked dramatic emotions. This book examines four enormously popular novels from this period by interweaving two threads of argument. Using approaches to melodrama developed in Western literary and film criticism, it first shows how these texts used their binary morality to construct a semblance of moral certainty in a moment of social transformation. The book then examines how the novels responded to a particular set of ideologies of the family, which the Japanese state attempted to use as an instrument of social control. The melodramatic novels of the Meiji period generated a plethora of alternative family models that explored the myriad ways in which human beings could connect in a modernizing culture. The fictional families in these works revealed the ties of the family to the nation, delineated traumatic changes in social hierarchy, and showed the effects of new discourses of gender. These powerful portrayals and the social discourses which surround them reveal that melodrama was a central mode of sensibility in Meiji culture.
G. Clinton Godart
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824858513
- eISBN:
- 9780824873639
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824858513.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
The Meiji period saw the development of political tensions between evolutionary theory and the emerging kokutai ideology of the Japanese state. Kokutai ideology emerged as an unstable hybrid of ...
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The Meiji period saw the development of political tensions between evolutionary theory and the emerging kokutai ideology of the Japanese state. Kokutai ideology emerged as an unstable hybrid of mainly Shintō, but also Confucianism, Bushidō, and other religious and semi-religious elements. Important ideological thinkers began to reject elements of evolutionary theory, finding the “struggle for survival,” materialism, and individualism in tension with kokutai ideology and its emphasis on harmony, obedience, and spirit. Herbert Spencer’s influence waned and his thought was criticized.Less
The Meiji period saw the development of political tensions between evolutionary theory and the emerging kokutai ideology of the Japanese state. Kokutai ideology emerged as an unstable hybrid of mainly Shintō, but also Confucianism, Bushidō, and other religious and semi-religious elements. Important ideological thinkers began to reject elements of evolutionary theory, finding the “struggle for survival,” materialism, and individualism in tension with kokutai ideology and its emphasis on harmony, obedience, and spirit. Herbert Spencer’s influence waned and his thought was criticized.
Ellen P. Conant
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824834418
- eISBN:
- 9780824871239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824834418.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses the history of Japanese painting from Edo to Meiji by focusing on the career of more than a dozen artists regarded as the leading painters of the period. It begins by providing ...
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This chapter discusses the history of Japanese painting from Edo to Meiji by focusing on the career of more than a dozen artists regarded as the leading painters of the period. It begins by providing a background on painting and prints during the Edo period and goes on to examine the transition in Japanese painting from Edo to the Meiji period. It then considers the Japanese government’s support of Western art before turning to the activities of the first generation of Meiji artists. It also analyzes the rhetoric of Ernest F. Fenollosa and his former pupil and colleague, Okakura Kakuzō regarding the development of modern Japanese art. It argues that the new generation of painters and their pupils successfully negotiated the Meiji Restoration and that it was they, not the iconic painters and disciples of Fenollosa and Okakura, who were responsible for what is generally regarded as the later efflorescence of modern Japanese painting.Less
This chapter discusses the history of Japanese painting from Edo to Meiji by focusing on the career of more than a dozen artists regarded as the leading painters of the period. It begins by providing a background on painting and prints during the Edo period and goes on to examine the transition in Japanese painting from Edo to the Meiji period. It then considers the Japanese government’s support of Western art before turning to the activities of the first generation of Meiji artists. It also analyzes the rhetoric of Ernest F. Fenollosa and his former pupil and colleague, Okakura Kakuzō regarding the development of modern Japanese art. It argues that the new generation of painters and their pupils successfully negotiated the Meiji Restoration and that it was they, not the iconic painters and disciples of Fenollosa and Okakura, who were responsible for what is generally regarded as the later efflorescence of modern Japanese painting.
Takie Sugiyama Lebra
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520076006
- eISBN:
- 9780520911796
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520076006.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This book provides an ethnographic study of the modern Japanese aristocracy. Established as a class at the beginning of the Meiji period, the kazoku ranked directly below the emperor and his family. ...
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This book provides an ethnographic study of the modern Japanese aristocracy. Established as a class at the beginning of the Meiji period, the kazoku ranked directly below the emperor and his family. Officially dissolved in 1947, this group of social elites is still generally perceived as nobility. The author of this book gained entry into this tightly knit circle and conducted more than one hundred interviews with its members. The text weaves together a reconstructive ethnography from their life histories to create an intimate portrait of a remote and archaic world. As the book explores the culture of the kazoku, it places each subject in its historical context, and analyzes the evolution of status boundaries and the indispensable role played by outsiders. But the book is not simply about the elite, but about commoners and how each stratum mirrors the other. Revealing previously unobserved complexities in Japanese society, it also sheds light on the universal problem of social stratification.Less
This book provides an ethnographic study of the modern Japanese aristocracy. Established as a class at the beginning of the Meiji period, the kazoku ranked directly below the emperor and his family. Officially dissolved in 1947, this group of social elites is still generally perceived as nobility. The author of this book gained entry into this tightly knit circle and conducted more than one hundred interviews with its members. The text weaves together a reconstructive ethnography from their life histories to create an intimate portrait of a remote and archaic world. As the book explores the culture of the kazoku, it places each subject in its historical context, and analyzes the evolution of status boundaries and the indispensable role played by outsiders. But the book is not simply about the elite, but about commoners and how each stratum mirrors the other. Revealing previously unobserved complexities in Japanese society, it also sheds light on the universal problem of social stratification.
Christopher T. Keaveney
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9789888455829
- eISBN:
- 9789888455355
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888455829.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Chapter 1 provides both a background to baseball in Japan and to the origins of the concept of “Samurai baseball” that is central to the issues explored in this book. The first chapter also ...
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Chapter 1 provides both a background to baseball in Japan and to the origins of the concept of “Samurai baseball” that is central to the issues explored in this book. The first chapter also problematizes the role of the popular press in Japan starting in the Meiji period (1868-1912) of both spreading the gospel of baseball in Japan and of promoting the myths surrounding Japan’s approach to the game, infusing it with dimensions of the rhetoric of Nihonjinron. Many of the qualities that have come to define the myths of Samurai baseball are the result of the press coverage of the Ichikō high school team’s impressive victories against American opponents in the Meiji period. The wide coverage by the popular press of the team’s lopsided victories helped both to initiate Japan’s love affair with baseball and establish the Bushidō-inspired values associated with Samurai baseball.
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Chapter 1 provides both a background to baseball in Japan and to the origins of the concept of “Samurai baseball” that is central to the issues explored in this book. The first chapter also problematizes the role of the popular press in Japan starting in the Meiji period (1868-1912) of both spreading the gospel of baseball in Japan and of promoting the myths surrounding Japan’s approach to the game, infusing it with dimensions of the rhetoric of Nihonjinron. Many of the qualities that have come to define the myths of Samurai baseball are the result of the press coverage of the Ichikō high school team’s impressive victories against American opponents in the Meiji period. The wide coverage by the popular press of the team’s lopsided victories helped both to initiate Japan’s love affair with baseball and establish the Bushidō-inspired values associated with Samurai baseball.
Chelsea Foxwell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226110806
- eISBN:
- 9780226195971
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226195971.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
I suggest that exhibitions can serve as a model for re-narrating the history of painting across the Edo to Meiji divide. Rather than presenting the “opening” of Japan to trade and diplomacy with the ...
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I suggest that exhibitions can serve as a model for re-narrating the history of painting across the Edo to Meiji divide. Rather than presenting the “opening” of Japan to trade and diplomacy with the West as a stark temporal boundary between premodern and modern modes of artistic production, exhibitions enable us to understand such epochal events as opportunities for objects and ideas to be re-framed, and the framing process might then be adjusted or undone outside the temporary space of the exhibition hall. I also point out that historically, the public exhibition has been a fraught metaphor, a global symbolic form that structured and confirmed the originally Western perception of a break between pre- and post-Restoration art.Less
I suggest that exhibitions can serve as a model for re-narrating the history of painting across the Edo to Meiji divide. Rather than presenting the “opening” of Japan to trade and diplomacy with the West as a stark temporal boundary between premodern and modern modes of artistic production, exhibitions enable us to understand such epochal events as opportunities for objects and ideas to be re-framed, and the framing process might then be adjusted or undone outside the temporary space of the exhibition hall. I also point out that historically, the public exhibition has been a fraught metaphor, a global symbolic form that structured and confirmed the originally Western perception of a break between pre- and post-Restoration art.
Fabian Drixler
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780520272439
- eISBN:
- 9780520953611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520272439.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter focuses on infanticide countermeasures. It covers Japan’s tradition of associating infanticide with peripheries, barbarism, and the past; civilization and infanticide during the early ...
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This chapter focuses on infanticide countermeasures. It covers Japan’s tradition of associating infanticide with peripheries, barbarism, and the past; civilization and infanticide during the early Meiji period; infanticide abolition schemes of the 1870s; and the fading of infanticide from public view with the change in attitudes toward Japan’s status as a civilized nation.Less
This chapter focuses on infanticide countermeasures. It covers Japan’s tradition of associating infanticide with peripheries, barbarism, and the past; civilization and infanticide during the early Meiji period; infanticide abolition schemes of the 1870s; and the fading of infanticide from public view with the change in attitudes toward Japan’s status as a civilized nation.
William E. Naff
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832186
- eISBN:
- 9780824871673
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832186.003.0015
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This introduction situates Shimazaki Tōson in the literary scene of the Meiji period. It begins with a discussion of the influx of European culture in Japan dating from 1543 and the first literary ...
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This introduction situates Shimazaki Tōson in the literary scene of the Meiji period. It begins with a discussion of the influx of European culture in Japan dating from 1543 and the first literary responses to the renewed European presence, with particular emphasis on the “literature of enlightenment” and political novels. It then considers how the tensions caused by the problems of translating and emulating European writings gave rise to a movement known as genbun itchi, “unification of the written and spoken,” the linguistic portion of the overall Meiji program of standardization. It also examines how Romanticism became an integral part of Japanese life through works of literature written between the late 1880s and the 1890s. Finally, it looks at the emergence of new poetry in Japan, led by Tōson's Young Herbs of 1897, and Japanese Naturalism.Less
This introduction situates Shimazaki Tōson in the literary scene of the Meiji period. It begins with a discussion of the influx of European culture in Japan dating from 1543 and the first literary responses to the renewed European presence, with particular emphasis on the “literature of enlightenment” and political novels. It then considers how the tensions caused by the problems of translating and emulating European writings gave rise to a movement known as genbun itchi, “unification of the written and spoken,” the linguistic portion of the overall Meiji program of standardization. It also examines how Romanticism became an integral part of Japanese life through works of literature written between the late 1880s and the 1890s. Finally, it looks at the emergence of new poetry in Japan, led by Tōson's Young Herbs of 1897, and Japanese Naturalism.
Chelsea Foxwell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226110806
- eISBN:
- 9780226195971
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226195971.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Japonisme in its earliest phase (until roughly 1900) is most commonly understood as the nineteenth-century Western discovery or even invention (per Oscar Wilde) of Japan. Yet members of the Japanese ...
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Japonisme in its earliest phase (until roughly 1900) is most commonly understood as the nineteenth-century Western discovery or even invention (per Oscar Wilde) of Japan. Yet members of the Japanese government and artistic community quickly became aware of Western expectations for Japanese art. Nihonga first emerged in the 1880s within this context.Less
Japonisme in its earliest phase (until roughly 1900) is most commonly understood as the nineteenth-century Western discovery or even invention (per Oscar Wilde) of Japan. Yet members of the Japanese government and artistic community quickly became aware of Western expectations for Japanese art. Nihonga first emerged in the 1880s within this context.
J. Thomas Rimer (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824834418
- eISBN:
- 9780824871239
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824834418.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Research outside Japan on the history and significance of the Japanese visual arts since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868) has been a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In recent years, ...
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Research outside Japan on the history and significance of the Japanese visual arts since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868) has been a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In recent years, however, the subject has begun to attract wide interest. This period of roughly a century and a half produced an outpouring of art created in a bewildering number of genres and spanning a wide range of aims and accomplishments. This book discusses in depth a time when Japan, eager to join in the larger cultural developments in Europe and the United States, went through a visual revolution. This book suggests a fresh history of modern Japanese culture—one that until now has not been widely visible or thoroughly analyzed outside that country. The book explores an impressive array of subjects: painting, sculpture, prints, fashion design, crafts, and gardens. The works discussed range from early Meiji attempts to create art that referenced Western styles to postwar and contemporary avant-garde experiments. There are, in addition, substantive investigations of the cultural and intellectual background that helped stimulate the creation of new and shifting art forms, including chapters on the invention of a modern artistic vocabulary in the Japanese language and the history of art criticism in Japan, as well as an extensive account of the career and significance of perhaps the best-known Japanese figure concerned with the visual arts of his period, Okakura Kakuzō (Tenshin).Less
Research outside Japan on the history and significance of the Japanese visual arts since the beginning of the Meiji period (1868) has been a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. In recent years, however, the subject has begun to attract wide interest. This period of roughly a century and a half produced an outpouring of art created in a bewildering number of genres and spanning a wide range of aims and accomplishments. This book discusses in depth a time when Japan, eager to join in the larger cultural developments in Europe and the United States, went through a visual revolution. This book suggests a fresh history of modern Japanese culture—one that until now has not been widely visible or thoroughly analyzed outside that country. The book explores an impressive array of subjects: painting, sculpture, prints, fashion design, crafts, and gardens. The works discussed range from early Meiji attempts to create art that referenced Western styles to postwar and contemporary avant-garde experiments. There are, in addition, substantive investigations of the cultural and intellectual background that helped stimulate the creation of new and shifting art forms, including chapters on the invention of a modern artistic vocabulary in the Japanese language and the history of art criticism in Japan, as well as an extensive account of the career and significance of perhaps the best-known Japanese figure concerned with the visual arts of his period, Okakura Kakuzō (Tenshin).
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter looks at how historian Irokawa Daikichi discovered a set of late-nineteenth-century documents, including a draft of a people's constitution. These materials led to the revelation that ...
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This chapter looks at how historian Irokawa Daikichi discovered a set of late-nineteenth-century documents, including a draft of a people's constitution. These materials led to the revelation that the village leaders and the men who drafted that constitution, hitherto unknown to history, were family men—in other words, “commoners” with deep ties to the life of the people. Irokawa's discovery and subsequent book Meiji no bunka (The Culture of Meiji Japan) propelled “the people” to the fore of postwar historiographical debates in Japan. The chapter also shows how the rediscovered village records of both Murotsu and Kaminoseki offer a different portrait of the political culture of the Meiji period than that suggested by the Fukasawa storehouse documents.Less
This chapter looks at how historian Irokawa Daikichi discovered a set of late-nineteenth-century documents, including a draft of a people's constitution. These materials led to the revelation that the village leaders and the men who drafted that constitution, hitherto unknown to history, were family men—in other words, “commoners” with deep ties to the life of the people. Irokawa's discovery and subsequent book Meiji no bunka (The Culture of Meiji Japan) propelled “the people” to the fore of postwar historiographical debates in Japan. The chapter also shows how the rediscovered village records of both Murotsu and Kaminoseki offer a different portrait of the political culture of the Meiji period than that suggested by the Fukasawa storehouse documents.
G. Clinton Godart
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780824858513
- eISBN:
- 9780824873639
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824858513.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Religion was a crucial mediating factor in the early transmission of evolutionary theory to Japan. Even before the Meiji period, certain evolutionary ideas appeared within a religious context. ...
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Religion was a crucial mediating factor in the early transmission of evolutionary theory to Japan. Even before the Meiji period, certain evolutionary ideas appeared within a religious context. Evolutionary theory and Christianity arrived in Japan in the same period, and conflict ensued as the early conveyors of evolutionary theory, such as Edward S. Morse and Ernest Fenollosa presented the theory as one that delegitimized Christianity; simultaneously, several important Christian missionaries and Japanese Christian thinkers, presented science and Christian faith as part of one package necessary for the modernization of Japan.Less
Religion was a crucial mediating factor in the early transmission of evolutionary theory to Japan. Even before the Meiji period, certain evolutionary ideas appeared within a religious context. Evolutionary theory and Christianity arrived in Japan in the same period, and conflict ensued as the early conveyors of evolutionary theory, such as Edward S. Morse and Ernest Fenollosa presented the theory as one that delegitimized Christianity; simultaneously, several important Christian missionaries and Japanese Christian thinkers, presented science and Christian faith as part of one package necessary for the modernization of Japan.
Jason G. Karlin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838263
- eISBN:
- 9780824871451
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838263.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This book is a historical analysis of the discourses of nostalgia in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. Through an analysis of the experience of rapid social change in Japan's ...
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This book is a historical analysis of the discourses of nostalgia in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. Through an analysis of the experience of rapid social change in Japan's modernization, it argues that fads (ryūkō) and the desires they express are central to understanding Japanese modernity, conceptions of gender, and discourses of nationalism. In doing so, the book uncovers the myth of eternal return that lurks below the surface of Japanese history as an expression of the desire to find meaning amid the chaos and alienation of modern times. The Meiji period (1868–1912) was one of rapid change that hastened the process of forgetting. However, repression merely produced new forms of desire seeking a return to the past, with the result that competing or alternative conceptions of the nation haunted the history of modern Japan. This book examines the intellectual, social, and cultural factors that contributed to the rapid spread of Western tastes and styles, along with the backlash against Westernization that was expressed as a longing for the past. By focusing on the expressions of these desires in popular culture and media texts, it reveals how the conflation of mother, countryside, everyday life, and history structured representations to naturalize ideologies of gender and nationalism.Less
This book is a historical analysis of the discourses of nostalgia in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. Through an analysis of the experience of rapid social change in Japan's modernization, it argues that fads (ryūkō) and the desires they express are central to understanding Japanese modernity, conceptions of gender, and discourses of nationalism. In doing so, the book uncovers the myth of eternal return that lurks below the surface of Japanese history as an expression of the desire to find meaning amid the chaos and alienation of modern times. The Meiji period (1868–1912) was one of rapid change that hastened the process of forgetting. However, repression merely produced new forms of desire seeking a return to the past, with the result that competing or alternative conceptions of the nation haunted the history of modern Japan. This book examines the intellectual, social, and cultural factors that contributed to the rapid spread of Western tastes and styles, along with the backlash against Westernization that was expressed as a longing for the past. By focusing on the expressions of these desires in popular culture and media texts, it reveals how the conflation of mother, countryside, everyday life, and history structured representations to naturalize ideologies of gender and nationalism.
Deborah Shamoon
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835422
- eISBN:
- 9780824870638
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835422.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter examines the emergence of the shōjo and the discourse of spiritual love in Meiji literature. In particular, it considers the formation of the patriarchal image of the shōjo in its ...
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This chapter examines the emergence of the shōjo and the discourse of spiritual love in Meiji literature. In particular, it considers the formation of the patriarchal image of the shōjo in its foundational moment by analyzing three seminal novels of the Meiji period: Ukigumo (Floating Clouds, 1887) by Futabatei Shimei; Yabu no uguisu (A Warbler in the Grove, 1888) by Miyake Kaho; and Futon (The Quilt, 1907) by Tayama Katai. The chapter first explains how the concept of spiritual love entered the public discourse in Japan and how closely it was tied to the public status of schoolgirls. It then explores how the intersection of increased educational opportunities for girls and a new philosophy of romantic love gave rise to an image of the shōjo as both alluring and threatening, the embodiment of the promise and the dangers of modernity.Less
This chapter examines the emergence of the shōjo and the discourse of spiritual love in Meiji literature. In particular, it considers the formation of the patriarchal image of the shōjo in its foundational moment by analyzing three seminal novels of the Meiji period: Ukigumo (Floating Clouds, 1887) by Futabatei Shimei; Yabu no uguisu (A Warbler in the Grove, 1888) by Miyake Kaho; and Futon (The Quilt, 1907) by Tayama Katai. The chapter first explains how the concept of spiritual love entered the public discourse in Japan and how closely it was tied to the public status of schoolgirls. It then explores how the intersection of increased educational opportunities for girls and a new philosophy of romantic love gave rise to an image of the shōjo as both alluring and threatening, the embodiment of the promise and the dangers of modernity.
D. Colin Jaundrill
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501703096
- eISBN:
- 9781501706097
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501703096.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This book rewrites the military history of nineteenth-century Japan. In fifty years spanning the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji nation-state, conscripts supplanted ...
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This book rewrites the military history of nineteenth-century Japan. In fifty years spanning the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji nation-state, conscripts supplanted warriors as Japan's principal arms-bearers. The most common version of this story suggests that the Meiji institution of compulsory military service was the foundation of Japan's efforts to save itself from the imperial ambitions of the West and set the country on the path to great power status. The book argues, to the contrary, that the conscript army of the Meiji period was the culmination—and not the beginning—of a long process of experimentation with military organization and technology. It traces the radical changes to Japanese military institutions, as well as the on-field consequences of military reforms in accounts of the Boshin War (1868–1869) and the Satsuma Rebellions of 1877. The book shows how pre-1868 developments laid the foundations for the army that would secure Japan's Asian empire.Less
This book rewrites the military history of nineteenth-century Japan. In fifty years spanning the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the Meiji nation-state, conscripts supplanted warriors as Japan's principal arms-bearers. The most common version of this story suggests that the Meiji institution of compulsory military service was the foundation of Japan's efforts to save itself from the imperial ambitions of the West and set the country on the path to great power status. The book argues, to the contrary, that the conscript army of the Meiji period was the culmination—and not the beginning—of a long process of experimentation with military organization and technology. It traces the radical changes to Japanese military institutions, as well as the on-field consequences of military reforms in accounts of the Boshin War (1868–1869) and the Satsuma Rebellions of 1877. The book shows how pre-1868 developments laid the foundations for the army that would secure Japan's Asian empire.
Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835623
- eISBN:
- 9781469601830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882665_guthrie-shimizu.5
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter traces the genesis of baseball in Japan and its diffusion during the Meiji period. Evidence suggests that baseball played in Japan put the genesis of the game in the nation's capital in ...
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This chapter traces the genesis of baseball in Japan and its diffusion during the Meiji period. Evidence suggests that baseball played in Japan put the genesis of the game in the nation's capital in 1872 with Horace E. Wilson identified as the pioneer instructor. In Meiji Japan, baseball had established a dedicated following among Japanese adolescents who received education in Gilded Age America. By the end of the nineteenth century, America's national pastime blossomed into a transoceanic pastime fostered in multiple networks built and sustained by aspiring Americans and Japanese.Less
This chapter traces the genesis of baseball in Japan and its diffusion during the Meiji period. Evidence suggests that baseball played in Japan put the genesis of the game in the nation's capital in 1872 with Horace E. Wilson identified as the pioneer instructor. In Meiji Japan, baseball had established a dedicated following among Japanese adolescents who received education in Gilded Age America. By the end of the nineteenth century, America's national pastime blossomed into a transoceanic pastime fostered in multiple networks built and sustained by aspiring Americans and Japanese.
J. Thomas Rimer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824834418
- eISBN:
- 9780824871239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824834418.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This introduction explains the rationale for coming up with this book, which explores the evolution of Japanese visual arts from the beginning of the Meiji period in 1868 up to 2000. It considers ...
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This introduction explains the rationale for coming up with this book, which explores the evolution of Japanese visual arts from the beginning of the Meiji period in 1868 up to 2000. It considers some of the reasons for the prior lack of scholarly interest in Japanese visual arts, including the fact that very few works of Japanese art created during the first half of the twentieth century or even later have found their way into the collections of American or European museums. Another reason is that Japanese contemporary art has come to be regarded as very much a part of world art, and accepted as such. Also discussed are some historical matters relating to Japanese art, such as the cosmopolitan nature of Japanese culture, and a number of interrelated polarities concerning the history of the Japanese visual arts; for example, the polarity expressed in the tension between the national and the international, and the development of an ever more receptive audience in Japan for various kinds of Japanese art created during this period.Less
This introduction explains the rationale for coming up with this book, which explores the evolution of Japanese visual arts from the beginning of the Meiji period in 1868 up to 2000. It considers some of the reasons for the prior lack of scholarly interest in Japanese visual arts, including the fact that very few works of Japanese art created during the first half of the twentieth century or even later have found their way into the collections of American or European museums. Another reason is that Japanese contemporary art has come to be regarded as very much a part of world art, and accepted as such. Also discussed are some historical matters relating to Japanese art, such as the cosmopolitan nature of Japanese culture, and a number of interrelated polarities concerning the history of the Japanese visual arts; for example, the polarity expressed in the tension between the national and the international, and the development of an ever more receptive audience in Japan for various kinds of Japanese art created during this period.
Chelsea Foxwell
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226110806
- eISBN:
- 9780226195971
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226195971.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Western writers claimed to be witnessing the end of pure Japanese art and the beginning of a disappointing phase of westernized cultural hybrids. By the ...
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In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Western writers claimed to be witnessing the end of pure Japanese art and the beginning of a disappointing phase of westernized cultural hybrids. By the 1880s, Japanese artists, critics, and policymakers were aware of this claim and sought to respond by elevating contemporary Japanese art’s value and reputation abroad. Japanese painting embarked on a new phase of development as a bipartite endeavour. Illusionistic oil painting and other forms of recently introduced artistic techniques became known as yōga or Western painting, while earlier painting modes became reconceptualised as nihonga (Japanese or Japanese-style painting) and were conceived as the continuation of an authentically Japanese art. In fact, however, both modes of painting were shaped by the imperative to exhibit and market Japanese art abroad. The new, international culture of public exhibitions went beyond what we typically think of as export art, reshaping the expectations that Japanese viewers had for Japanese painting. Focusing primarily on painting and craft objects in 1880s Tokyo, the author gives special consideration to Kano Hōgai (1828-88), the painter of the iconic Merciful Mother Kannon (1888) who was championed by Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzō as Japanese-style painting’s hope for the future.Less
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Western writers claimed to be witnessing the end of pure Japanese art and the beginning of a disappointing phase of westernized cultural hybrids. By the 1880s, Japanese artists, critics, and policymakers were aware of this claim and sought to respond by elevating contemporary Japanese art’s value and reputation abroad. Japanese painting embarked on a new phase of development as a bipartite endeavour. Illusionistic oil painting and other forms of recently introduced artistic techniques became known as yōga or Western painting, while earlier painting modes became reconceptualised as nihonga (Japanese or Japanese-style painting) and were conceived as the continuation of an authentically Japanese art. In fact, however, both modes of painting were shaped by the imperative to exhibit and market Japanese art abroad. The new, international culture of public exhibitions went beyond what we typically think of as export art, reshaping the expectations that Japanese viewers had for Japanese painting. Focusing primarily on painting and craft objects in 1880s Tokyo, the author gives special consideration to Kano Hōgai (1828-88), the painter of the iconic Merciful Mother Kannon (1888) who was championed by Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzō as Japanese-style painting’s hope for the future.
Michael F. Marra
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824834418
- eISBN:
- 9780824871239
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824834418.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the development of a vocabulary of aesthetics in Japan during the Meiji period. It was during the early Meiji period (1868–1912) that the notion of “fine arts” in the Western ...
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This chapter examines the development of a vocabulary of aesthetics in Japan during the Meiji period. It was during the early Meiji period (1868–1912) that the notion of “fine arts” in the Western sense of the word took hold in Japan, at the same time that the idea of “beauty” underwent a significant redefinition. This chapter considers how an understanding of what aesthetics was about evolved in Japan, first by discussing Nishi Amane’s “science of beauty” that created five different words to translate “aesthetics.” It then explores Ernest F. Fenollosa’s “art-idea” and how his 1882 lecture “The True Meaning of Fine Art,” translated in Japanese by Ōmori Ichū, helped redefine the field of practical craft (geijutsu) by making them into objects of aesthetic appreciation (bijutsu).Less
This chapter examines the development of a vocabulary of aesthetics in Japan during the Meiji period. It was during the early Meiji period (1868–1912) that the notion of “fine arts” in the Western sense of the word took hold in Japan, at the same time that the idea of “beauty” underwent a significant redefinition. This chapter considers how an understanding of what aesthetics was about evolved in Japan, first by discussing Nishi Amane’s “science of beauty” that created five different words to translate “aesthetics.” It then explores Ernest F. Fenollosa’s “art-idea” and how his 1882 lecture “The True Meaning of Fine Art,” translated in Japanese by Ōmori Ichū, helped redefine the field of practical craft (geijutsu) by making them into objects of aesthetic appreciation (bijutsu).
