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Japanese animation has been given fulsome academic commentary in recent years. However, there is arguably a need for a more philosophically consistent and theoretically integrated engagement. While this book covers the key thinkers of contemporary aesthetic theory, it aims to reground reflection on anime within the aesthetics of R.G. Collingwood.
Scholarship on Japan’s development from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century has, perhaps quite understandably, been dominated by attention given to Japan’s emergence as a world power through a succession of military conflicts, and the burgeoning of a modern literary canon. This book argues that the emergence of empire and high culture needs to be more thoroughly integrated with an awareness of popular culture in urban life, a culture that at times exhibited a less than whole-hearted enthusiasm for the trappings of 'civilization', - a culture that was, in a sense, ‘decadent’. It integrates coverage of popular culture across diverse media and platforms, accentuat...
In the spring of 1865, when Japan was in the grip of a major civil war, eighteen samurai and an interpreter risked their lives to embark secretly on a voyage to the unknown lands of the barbarian west. Their destination was Britain - at the hub of a vast empire. These were the Satsuma students, some of them still in their teens, all carrying orders from their domains to travel abroad. It was an extraordinary and daring expedition. Their experience of life in the west not only transformed their perception of the outside world, but through their diverse activities in later life, had a profound impact on commerce, education and culture in Meiji Japan. First published in 1974, Inuzuka Takaaki's study is still the classic work on the Satsuma students' revealing tale of discovery. In this translation by Andrew Cobbing, further details that have since emerged are also included to give a fresh portrayal, the first in English, of this singular episode in the opening of Japan.
Okina Kyūin boarded the steamship Kaga Maru at the port of Yokohama in 1907, bound for America. For this ambitious young man, Japanese-American newspapers were an invaluable medium for communicating his opinions on important social issues and documenting everyday life in his community. His vivid articles and stories established him as an essential voice among Japanese immigrants. This book examines Okina's life on the American West Coast in the context of U.S.-Japanese diplomatic relations between 1868 and 1924.
Pan-Asianism has been an ideal of Asian solidarity, regional cooperation, and regional integration but also served to justify expansionism and aggression. As such, it has been a decisive factor in the history of Asia and the Pacific region. This groundbreaking collection brings seminal documents on Pan-Asianism to the Western reader for the first time. It includes some fifty primary sources from 1850 to 1920.
Sixty years on from the end of the Pacific War, Japan on Display examines representations of the Meiji emperor, Mutsuhito (1852-1912) and his grandson the Showa emperor, Hirohito who was regarded as a symbol of the nation, in both war and peacetime. Much of this representation was aided by the phenomenon of photography. The introduction and development of photography in the nineteenth century coincided with the need to make Hirohito’s grandfather, the young Meiji Emperor, more visible. Photo books and albums became a popular format for presenting seemingly objective images of the monarch, reminding the Japanese of their proximity to the Emperor, and the imperial family. In the twentieth ce...
Driven by the need to identify, classify and assess western technology and culture together with a desire to advance a dialogue for reviewing the so-called 'unequal treaties' - the new Meiji government of 1868 despatched a top-level ministerial team to the west which, in 1872, arrived in the United States. In all, they spent 205 days in America, 122 days in Britain and two months in France, as well as visiting other countries including Belgium, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Italy. Drawing on the papers given at the triennial conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies, held in Budapest in August 1997 (the year also marking the 125th anniversary of Iwakura's arrival), this volume presents a valuable new overview of the mission as a whole, with the significance and impact of the visit to each country being separately assessed. A supplement to the book looks at several 'post-Iwakura' topics, including a review of the mission's chief chronicler, Kume Kunitake.
Regionalism has played an increasingly important role in the changing international relations of East Asia in recent decades, with early signs of integration and growing regional cooperation. This in-depth volume analyzes various historical approaches to the construction of a regional order and a regional identity in East Asia. It explores the ideology of Pan-Asianism as a predecessor of contemporary Asian regionalism, which served as the basis for efforts at regional integration in East Asia, but also as a tool for legitimizing Japanese colonial rule. This mobilization of the Asian peoples occurred through a collective regional identity established from cohesive cultural factors such as lan...
Shows Japan's group-orientated society may have had fewer so-called 'leaders', but has excelled as a society of king-makers. On the other hand, the way leadership is expressed derives from different values and perceptions of hierarchy.
Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 16 (CMR 16) covering North America, South-East Asia, China, Japan and Australasia in the period 1800-1914, is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and the main body of detailed entries. These treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. They provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous leading scholars, CMR 16, along with...