Marginalia: Japan at a Turning Point - Pax Americana or Pax Asia?

A couple of days ago I went into the local bookstore and I picked up this little book full of marvels. The translated title Japan at a Turning Point: Pax Americana or Pax Asia? should give you a hint about its contents. The leaflet cover says Subordination to US is still ongoing? Advice from world-renowned experts! 

The book is a collection of formative essays which appeared in the authors’ previous seminal works, for example in Dower’s Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering - Japan in the Modern World and in McCormack’s Resistant Islands - Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. Nevertheless, what stands out among these recycled pieces is an interview between Dower and McCormack which took place by email from late June to early July 2013. The book is worth checking out if solely for that one item. Below I’m giving you a rough translation of the Table of Contents. If you want to check out a full English translation of the first chapter, head over to The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. 

Further reading:

Dower, John W. Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World. The New Press, 2012.

Dower, John W. "The San Francisco System: Past, Present, Future in US-Japan-China Relations." The Asia-Pacific Journal 12 (2014).

McCormack, Gavan and Norimatsu, Satoko Oka. Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2012.

Marginalia: Free Routledge Articles

        With this post I want to excuse myself from failing to update the blog. Work projects kept me busy. I'm preparing a seminar which involves a lot of writing material that doesn't quite fit with the format of this website. Plus, writing for deadlines has made me feel a bit uninspired and so I've been avoiding it during my leisure time. However, this didn't prevent me from reading: in the past two weeks I managed to finish two books by John Dower among other Japan-related articles. As soon as I'm able to take a break from my work I'll write my thoughts on them.

        And here's the gist of this post: Routledge has made available free of charge 30 articles related to Japan from various fields of study, including pop culture, religion and economics. Here's the link. As you can see, Routledge is celebrating Japan's Culture Day or 'Bunka no hi' (文化の日) held on November 3rd. Enjoy! 

Marginalia: A Bibliography (with Links) of English Materials Concerning E. H. Norman

E.H. Norman                                     John W. Dower

I just finished reading John W. Dower’s influential essay E. H. Norman, Japan and the Uses of History. Prof. Dower is an impressive scholar and nothing I can say here would encompass the range and impact of his scholarship, his stature among Japanese Studies academics, particularly in the field of postwar history and his distinguishing humanistic impulses that percolate inside the meticulously and impressively-researched books (which brought their author several achievements and rightfully merited awards). Among his numerous inspiring accomplishments, this one is probably the most exemplary: he has established a new standard of scrutiny for all historians of Japanese history under American Occupation. And to finally bring my pean to an end, I have to say that Prof. Dower’s scope has always been sweeping, controversial and decisive. I intend to review most of his books for this blog because I think that he’s one of the most significant historians in his field. My passion for Japanese history was kindled during my university years when I stumbled upon his magnum opus Embracing Defeat. I’ve also had the fortune to take his online course Visualizing Japan which he conducted in the company of the only man whom I consider his equal (a personal estimation): Prof. Andrew Gordon. I finished reading his collection of essays Japan in War & Peace last week so a review is bound to appear soon.

The positive evaluation from above applies to E. H. Norman as well. My estimation of Norman skyrocketed once I plunged into Origins of the Modern Japanese State - Selected Writings of E. H. Norman. This can be credited to the inspiring input from Prof. Dower’s famous (or infamous, depending on where you position yourself in the “modernization theory” debate) introduction. I will not dwell here on the contents of this fundamental essay; I’ll do so at a more appropriate time, after I’ve done more research. Henceforth, this entry concerns Prof. Dower and Norman only marginally. I merely wanted to share here a collection of articles which expand on the background and contents of Prof. Dower’s essay. I wanted to include bibliographical posts on various themes ever since I started this blog but I could never find the right moment or the right state of mind. The immeasurable excitement I felt after reading the introduction to Origins of the Modern Japanese State gave me the appropriate incentive. 

To make the post more inaugural I decided to add downloading links for the articles contained below. Although it’s not going to happen all the time, I’m planning to make this an occasional recurring practice in the interests of extending access to topics and evaluations that are worthy of a larger academic (or even leisure-practicing) audience. Before you go on however, you should mind the following observations:

Note 1: This entry is part of the bibliography which appears at the end of the book, in the subchapters entitled “Editorials, Reviews and Reports” and “English Materials Concerning E. H. Norman.” Unfortunately, due to inaccessibility some titles from the original couldn’t be included.

Note 2: The following titles all contain a positive evaluation of Norman’s scholarship. Some readers may see this as hagiography. I have no problems with this estimation. In a future post I’m planning to discuss a negative appraisal written by Prof. George Akita and a counter-response to this appraisal by Prof. Herbert P. Bix (who is esteemed in his own right). Prof. Dower already offers a balanced consideration by writing about the shortcomings of Norman’s work. These faults are pardonable and, on top of that, they are demonstrably overshadowed by Norman’s strengths as a pioneer in the field of Japanese Studies. It goes without saying that I support Prof. Dower’s position.  

Bibliography:

Abosch, David. “Political Consciousness in Japan: A Retrospect on EH Norman.” Pacific Affairs 42.1 (1969): 25-31. (Download)

Harootunian, Harry D. “EH Norman and the Task for Japanese History.” Pacific Affairs 41.4 (1968): 545-552. (Download)

Maruyama, Masao. “An Affection for the Lesser Names: An Appreciation of E. Herbert Norman.” Pacific Affairs 30.3 (1957): 249-253. (Download)

Norman, E. Herbert. Japan's Emergence as a Modern State: Political and Economic Problems of the Meiji Period. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1940. (Public Domain Link)

Norman, E. Herbert. “Mass Hysteria in Japan.” Far Eastern Survey 14.6 (1945): 65-70. (Download)

Norman, E. Herbert. “Militarists in the Japanese State.” Pacific Affairs 16.4 (1943): 475-481. (Download)

Norman, E. Herbert. “Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription.” Pacific Affairs 16.1 (1943): 47-64. (Download)

Norman, E. Herbert. “Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription (Part II).” Pacific Affairs 16.2 (1943): 149-165. (Download)

Norman, E. Herbert. “The Genyosha: A Study in the Origins of Japanese Imperialism.” 17.3 (1944): 261-284. (Download)

Silberman, Bernard S. “EH Norman: Structure and Function in the Meiji State, A Reappraisal.” Pacific Affairs 41.4 (1968): 553-559. (Download)

Powles, Cyril. “EH Norman as Historian: A Canadian Perspective.” Pacific Affairs 50.4 (1977): 660-667. (Download)

Price, John. “EH Norman, Canada and Japan’s Postwar Constitution.” Pacific Affairs 74.3 (2001): 383-405. (Download)

Yamamura, Kozo. “EH Norman as an Economic Historian.” Pacific Affairs 42.1 (1969): 17-24. (Download)

Marginalia: Beef

                   I was preparing to examine an article by Prof. Harold Bolitho when I stumbled upon this particular precious item which I thought would be an appropriate fit among the marginalia already included on this website. My discovery involves a 'dispute' between two giants in the field of Japanese Studies. The conflict took place in the pages of Monumenta Nipponica, a journal published by Sophia University in Tokyo. In the 1980 spring issue, Prof. Bolitho reviewed unfavourably the anthology of essays edited by Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period 1600-1868: Methods and Metaphors and he singled out Prof. Harootunian's article as the most unsatisfactory of the bunch. Here's the original review.

       

                   Professor Harootunian responded to Prof. Bolitho's criticism in the Autumn issue of the same publication. As the readers will see, the retort is heavily worded and it shows the author's clear irritation. Finally, in the pages of the same issue, Prof. Bolitho was offered the opportunity of rebuttal. At first I thought that I'm witnessing a case of the old adversarial divide which haunts the Japanese Studies academia and which was instigated by the now decades-old contentious debate over the 'modernisation theory.' To summarise the issue, it suffices to say that the divide was initiated (and is being kept ongoing) by the separation between Marxist-based historical approach to the study of Japanese history (the kind conducted in the English-speaking world by E. H. Norman, John W. Dower and, according to the statements included above, Harold Bolitho) and the practitioners of non-Marxist scholarship (like Marius B. Jansen). A better overview of this debate can be found in this London Review of Books article. I was amused and somewhat pleased to discover that the dispute between Prof. Bolitho and Prof. Harootunian was sparked by a simple case of irremediable displeasure with a bad review. Here's how the 'correspondence' between the two scholars concluded.

Sources:

Bolitho, Harold. "Concrete discourse, manifest metaphor, and the Tokugawa intellectual paradigm." Monumenta Nipponica. Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring, 1980): 89-98.

Bolitho, Harold & Harootunian, H.D. "Correspondence." Monumenta Nipponica. Vol. 35, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980): 368-374.

Marginalia: Osmanthus by Ozaki Midori

Ozaki Midori's short story Osmanthus (published for the first time in Nyonin Geijutsu in March 1929) appears numerous times throughout Miriam Silverberg's work. It is mentioned in two different instances in Erotic Grotesque Nonsense - The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times and in an article which I previously covered. The content of the story and its symbolism are emblematic of the complex properties which modernity, variously defined and manifested, appeared in the eyes of Japanese people in the early 1930s. In the span of just four pages, Silverberg detects the predominant process behind the creation of personal identity, a process reasonably distant from government interference and control. Despite an increasingly authoritarian environment, all subjectivities (political, sexual, female, male, working, non-working, etc.) were consistently defined by the unintended appropriation of “outsider-influenced" fantasies proliferating through the mass media. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ozaki’s work. As Silverberg insists, 

Ozaki Midori was able to communicate the emotional pull of the movies more than most Japanese critics writing about the modern. Although she refused to speak for other moviegoers, her representation of her own fantasy world gives a sense of how Japanese filmgoers allowed themselves to be erotically enveloped by images of movie stars and their gestures.

In the story we find that the protagonist moves through the mundaneness of Shōwa daily life under the auspices of a borderline obsession for Chaplin movies. “Chaarie” or “Chappurin-kun” was truly the object of female desire during the 1920s and 1930s as the mass-production and mass-consumption of Chaplin-themed objects from that period demonstrate. But what is not very well known is the transformative effect that movies had on identity-formation, especially on the subject of eroticism, a primary concern throughout Silverberg’s work.

On that account, I decided to post here Ozaki’s story in its entirety. This version was translated by Silverberg herself and appeared in Manoa 3, no. 2 (Fall 1991 issue).

Work cited: Midori, Ozaki, and Miriam Silverberg. "Osmanthus." Manoa (1991): 187-190.

Marginalia: Letter from the US President Millard Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan

Marginalia: Langston Hughes in Japan

     In my previous post I described how African American social activists and artists visited Japan during the interwar period. During this interval, contacts between these two ethnic groups were at an all-time high and benefitted extensive cultural exchange. Among those who visited was Langston Hughes (1902-1967), an eminent Harlem Renaissance leader and campaigner for political and social change. In the article I covered for my essay, Prof. Yukiko Koshiro describes the importance of Hughes' visit in the following way:

Langston Hughes, though never a member of the Communist Party, was one of the African Americans who cultivated close ties with Japanese leftists. In 1933, during a tour of Moscow, Hughes met Sano Seki, a communist exile from Japan, a renowned theatrical producer, and also a friend of Ishigaki Eitarō. Sano arranged Hughes' visit to Japan on his way from Moscow to Beijing. Once in Japan, Hughes was overwhelmed by the welcome given by Sano's former colleagues at the Tsukiji Mini Theater, then a center for leftist avant-garde performances, and also by Japan's leftist intellectual artists, writers, and journalists. To his surprise, Hughes found his portrait featured on the cover of the September 1932 issue of shin-ei-bungaku [the newer spirit in british and american literature] (the original title featured all lowercase letters), the Japanese proletarian literary journal, which had placed such literary laureates as James Joyce, Aldous Huxley, and Sinclair Lewis on its cover.

Unlike [W.E.B.] Du Bois, Hughes flatly rejected Japan's Pan-Asianism. Hughes was disturbed that Japanese media reports on crimes committed by Koreans placed an unnecessary emphasis on their racial character, just like the American media's treatment of African Americans. He recognized Japanese racism against other Asians as a fueling force for their aggression. Due to his insights into the nature of Japan's Pan-Asianism, Hughes did not receive the Japanese government's welcome extended to Du Bois. On the contrary, on his second visit to Japan after a several-week sojourn in China, Hughes was detained by the Japanese police and questioned about the purpose of his visits to China and Japan and also his relationship with Japanese leftists. Until his departure from Japan two days later, two plainclothes police officers followed him everywhere. One Japanese was also arrested for his contact with Hughes during his first stay in Japan. 

     I decided to look into Hughes' own account of these events and so, in my research, I stumbled upon his autobiography, I Wander as I Wonder. I'm rendering below an excerpt related directly to his troubles experienced in Japan. I decided to ignore his pleasant accomplishments as a tourist (concisely and eloquently described in the sixth chapter entitled Color around the Globe) and to focus more on the negative aspects of the visit, including Hughes' criticism leveled at the racism behind Japan's imperialistic exploits, already summarized by Prof. Koshiro.

Works cited:

Koshiro, Yukiko. "Beyond an alliance of color: The African American Impact on Modern Japan." positions: east asia cultures critique 11.1 (2003): 183-215.

McLaren, Jospeh. "Autobiography: I Wonder as I Wander." The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 14. University of Missouri, 2003.

Marginalia: Charlie Chaplin in Japan

     Yesterday I started reading Miriam Silverberg's fantastic book, Erotic Grotesque Nonsense - The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times. She begins by recounting a visit made by Chaplin to Japan on May 14, 1932. On this occasion, a band of right-wing extremists wanted to assassinate Chaplin and his hosts in order to 'restore' the powers of the emperor and facilitate war with the United State. As luck would have it, due to a scheduling error, Chaplin escaped unharmed. The Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi, however, perished at the hands of a group of naval officers on May 15. 

     So I decided to track down Chaplin's autobiography and extract those passages referring to the incident. The following pages are from Chaplin's My Autobiography published by Melville House.

 Works mentioned:

Chaplin, Charles. My Autobiography. Melville House Publishing, 2012.

Silverberg, Miriam. Erotic Grotesque Nonsense. Univ of California Press, 2006.

Marginalia: International Inoue Enryo Research

Inoue Enryō

    I would like to announce that Volume Two of International Inoue Enryō Research has appeared online, along with an exhaustive database of digital texts, bibliographies and other documents. The webpages I just mentioned contain a large quantity of primary and secondary material related to and written by Inoue Enryō in both English and Japanese. There are a lot of articles there that I'm planning to read for this blog. 

     Inoue Enryō (1858-1919) was, among many things, a philosopher, Buddhist-modernizer, yōkai gaku ('Misteries Studies') scholar and founder of Toyo University. I'm quoting below the mission of this excellent archive:

     The Purpose of the International Association for Inoue Enryo Research is to promote research on the life and philosophy of Inoue Enryo, his historical background, and other related issues. The multifaceted achievements of Inoue Enryo shall be elucidated and research exchange among members facilitated. 

Marginalia

     I started reading Hikaru Shimoda’s Lost and Found - Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan (I will probably post a review as early as next week). I just wanted to note down a paragraph I encountered in the first chapter (page 24-5) relevant to the contents of this blog up to this point:

      It was, however, the relatively friendly Koreans whom the Aizu men engaged most frequently and personally. As Choson emissaries made their way overland to Edo for their audience with the shogun, an official Japanese party greeted them along the way, and Aizu samurai were a part of this envoy five times between 1682 and 1764. On three of these occasions, the Koreans paid a visit to the Aizu mansion in Edo, sharing tea and tobacco with the hosts and leaving gifts of black hemp, ink brushes, and the obligatory ginseng.

    Aizu is a region presently incorporated in the Fukushima Prefecture and is the subject of Shimoda’s book which is, by all accounts, an honest interrogation of the notion of regional identity. 

     I’m uploading here an informative map extracted from Ronald B. Toby’s article (from my previous review) to give an idea how far the Korean envoys had to travel from Seoul to Edo (which was probably a good reason why the visits were so rare, considering the means of transport and the road infrastructure of the Edo Period — only twelve times have the Koreans embarked on this lengthy, tiresome trip).

Work cited:

Shimoda, Hiraku. Lost and Found. Recovering Regional Identity in Imperial Japan. Harvard University Press, 2014.

Picture source:

Toby, Ronald P. "Carnival of the Aliens. Korean Embassies in Edo-Period Art and Popular Culture." Monumenta Nipponica (1986): 415-456.