Early Twentieth-century Japan Research Articles

Gender and the Public Sphere in Modernizing East Asia

Gender and the Public Sphere in Modernizing East Asia Ellen Widmer Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press by Joan Judge. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. xviii + 348. $70.00 cloth, $70.00 e-book. Women Pre-scripted: Forging Modern Roles through Korean Print by Ji-Eun Lee. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 182. $49.00. Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Cameras and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan by Kerry Ross. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. Pp. xv + 234. $85.00 cloth, $24.95 paper, $24.95 e-book. As one learns from both monographs and general histories, the encounter between East Asia and the West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prompted numerous conversations about self-strengthening in China, Japan, and Korea. One area of concern was the position of women. The Confucian idea that men took responsibility for affairs outside the home, whereas women focused on internal matters could be justified in traditional culture,1 but it did not work as well in an industrializing and modernizing world. When it meant that [End Page 447] women were quite ignorant of their surroundings, it aroused concerns that the enforced ignorance of past generations might have weakened East Asia on the world stage. Moving into a leadership position, Japan was the first among the three countries to articulate a need for change. Entrenched ideas on gender did not vanish altogether in the face of rhetorical pressure, and few Japanese leaders proposed making women into full-fledged citizens. Nevertheless, the exigencies of the era set men wondering how to bring women into the public sphere. The formula “good wives, wise mothers” (ryōsai kenbo 良妻賢母; also rendered as “good mothers, wise wives,” ryōbo kensai 良母賢妻) was promulgated in the Meiji Civil Code of 1898.2 The advantage of this formulation was that it allowed women some basic education while preserving the idea that their true place was in the home. Significant differences among the three countries meant that their trajectories were not identical, yet there is plenty of evidence of a common core. A series of books and articles from the past fifteen years or so has laid down the parameters as far as Japan’s role in the project is concerned. From the work of scholars like Barbara Sato, Barbara Molony, Kathleen Uno, and Sarah Frederick a fairly clear picture has emerged.3 Political crises like the first Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I mark stages of a distinct progression. During these emergencies, women were needed to help weather national crises, and they took part in public activities.4 More and more took advantage of public education, but women’s magazines were also thought to complement schools in informing women about the world. These magazines were of various types. Some emphasized virtues [End Page 448] like self-cultivation, alongside their informational and commercial outreach. Magazine-based instruction could be promoted as an enhancement to women’s schooling, in that it did not require women to leave home. Thus it allowed the good wife–wise mother to remain in her residence even while she interacted as reader with the world outside. Intellectual women (known in Japan and elsewhere as bluestockings) might decry these magazines as conservative, for they did nothing to challenge old ideas about male superiority, but for women of more modest backgrounds they could still be deemed progressive in two important ways. The first was the feeling of choice that they promoted. Whereas the good wife–wise mother concept had been handed down from on high, magazines gave the reader pride and a sense of agency over how she ran the home. In this way, she might come to see her home as part of a wider public sphere. The second great advantage was the feeling of community to which these magazines gave rise. Especially due to readers’ columns and other interactive features, women could look upon their fellow readers as a kind of focus group and on the magazines themselves as friends and hence as antidotes to the isolation of earlier days. Another important development was the emergence of...

Radiation in Print: Popularizing X-rays in the Mass Media of Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Radiation in Print: Popularizing X-rays in the Mass Media of Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Cameras and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan by Kerry Ross

<i>Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Cameras and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan</i> by Kerry Ross

The Department Store in Early Twentieth-century Japan: Luxury, Aestheticization and Modern Life

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the innovative luxury marketing strategies of the early Japanese department store, Mitsukoshi, which created a new type of spectacular and sensual consumer space combined with Western style building and interior design. Mitsukoshi was also a new, attractive urban public space in which Japanese women began to enjoy luxury settings, enact new types of personae and learn to enjoy new aesthetic sensibilities and experiences. This paper also considers the contribution Mitsukoshi made in providing new ideas about Western lifestyles in line with Japanese government-led policies, such as the reform of everyday life movements, as well as the store’s own attempts to educate customers into the minutiae of westernized home and interior design. This promoted a new idea of “being modern” and led to the combination of new forms of aesthetic experience with a greater democratization of luxury, which gradually permeated everyday life. Finally, the paper analyzes the Ryukokai, the Mitsukoshi think tank, which brought together a powerful set of cultural specialists and intermediaries to create a distinctive ‘Mitsukoshi taste’ with its associated brand image.

Ross, Kerry. Photography for everyone: the cultural lives of cameras and consumers in early twentieth-century Japan. xv, 234 pp., illus., bibliogr. Stanford: Univ. Press, 2015. £16.99 (paper)

Ross, Kerry. Photography for everyone: the cultural lives of cameras and consumers in early twentieth-century Japan. xv, 234 pp., illus., bibliogr. Stanford: Univ. Press, 2015. £16.99 (paper)

Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Camera and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan by Kerry Ross

Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Camera and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan by Kerry Ross

Peasant Revolts as Anti-Authoritarian Archetypes for Radical Buddhism in Modern Japan

The late Meiji period (1868–1912) witnessed the birth of various forms of “progressive” and “radical” Buddhism both within and beyond traditional Japanese Buddhist institutions. This paper examines several historical precedents for “Buddhist revolution” in East Asian—and particularly Japanese—peasant rebellions of the early modern period. I argue that these rebellions, or at least the received narratives of such, provided significant “root paradigms” for the thought and practice of early Buddhist socialists and radical Buddhists of early twentieth century Japan. Even if these narratives ended in “failure”—as, indeed, they often did—they can be understood as examples of what James White calls “expressionistic action,” in which figures act out of interests or on the basis of principle without concern for “success.” Although White argues that: “Such expressionistic action was not a significant component of popular contention in Tokugawa Japan”—that does not mean that the received tales were not interpreted in such a fashion by later Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa-era sympathizers.

Nichirenism, Utopianism, and Modernity: Rethinking Ishiwara Kanji's East Asia League Movement

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Nichirenism (Nichirenshugi ...), a current of lay Buddhist movements in early twentieth century Japan, has a reputation of being the bete noire of modern Japanese Buddhism. Its main proponent, Tanaka Chigaku ???? (1861-1931), merged a belief in the Lotus Sutra with the Japanese national polity (kokutai ??), the Japanese imperial line, and endorsed expansionism abroad. Not surprisingly, it has most often been described in terms of a nationalist distortion of religion, and as a Buddhist legitimation of the emperor system in support of the ruling class, and a form militant nationalism or Japanese fascism.1 Over the years, this characterization has come to be somewhat modified, and the phenomenon of Nichirenism has been gaining more attention from specialists in Buddhism, the sociology of religion, as well as literature, who take the religious aspects more seriously and approach Nichirenism more in the context of the modernization of Buddhism from the Meiji period.2 In this article, I will investigate the history of Ishiwara Kanji's ???? (1889-1949) East Asia League Movement (Toa renmei undo ?????? or Toa renmei kyokai ??????, hereafter abbreviated as eal), active during the AsiaPacific and immediate postwar era, and rethink how this movement should be understood as one important variant in the history of modern Nichirenism.Ishiwara, as a major architect of the Manchurian incident of 1931, for his Pan-Asianist ideology, and for his prediction of a final war between Asia (led by Japan) and the West (led by the United States), has in the traditional postwar interpretations fitted the image of the militarist or Nichirenist.3 While Ishiwara is a well-known figure whose seeming iconoclasm as a military thinker is a never-ending object of fascination, illustrated by the large number of biographies of him that have appeared over the years, his religious and philosophical ideas have remained less examined. Meanwhile, his movement, the eal, has received even less attention, and has usually been characterized in terms of Pan-Asianist support for the state, and has been taken much less seriously as a religious organization.4 One problem has been that in understanding the eal's program and world view, the focus has been largely on Ishiwara himself. In understanding the eal, Ishiwara's life and ideas are essential, since he was undoubtedly the leading figure, but scholars have not examined the various motivations of why other figures joined the eal and what impact they had on the movement. As I will show, there were many other important members of the eal, including women, farmers, and Koreans, who also played formative roles, often with their own and differing agendas. Also, amid a general tendency to treat Nichirenism as predominantly a prewar phenomenon, Ishiwara and the eal's post-1945 thought and activities received much less attention despite the movement's growth in the postwar period. And while a nationalist dimension is undeniable, in understanding the eal, the challenge is to balance this with the fact that several key aspects of its vision do not fit the characterization of nationalist ideology or a fascist legitimation of the state, and that in practice, the eal was heavily criticized by many ideologues, and suppressed by the wartime as well as the postwar Japanese state.In this article, I will focus less on Buddhist doctrinal aspects, but more on how the eal attempted to put Buddhist Nichirenist ideals into practice. Ishiwara and the eal were, I believe, much less concerned with doctrinal subtleties than the actual practical realization of Buddhism in this world, the creation of a Buddhist utopia in response to the wider crisis of modernity in the 1930s and 1940s. I will identify and analyze what I believe are some of the most salient characteristics of the eal's Buddhist program, focusing on the movement's religious engagement with questions of modernization, such as the nation-state, war, science and technology, and the role of women and minorities. …

The Science of Symbiosis and Linguistic Democracy in Early Twentieth-century Japan

Focusing on the early twentieth-century Japanese Esperantist and popular celebrity writer Miyazawa Kenji as an embodiment of a larger intellectual phenomenon of early twentieth century Japan, the essay delineates the scientific world view behind the Esperanto movement and corresponding internal logic that developed in the language movement@s foundational years. It argues that Esperantism in Japan in its early years was not an isolated linguistic movement among a small number of leftist intellectuals, but part of a much larger intellectual,cultural, and social movement that reflected the particular scientific worldview of what I call 'anarchist science'. This worldview defied the conceptual bifurcations of 'modern vs. tradition' and 'nature vs. culture' in modern history. A history of its vision offers a fresh perspective on modern history, future visions of the past, and the historical meanings of Esperantism.

Gender and nation in Meiji Japan: modernity, loss, and the doing of history

Gender and Nation in Meiji Japan 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 (ry?k?) and the desires they express are central to understanding Japanese modernity, conceptions of gender, and discourses of nationalism. In doing so, the author 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: The state's aggressive program of modernization required the repression of history and memory. Rooted in the belief that the nation was a natural and organic entity that predated the rational, modern state, such conceptions often were responses to modernity that envisioned the nation in opposition to the modern state. What these visions of the nation shared was the ironic desire to overcome the modern condition by seeking the timeless past. While the condition of their repression was often linked to the modernizing policies of the Meiji state, the means for imagining the nation in opposition to the state required the construction of new symbols that claimed the authority of history and appealed to a rearticulated tradition. 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.

Attention deficit and attention training in early twentieth-century Japan.

Yuzero Motora (1856-1912), regarded as the first professional Japanese psychologist, tried to address students' attention difficulties through attention training methods of his own design. His reports contain the first description of ADHD-like symptoms in the history of Japan. Motora viewed "distractibility" as the irregular transition of attention. Students with low scores and attention difficulties who participated in Motora's exercises showed improvement in arithmetic, psychological testing, and certain aspects of daily life. This article describes Motora's theoretical conception of attention and attention training methodology, the history of attention deficit and attention training, and the significance of Motora's experiments.

Apotheosis and memory: Ishii jūji, a savior for our times

ABSTRACTThis article examines the relationship between history, sacred architecture, and the production of meaning. In particular, it discusses the way in which the historical figure of Ishii Jūji (1865–1914), a renowned child relief activist and religious utopianist of late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Japan, becomes constituted as a sacred symbol through the interplay of architecture, displays, and iconography at the Ishii Jūji Museum in the grounds of the Ishii Jūji Kinen Yūaisha (the Ishii Jūji Memorial Center of Loving Friendship; hereafter Yūaisha). Through its commemoration, the Yūaisha draws upon a complex historical legacy as the source of its present vision and attributes to Ishii a divine status through material representations in the form of texts, photographs, objects, and religious iconography. Moreover, the Yūaisha, propelled by Ishii as sacred symbol, has come to produce new material spaces, through the construction of buildings, fields, gardens, through which its vision of social care may be realized. As a result, history and material religion collide to produce new spaces of meaning in the present.

‘Little works of art’: photography, camera clubs and democratizing everyday life in early twentieth-century Japan

By the end of the Meiji period in 1912, members of Japan's new middle classes had taken up the pastime of photography, once a luxury affordable only to Japan's urban elite. The availability of cheaper, domestically produced cameras and developing materials fueled this popularization of photography. Along with affordable products, the rapid growth in popular camera clubs helped spread photographic know-how. Camera clubs were shared social spaces where members, primarily men, explored photographic art and technique. By spreading the idioms and practices of artistic expression among a wider audience, camera clubs, along with museums, galleries and exhibitions, were the primary institutional setting for the democratization of the fine arts in modern Japan. At the same time, clubs were voluntary associations and operated along democratic procedural principles that provided members the opportunity to participate in democratically run organizations where they could exercise individual rights not granted to most of them in the wider political system. This article argues that camera clubs must be understood as among the most important spaces for the expression of liberal democratic ideals in the cultural sphere during the period of imperial democracy from 1905 until 1932.

Act or Disease?: The Making of Modern Suicide in Early Twentieth-century Japan

This article explores the process by which suicide was conceptualized in prewar Japan. First, it examines how psychiatry established primacy over sociology and psychology in order to label suicide as mental illness. Second, it investigates how, with the rise of a totalitarian regime, sociocultural elements were incorporated into the psychiatric discourse in order to reconcile the idea of suicide as pathology with the cult of voluntary death that was engulfing the nation. I argue that, to maintain their authority, psychiatrists conceptualized suicide less as a disease and more as a historical act, to the detriment of the theoretical coherence of their discipline.

Authority, Autonomy, and the Early Taishō “Avant-Garde”

This essay addresses the problematic notion of the “avant-garde” in the context of Japanese modern art. It looks at the formation in 1907 of the national salon, the Bunten, to elucidate the relational dynamics of art organizations in early twentieth-century Japan, especially during the Taisho period (1912 – 27) when the Fusain Society (Fyûzankai) and the Nika Society (Nikakai) came into being as alternatives to the Bunten. The essay elucidates one of the fundamental paradoxes of Taisho-period art — the simultaneous proliferation of art organizations and artistic individualism — and the dialectic between authority and autonomy that prevailed in art under the conditions of Japanese modernity.

"Art Is Something Born": The Rise and Fall of the Kokuga Society (1918 - 28) and the Emergence of the Kokuten Style

In this essay, I examine Nihonga exhibition collectives in early twentieth-century Japan, focusing on two central questions: what effect did they have on discourse regarding the practice and exhibition of Nihonga painting, and how did artists’ affiliation with successful exhibition collectives impact their careers and professional agendas? At the center of the study is the Kokuga Society (Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai), a Nihonga collective active from 1918 to 1928, and its associated exhibition, the Kokuten, which it promoted as a progressive alternative to the official exhibition salon sponsored by the Japanese government. Through the example of the Kokuga Society, we learn how Japanese exhibition collectives functioned at this time to promote art and exhibition reform, to stimulate critical discourse on Nihonga ’s modern-ist potential, and to enhance the professional status of participating artists.

Children as Treasures: Childhood and the Middle Class in Early Twentieth Century Japan (review)

Children as Treasures: Childhood and the Middle Class in Early Twentieth Century Japan (review)

Tracing the Emperor: Photography, Famous Places, and the Imperial Progresses in Prewar Japan

This essay examines the relations between two distinctive photographic projects in prewar Japan: the photographic records of the imperial progresses from 1872 to 1886 and the photographic commemoration of the emperor’s sacred trace during the subsequent half-century. Together, these photographic projects re-present and re-make local landscapes through the mediation of the emperor’s sacred gaze, thereby providing a ground for new knowledge and political subjectivity in early twentieth-century Japan.

Peace Profile: Christian Pacifism and War Objection in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

At the turn of the twentieth century, Japan was winning war after war, establishing itself as an emerging colonial power in Asia. The Sino–Japanese War of 1894–95 allowed Japan to acquire Taiwan an...

Governance of Trade in the Labor Market: Poaching, Courts, and Settlements in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Protection of claim transfer under the state court is an institutional basis of the modern market economy. In the labor market too, transportation cost or human capital investment could be willingly covered by the claimant under slavery or indenture. However, to facilitate better matching by free mobility, the modern judicial system does not allow a claim to an employee to be perfection as slavery or indenture. A device to balance claim protection and free mobility is private settlement indirectly governed by the state court. This paper focuses on this complementarity in the experience of the Japanese silk-reeling industry.