Meiji Era Research Articles

Hanakatsura: The Works of Famous Literary Women in Japan

Originally published in Tokyo in 1903, Hanakatsura (literally “garland of flowers”) features a biographical sketch of the activist and author Kishida Toshiko (Baroness Nakajima) plus four short stories by Japanese women writers of the Meiji era: Akebonozome: A Cloth Dyed in Rainbow Colors, by Kaho Miyake Ōtsugomori: The Last Day of the Year, by Ichiyo Higuchi Onisenbiki: The Thousand Devils, by Usurai Kitada (Mrs. Kajita) Shinobine, by Otsuka Kusuo Compiled and translated by Tei Fujiu, four memorable and affecting stories depict women experiencing the frustrations of traditional family roles within an emergent commercial society at the turn of the century. The men seem preoccupied with buying and selling votes, fighting foreign wars, ignoring their families, or going out on the town; and they are fully capable of rejecting a bride for her looks or just letting a new wife walk away. Meanwhile, young female characters cope with overall shabbiness, lost samurai dignity, orphanhood, servitude, poverty, indebtedness, jealous sisters, stepmothers, and mothers-in-law, and the combined challenges of being blind, ugly, alone, and empathetic.

The Fate of the Samurai in the Conflict of the Ages from “Rurouni Kenshin”

This study investigates different samurais' choices and their fates in the anime series "Rurouni Kenshin." In this study, by analyzing different samurai figures in the anime as they go through the changes from the Edo to the Meiji era, the samurai show different ways of reflecting on their own perceptions and traditional bushido: Himura Kenshin reflects on the situation brought to the people by the times and his own samurai identity, and finally chooses to pursue benevolence and not to kill anymore; Saito Hajime keeps the traditional spirit of bushido but blends it with the new era; Shishio Makoto rejects most of the traditional concepts of bushido and is willing to change from being a samurai to being an emperor through his ability and ambition. Most of the previous studies of Bushido focused on the characteristics, the history and trajectory of the formation of Bushido spirit. When studying Bushido in animation, previous studies tended to look for the embodiment of Bushido culture in animation, but fewer focused on the changes of Bushido culture in animation. This study provides a new perspective on examining the impact of changing time using Japanese anime.

STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF CHANGES IN NAIL CONSUMPTION ON WOODEN BUILDONGS IN MODERN TIMES

This article focuses on the transition of nail consumption that increased from the middle of the Meiji era to the prewar period, and examined the effect of the increase in nail consumption on wooden buildings in this era. The following points have been clarified.

Shizu no odamaki or "The Thread from the Spool": Male Same-Sex Love and the Warrior Ethos in a Nineteenth-Century Historical Tale

Shizu no odamaki賤のおだまき(trans. The Thread From the Spool), a work of fiction composed presumably in the first half of the nineteenth century by an anonymous author, tells the novelized account of the lives and love story of two historical Japanese bushi 武士 or “warriors,” respectively named Yoshida Ōkura Kiyoie 吉田大蔵清家 (c. 1575-1599) and Hirata Sangorō Munetsugu 平田三五郎宗次 (c. 1585-1599). The two fighters lived in the Warring States period (Sengoku jidai戦国時代, 1467-1600) and died in combat during the “disturbance of Shōnai district” (Shōnai no ran庄内の乱, 1599-1600), one of the many conflicts that took place in this age of constant bloodshed. In presenting their fictionalized biography, Shizu no odamaki operates on two intertwining levels: one romantic, providing an idealized narration of the protagonists’ tie based on the so-called “Way of the Youth” (Wakashudō若衆道), the relationship between an adult man and an adolescent male, and of Sangorō’s juvenile beauty, and one ethical, depicting the characters’ feelings as a powerful catalyzer that assists them in their pursuit of the “Way of the Warrior” (Bushidō武士道). The two Ways, of male same-sex love and combat, thereby support each other in a virtuous circle. In proving the connection between Kiyoie and Sangorō’s sentiments and their commendable behavior as soldiers, the text pursues a didactic end by indicating their amorous and martial deeds as an authoritative example for the contemporaneous reader to emulate.In the following I provide an annotated translation of Shizu no odamaki. To prepare readers for the text, I offer in the next sections an overview of the lives of the historical Sangorō and Kiyoie figures as well as information about the records from which the narrative draws inspiration. Second, I present an analysis of the main coeval notions and social practices that the title invokes to conceptualize and portray the romantic relation between the two characters. Finally, I insert an outline of the diverging, and often conflicting, ways the narration was received and reinterpreted in the first decades of the Meiji era.

Бронзові окімоно доби Мейдзі в музейних колекціях України: компанія Міяо

The study is focused on a bronze sculpture of small forms (okimono) of the Meiji era, in particular, art pieces that came to Europe under the Miyao brand, from the collections of the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Art, Lviv National Art Gallery, Feldman Family Museum (Kharkiv). The article highlights the historiographical and terminological aspects of the research topic, outlines the principles of formation of the source base, attribution, and examination of the works; the positions of prominent scientists on the artistic assessment of bronze okimono are determined. The results of the study are a reconstructed context of the formation of a new type of bronze sculpture, highlighting the transformations that took place during the Meiji reforms in the organization of the artist’s work and aesthetic landmarks; the typology of bronze sculpture and the range of main plots are determined (characters of Shinto and Buddhist mythology, Taoist hermits, heroes of folk tales, plots from the life of peasants, aristocrats, bureaucrats). In the process of studying the collections, the attribution of a group of works, the analysis of their figurative and content structure and stylistic and technological component, the typology of signatures have been carried out. Miyao’s products have been found to be the result of the loss of the domestic market and reorientation of exports: the special role of metal products in international exhibitions, the influence of the European art system, and its organic combination with traditional Japanese crafts have been emphasized. It is shown that on such grounds as increased decorativeness, the use of elements of clothing and other details identified as Chinese, a significant part of Miyao art pieces can be considered as a modern (oriental) version of Chinoiserie, or a model of Oriental Orientalism. It is proved that bronze sculpture of small forms in artistic and technological senses is worthily represented in museum collections of Ukraine, demonstrates a variety of approaches and models, typologically can relate to both applied art and decorative sculpture of small forms. The fact of preservation of the tendency to imitate Miyao’s style among the masters of the late 19th century and early 21st century has been revealed.

Taste of Civilization: The Acceptance of Beef Appeared in Aguranabe in the Early Meiji Era

This study is to examine through Kanagaki Robun’s Aguranabe how beef, which was considered a symbol of civilization, was accepted and what changes were made in society as a result in the early Meiji period. At the time of the publication of Aguranabe, Japanese society was implementing Westernization policies with the aim of “civilization enlightenment” and “national prosperity and defense” along with rapid changes in the political system. The primary elements discussed in Aguranabe are as follows. First, Aguranabe details the process of resolving the “Kegare,” which was considered to be a hindrance to the acceptance of beef. In the beginning of the Japanese Westernization campaigns, the government and educated individuals introduced beef in terms of a “new civilization,” which can be said to have been somewhat successful. The characters in Aguranabe testify that beef is a symbol of civilization as well as a healthy food product to consume. The second element in Aguranabe describes the irony in how the government and the highly educated at the time insisted on accepting a Western diet for those in power, however, the general public was also participating in this movement through consuming a beef “hot pot.” This point seems to have been overlooked thus far. It is also noteworthy that the beef hot pot that the general populace consumed was in a form that was more acceptable to them, rather than adopting the unfamiliar foreign cooking method and utensils. The third element that Aguranabe delineates is the perception of the “individual” that appeared in the space of a beef hot pot restaurant. The consumer experienced a sense of liberation by eating beef, overcoming status differences and becoming on par with those present. In particular, the Japanese populace predicted the birth of the individual that the Meiji society was constructing by their insistence of utilizing Western technology and expanding knowledge through newspapers.

Efficacy vs. Ideology: The Use of Food Therapies in Preventing and Treating Beriberi in the Japanese Army in the Meiji Era

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the Japanese army medical bureau struggled to prevent beriberi in its ranks. In Japan, traditional medicine effectively treated beriberi, a nutritional deficiency illness, with food therapies. The army medical bureau, in line with western medical practice, viewed the disease as microbial in origin. Army leadership was driven, in part, by a desire to be seen as advanced and civilized by western nations, and demonstrating sound western medical protocols served this purpose. By the mid -1880s unit level medical officers adopted a mixed staple of rice and barley, which was a common food practice in rural households. This modification provided the necessary vitamin B1 in the soldiers' daily diet to prevent the onset of beriberi. The leadership of the army medical bureau allowed this dietary change on an ad hoc basis, but during times of war reinstated the official white rice staple. During wartime the army repeatedly suffered high rates of beriberi.

PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF ELABORATION OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT PROJECT IN EDUCATION SPHERE IN JAPAN

In Japan, one of the strongest economies in the world and home to 125 million people, proficiency in English language is associated with the huge advantages and signifies privilege since the Meiji era when English was used as a tool by Japanese elite in a technological catch-up with the West. The seven years of U.S. occupation of the country after the Second World War have also left a big impact on the Japan’s economic, political and social development. The reconstruction of Japan aided by Americans altered the perception of Japanese people, associating English language with such ideas like freedom and democracy. During the seven years of occupation the country faced a lot of political and economic changes, including liberalization, and was slowly transitioning its central industries from agriculture to light manufacturing and later to heavy manufacturing. The economy of Japan has been slowly recovering from an era of economic stagnation, it is on the path of the moderate growth. Today, it is the third strongest economy with the nominal GDP of about $5.06 trillion that is focused on advanced manufacturing and export, agriculture, fishing and tourism. Japan is very special and different from other countries; a lot of great companies and unique business practices were born there. It is also leading in high-tech innovations and manufacturing. While having a lot of opportunities for various businesses, being politically stable and safe country, its bureaucracy and the comparative difficulty of doing business for foreigners makes it a controversial but potentially rewarding choose for an investment project. In the recent years, the necessity of knowing how to communicate in English has increased significantly. The school program focuses mainly on such skills as reading and writing, and a lot of attempts to reform the system has failed. That is why parents and students are approaching private language schools to master the abilities of speaking and listening. In addition, English teaching is one of the most popular jobs for foreigners in Japan. The language school market is quite saturated, but at given circumstances it can be very rewarding. The idea of the investment project is to create a private language school that will focus on giving Japanese people the practical English skills. The project involves the creation of Gōdō Kaisha (a Japanese analogue to the LLC). This type of incorporation fits the company best, considering the size and scale of the activities. As the company is not planning to issue certificates, the need for special licensing from the state is absent. Appointing a representative director is obligatory in Japan, but GK, allows to appoint a representative director who is not a resident in Japan. The company plans to hire the foreigners already living in Japan, that way the company will be

German chemists in Japan and vice versa in the Meiji era

AbstractA large part of the basic groundwork for Japanese chemistry was established in the Meiji era beginning at the end of the 19th century as the result of the educational and scientific contributions of German chemists in Japan and Japanese chemists who studied in Germany.

Japan, Religion, History, Nation

I connect the invention of Japanese ‘religion’ since the Meiji era (1868–1912) with the invention of other modern imaginaries, particularly the Japanese Nation State and Japanese History. The invention of these powerful fictions in Japan was a specific, localised example of a global process. The real significance of this idea that religion has always existed in all times and places is that it normalises the idea of the non-religious secular as the arena of universal reason and progress. The invention of Japanese ‘religion’ had—and still has—a significant function in the wider, global context of colonial capital and the continual search for new ‘investment’ opportunities. Meiji Japan illustrates, in fascinating detail, a process of cognitive hegemony, and the way a globalising discourse on ‘progress’ transformed the plunder of colonial sites into a civilising mission. The idea that there is a universal type of practice, belief or institution called ‘religion’ as distinct from government, ‘politics’ or ‘science’ was not only new to Japan. It hardly existed in England or more widely in Protestant Europe and North America until the eighteenth or even 19th century. The idea of a secular constitutional nation state was only emergent in the late 18th century with the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Most of Europe—including the colonial powers England and France—were still Christian confessional church states through most of the 19th century. The franchise was granted only to Christian men of substantial property, and denied to women, servants, wage labour, colonised subjects, and slaves. This critical, deconstructive narrative helps us to see more clearly the ideological function of the generic category of religion in the wider configuration of modern secular categories such as constitutional nation state, political economy, nature, history, and science. I also discuss the relation between History as a secular academic science, and the invention of ‘the Past’ in universal Time. I argue here that the invention of the Past by professional Historians has a significant role in transforming modern inventions such as ‘religion’ and the secular categories into the inherent and universal order of things, as though they have always been everywhere. I reveal this on-going process of ideological reproduction by close readings of some recent ‘histories of Japan’ and the way they uncritically construct ‘the Past’ in the terms of contemporary configurations.

Urban Riots and the Everyday Practice of Male Laborers in Prewar Japan

This essay explores cultural factors in urban riots that occurred frequently in early twentieth-century Tokyo, extending from the 1905 Hibiya riot to the 1918 rice riots, by focusing on the everyday practice of young male laborers, including artisans, factory workers, and day laborers, who were the main participants in these riots. The essay first surveys the characteristics of urban riots in Tokyo in the period from 1905 to 1918 and then examines the everyday practice of male laborers, focusing particularly on the role of violence and impulsiveness. Many works of reportage on the urban lower classes published in the Meiji era (1868-1912) and Taisho era (1912-1926) depicted a lifestyle among male laborers that revolved around drinking, gambling, fighting, and patronizing prostitutes. These behaviors, as well as the emphasis on a Robin Hood–style bravado, were socially retrogressive, but constituted a distinctive culture of masculinity. By behaving “manly,” male laborers could earn esteem in their communities, although they lacked fame, fortune, or education, and could live proudly despite little chance of advancing their social status. This culture among male laborers was deeply related to the frequent occurrence of urban riots, and its waning ultimately led to the decline of riots in Tokyo in the 1920s.

Characteristics of Tone River mulberry gardens in the Sawa District after the opening of railways

In this paper, the authors examine the characteristics of Tone River mulberry fields in the Sawa District after the introduction of rail transport during the Meiji and Taisho eras. Railways were opened in this area during the Meiji era, facilitating transportation of products and cultivation materials such as fertilizers to wider areas. Moreover, demand for cocoons, raw silk, and Isesaki Meisen-style silk fabrics had increased overseas as well as in Japan. This drove the popularity of sericulture in Japan, and many farmers bought "mulberry leaves" to make up for mulberry leaf shortages and "mulberry seedlings" to expand mulberry gardens. Mulberry plantations for the sale of mulberry leaves, mulberry plantations for the sale of mulberry seedlings, and mulberry plantations for rent began to crop-up among sericulture farmers in greater numbers than during the period before the opening of the railways. As a result, landscapes of mixed mulberry fields and paddy fields using different farming styles spread in areas where the risk of flooding was low and sericulture and silkworm egg farmers also owned paddy fields. In contrast, only flood-resistant mulberry gardens spread in the areas adjacent to the Tone River, where the possibility of flooding was high, resulting in a different type of mulberry landscape.

The Circumstances behind the Publication of the <i>Nichirenshugi</i> Journal of the Nichirenshū and Their Significance

One essential resource for the study of the propagation of the Nichirenshū in the modern age is newspapers and magazines published by the sect or by those involved in the sect. When Japan embarked on new Meiji period, the world of Buddhism was forced to undergo a big change due to the government’s policy of establishing Shintō as the State Religion. But at the same time, Buddhism was influenced by many different factors brought from abroad as well. These included intangible things such as ideas and culture, which inspired each sect of Buddhism to adapt new forms of propagation. One of these forms was propagation with written materials. Although propagation of Buddhism using written materials had been common up until the Edo period, the style of propagation dramatically changed along with modernization promoted by each sect in the Meiji era. While there was a transformation of system or institutions in the background, one of the causes of the change was the introduction of new publishing technology, which made mass publication of journals possible. In such a situation, publication of different propagation journals by the Nichiren sect and those involved with it started in the Meiji period even before the new journal Nichirenshugi was published in the Shōwa era. This paper discusses the way Buddhism was propagated using written materials in the early Shōwa period through an examination of Nichirenshugi.

The Roots of Ambivalence: Makiguchi Tsunesaburō’s Heterodox Discourse and Praxis of “Religion”

In the post-World War II era, Sōka Gakkai has deployed the terminology and concept of “religion” (shūkyō 宗教) in a variety of contexts and to a variety of ends. Do these positions simply reflect a post-war strategic stance? Do they have deeper historical and philosophical roots? A careful reading of key texts by founding president Makiguchi Tsunesaburō 牧口常三郎 (1871–1944) suggests that, from its inception as the Value-Creating Education Society (Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai 創価教育学会) in the 1930s, the movement has occupied an ambiguous space, relative to the conceptualization and practice of “religion”, as these were imported at the start of the Meiji Era (1868–1912), adopted and indigenized to respond to the cultural, social and political exigencies of modernizing Japan. Examples of Makiguchi’s heterodoxy, relative to the established understanding of “religion” and its role, include: the rejection of specific ideas of “religion”, in relation to education and science, as represented in the writings of such intellectuals as Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 and Ishiwara Atsushi 石原純; refusal to accept the official definition of Shintō as non-religion; positing an essential continuity between faith/trust among human subjects and faith directed at ideas and objects typically considered “religious”; promoting the idea of worldly benefit, as a result of faith in and practice of “religion”. A careful reading of Makiguchi’s complex, and often heterodox, discourse, relative to the conceptual category of “religion”, can frame a more nuanced interpretation of his ultimate heterodoxy—his rejection of the Ise Shrine amulet, an act for which he was arrested and confined to prison in July 1943. It can also clarify the basis for the Sōka Gakkai’s post-war deployments of the concept of religion, and create a more flexible and expansive interpretative space for considering the organization’s discourse and praxis in the post-war era.

Review: Becoming Nisei: Japanese American Urban Lives in Prewar Tacoma, by Lisa M. Hoffman and Mary L. Hanneman

In 2004, as part of its downtown campus expansion, the University of Washington Tacoma demolished the old Tacoma Japanese Language School (TJLS) building, one of the few remaining landmarks from the pre-World War II Tacoma Japantown (Nihonmachi). Once a vibrant urban ethnic enclave, Nihonmachi was home to the city’s Japanese American families and businesses before their displacement by Executive Order 9066 in 1942 and the mass wartime incarceration that followed. When a call went out for a public history project to preserve the legacies of TJLS, Lisa M. Hoffman and Mary L. Hanneman stepped up to document a rich history of Tacoma’s prewar Japanese American community. Based on forty-two interviews with former Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) Tacoma residents combined with rigorous archival research, Becoming Nisei offers a unique translocal and transnational approach to the often-overlooked interwar period in the twentieth-century Japanese American experience.Throughout the book’s six chapters the authors bring together the interviewees’ vivid recollections of the cityscape—neighborhood streets, family-owned businesses, houses of worship, and the language school— that they had navigated as children. These “structures of memories” (pp. 11–12) help the authors reconstruct the historical landscape of prewar Tacoma Japantown through their extensive analysis of the archival records and maps at the UW Library Special Collections. Tacoma’s Japantown served as a unique space in which the young Nisei developed their sense of belonging and their understanding of race politics and power relations in American society during the era of Asian exclusion. Becoming Nisei makes an important contribution to urban history by recovering the important but often ignored role that non-white communities like Tacoma’s Japanese Americans have played in shaping the socioeconomic, cultural, and physical landscapes of American cities.Among the many cultural and socioeconomic institutions of the prewar Tacoma Japanese American community, the language school serves as the focal point of the authors’ analysis of Nisei’s multiple transnational and inter-generational positionalities (p. 107). Established by Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrant) educators, TLJS brought the cultural and social ethos of Meiji Japan into the diasporic lives of Nisei students (pp. 36–37). The nonsectarian language school allowed Nisei children across religious and prefectural affiliations to learn the linguistic, cultural, and ethical nuances of their parents’ homeland and develop close transnational ties to Japan (p. 50). In this way, the book demonstrates that the immigrant parents, who were “products of the Meiji Era” (1868–1912), had played a critical role in transplanting the institutions of modern Japan and its education system to Tacoma’s Japanese community. Future studies on the prewar Japanese American experience would benefit from further examination of how the sociopolitical and cultural dynamics of the transpacific world during the Taisho Era (1912–1926) and the prewar Showa years (1926–1941) also shaped the Nisei experience, as both Issei and Nisei were products of these volatile interwar periods as much as they were products of Meiji Japan.Overshadowed by the memory of the World War II incarceration in both the scholarship and public narrative of Japanese American history, the interwar period nevertheless has attracted the attention of a growing number of historians as a crucial formative era that shaped Nisei’s identities. Becoming Nisei is a unique and timely addition to this understudied chapter in Japanese American history. Despite the prevailing image of the Nisei before the war as dependent on their immigrant parents and too young to muster a voice of their own, the book demonstrates that Tacoma’s Nisei were “active participants in constituting their own” positionalities through their relationship to the community’s history (p. 12).

La traducción y su papel hibridizante dentro de la semiosfera: Fenollosa – Hearn – Pound – Noguchi

En este artículo tomaremos, como punto de partida, el factor diversidad quecaracteriza la semiosfera (Lotman [1984] 2005) y define el complejo entramado derelaciones de naturaleza intracultural que prefiguran y posibilitan la relaciónintercultural, especialmente por medio de la traducción. La semiosfera es el sistemaen el cual los textos estándar de la cultura ocupan lugar preeminente en la jerarquíaque define el segmento educado (High) de esa cultura frente a otros segmentos osubculturas (Low). Dentro de una semiosfera el estándar es la norma de referenciapara la interpretación del valor simbólico de la diferencia subcultural (High vs. Low)existente en la intracultura y que condiciona la forma de su transferencia a otracultura. Por una parte incidiremos en la necesidad radical de reconceptualizar latraducción per se como proceso posibilitador de la comprensión de lo diverso desdeel interior del discurso y a través de lo diverso del discurso y, por tanto, comoproceso de gestión discursiva tendente a la convergencia interpretativa (intertextual,intersubjetiva, intercultural) de enunciados en principio divergentes en la forma enque sus diferentes códigos verbales y culturales articulan el sentido. Por otra parteseñalaremos la importancia del traductor individual dentro de estos procesos.Plantearemos el rol primordial que juegan los traductores en la modernizaciónde sus correspondientes semiosferas, y lo haremos a través de un ejemplo muysignificativo que relaciona el nacimiento del Imaginismo y Modernismo Anglonorteamericanoal cierre de la época Meiji en Japón o de la etapa Victoriana en GranBretaña. No fue accidental que, tras varias décadas de nueva producción detraducciones (del japonés al Inglés y del Inglés al Japonés) por parte de traductorescomo Noguchi, Hearn, Fenollosa, o Ezra Pound, tuviese lugar la eclosión de unasliteraturas, la Japonesa y la Anglo-norteamericana, plenamente modernizadas yrenovadoras. Mientras traducían, estos traductores fueron aprendiendo de latextualidad Fuente a escribir textos Meta cuyas formas híbridas les enseñaban, a ellos y a sus compañeros de profesión literaria, a renovar los estándares de sussemiosferas nativas.

Imaginative Mapping: Landscape and Japanese Identity in the Tokugawa and Meiji Eras by Nobuko Toyosawa

Reviewed by: Imaginative Mapping: Landscape and Japanese Identity in the Tokugawa and Meiji Eras by Nobuko Toyosawa Robert Goree Imaginative Mapping: Landscape and Japanese Identity in the Tokugawa and Meiji Eras. By Nobuko Toyosawa. Harvard University Asia Center, 2019. 322 pages. ISBN: 9780674241121 (hardcover). With Imaginative Mapping: Landscape and Japanese Identity in the Tokugawa and Meiji Eras, Nobuko Toyosawa adds a compelling case study to the ever-growing body of historical scholarship seeking to reveal the intellectual and ideological forces [End Page 135] at work in charging landscapes with the power to command our attention, define our identities, and shape our sense of belonging to communities. The book approaches Japan's landscape (fūdo) as a discursive space grounded in topographical features, and so will find its rightful place on the shelf next to studies by Sugimoto Fumiko, Marcia Yonemoto, Mary Elizabeth Berry, and Kären Wigen about the meaning-making functions of Japanese geography.1 For her part, Toyosawa is chiefly concerned with how and why an eclectic set of thinkers active from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries used their imaginations to encode a sense of shared Japanese identity into the landscape. Toyosawa may seem to be covering familiar ground by analyzing works by well-known intellectual luminaries such as Yamazaki Ansai (1618–1682), Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714), Hayashi Razan (1583–1657), Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801), Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843), Miyake Setsurei (1860–1945), and Shiga Shigetaka (1863–1927), but the way she writes these figures into an ambitious narrative according to their intellectual use of topography—not something with which any of them is typically associated—is distinct. The book's winding path through the historical formation of Japanese subjectivity in spatial terms amounts to a refreshing reimagining of these thinkers that transcends narrow focus on the schools of thought with which they are conventionally identified. For as Toyosawa makes explicit, contemplating their intellectual output only from the boxes into which intellectual historians have tended to put them (e.g., Neo-Confucian, Kokugaku, Western Empirical) runs the risk of ignoring the rich cross-fertilization at play in their solutions to the broader question of what it meant for Japanese people to experience identity-defining affinity with the land they inhabited. The core argument is twofold. First, intellectuals of the Tokugawa and Meiji periods deliberately imparted to the Japanese landscape qualities that their inhabitants—as a collective—could admire and identify with: Tokugawa thinkers by promoting an exceptional landscape teeming with living deities (shinkoku or "divine land"), as detailed in chapters 1 through 4; and, their Meiji counterparts by advancing the notion of a sublime landscape of superlative beauty without the deities, as discussed in chapters 5 and 6. Second, this stark difference between Tokugawa and Meiji thinkers is best understood, paradoxically, as originating in something they shared: the tendency to leverage ideas originating in an influential cultural Other for the purpose of mapping out the specialness of the Japanese landscape, and then to suppress the outside influence so as to stress that specialness. For the Tokugawa intellectuals investigated, these obfuscated influences were Neo-Confucian cosmology and metaphysics; for the Meiji intellectuals, Western philosophy and empirical science. In short, Imaginative Mapping unearths the transcultural flow of ideas at the heart of a gradual but concerted process of portraying Japan as the most privileged place in the world. In the second half of the seventeenth century, traces of the divine began to be documented and made more widely known, a necessary step before intellectuals could imagine for others a landscape populated with deities. Chapter 1 describes how the [End Page 136] revival of fudoki (regional gazetteers) and similar projects of local topography contributed to this metaphysical exposure. Although fudoki had not been produced since the imperial court ordered their compilation in the Nara period, several Edo-period domains resumed the practice after the daimyo Hoshina Masayuki spearheaded the compilation of one for Aizu. Challenging the view that domains had negligible capacity for self-determination due to an inviolable shogunate, Toyosawa claims that Masayuki exercised authority both within the domain and vis-à-vis the shogunate by using the first Aizu fudoki (1665–1666) to master his lands for...

Sociology and International Relations Theory in the Meiji Era : Focusing on TAKEBE Tongo's View of Foreign Affairs

Sociology and International Relations Theory in the Meiji Era : Focusing on TAKEBE Tongo's View of Foreign Affairs

Changes in Water network Management since the Meiji Era and Issues Regarding Disaster Prevention at the Foot of Mt. Hira in Shiga Prefecture, Japan

Changes in Water network Management since the Meiji Era and Issues Regarding Disaster Prevention at the Foot of Mt. Hira in Shiga Prefecture, Japan

Hikifuda, or What Japanese Advertising Looked Like at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Collection from the Russian State Art Library)

Hikifuda are woodcut or lithograph prints that retailers and wholesalers, mercantile agencies, and other organizations in Japan of the Meiji era (1868–1912) used as advertising materials. The Meiji era was the period of great Japanese transformation from a medieval country into a modern power which was treated by European countries as equal. As a result, the new type of advertisement helped in spreading western ideas and lifestyles among the residents. Besides, the low price and mass production of the leaflets is another reason for their high popularity along with in whole Japan. The hikifuda handbills gave start to a new stage in the Japanese advertising industry and developed means of communication, connected Japanese traditional art with European modern trade tendencies. They have a great variety of subjects, which contain deep symbols and signs related to Japanese history and culture: traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e engravings: Women in kimono, children, the Seven Gods of Fortune Ebisu, Daikokuten, Benzaiten and others, dragons and mount Fuji and other various symbols. Besides traditional Japanese symbols, telephones, telegraph poles, mailboxes, European clothing stores, and even tobacco shops were depicted as signs of the influence of the Western lifestyle on the Japanese economy, politics, culture, and everyday life. The research is based on materials from the collection of the RSAL Iconography Department that hosts various samples of hikifuda advertising leaflets. Presumably, they were produced in the early 20th century by the Osaka printing workshop. Japanese advertising leaflets in the Russian State Art Library (RSAL) collection represent an interesting, but still poorly researched layer of urban art in Japan at the turn of the 19th—20th century.