Author: Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684172632
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
"This study analyzes New Theses (Shinron) by Aizawa Seishisai (1781–1863) and its contribution to Japanese political thought and policy during the early–modern era. New Theses is found to be indispensable to our understanding of Japan’s transformation from a feudal to a modern state. Focusing on Aizawa, Bob Wakabayashi traces the development of xenophobia during the Tokugawa period and examines the basis of anti-Western sentiment. He shows how knowledge of Christianity inspired Aizawa to develop the potent concept of kokutai (“what is essential to a nation”). His analysis explains why the Edobakufu’s policies of national isolation (sakoku) and armed expulsion of Westerners (jōi) gained widespread support in the late Tokugawa. Wakabayashi also describes how information on Western affairs and world conditions decisively altered Tokugawa Confucian conceptions of civilization and barbarism, and how this in turn enabled the Japanese to redefine their nation’s relationship to China and the West. Rather than place Aizawa and his New Theses of 1825 at the beginning of a process leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Wakabayashi discusses New Theses in conjunction with the bakufu’s Expulsion Edict issued in the same year. He concludes that the convergence of the two events in 1825 marks the emergence of modern nationalism in Japan, and therefore should perhaps be seen as more epoch–making than the 1868 Restoration itself. The study also presents a complete translation of New Theses."
Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan
Author: Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684172632
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
"This study analyzes New Theses (Shinron) by Aizawa Seishisai (1781–1863) and its contribution to Japanese political thought and policy during the early–modern era. New Theses is found to be indispensable to our understanding of Japan’s transformation from a feudal to a modern state. Focusing on Aizawa, Bob Wakabayashi traces the development of xenophobia during the Tokugawa period and examines the basis of anti-Western sentiment. He shows how knowledge of Christianity inspired Aizawa to develop the potent concept of kokutai (“what is essential to a nation”). His analysis explains why the Edobakufu’s policies of national isolation (sakoku) and armed expulsion of Westerners (jōi) gained widespread support in the late Tokugawa. Wakabayashi also describes how information on Western affairs and world conditions decisively altered Tokugawa Confucian conceptions of civilization and barbarism, and how this in turn enabled the Japanese to redefine their nation’s relationship to China and the West. Rather than place Aizawa and his New Theses of 1825 at the beginning of a process leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Wakabayashi discusses New Theses in conjunction with the bakufu’s Expulsion Edict issued in the same year. He concludes that the convergence of the two events in 1825 marks the emergence of modern nationalism in Japan, and therefore should perhaps be seen as more epoch–making than the 1868 Restoration itself. The study also presents a complete translation of New Theses."
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684172632
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 359
Book Description
"This study analyzes New Theses (Shinron) by Aizawa Seishisai (1781–1863) and its contribution to Japanese political thought and policy during the early–modern era. New Theses is found to be indispensable to our understanding of Japan’s transformation from a feudal to a modern state. Focusing on Aizawa, Bob Wakabayashi traces the development of xenophobia during the Tokugawa period and examines the basis of anti-Western sentiment. He shows how knowledge of Christianity inspired Aizawa to develop the potent concept of kokutai (“what is essential to a nation”). His analysis explains why the Edobakufu’s policies of national isolation (sakoku) and armed expulsion of Westerners (jōi) gained widespread support in the late Tokugawa. Wakabayashi also describes how information on Western affairs and world conditions decisively altered Tokugawa Confucian conceptions of civilization and barbarism, and how this in turn enabled the Japanese to redefine their nation’s relationship to China and the West. Rather than place Aizawa and his New Theses of 1825 at the beginning of a process leading up to the Meiji Restoration, Wakabayashi discusses New Theses in conjunction with the bakufu’s Expulsion Edict issued in the same year. He concludes that the convergence of the two events in 1825 marks the emergence of modern nationalism in Japan, and therefore should perhaps be seen as more epoch–making than the 1868 Restoration itself. The study also presents a complete translation of New Theses."
Anti-foreignism and Western Learning in Early-modern Japan
Author: Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi
Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center
ISBN: 9780674040373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
ESSAYS ON THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE JAPANESE BETWEEN 1600-1870.
Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center
ISBN: 9780674040373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
ESSAYS ON THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE JAPANESE BETWEEN 1600-1870.
Mito and the Politics of Reform in Early Modern Japan
Author: Michael Alan Thornton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793641900
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
This book examines early modern Mito, today an ordinary provincial capital on the outskirts of the Tokyo commuter belt, but once the headquarters of Mito Domain, one of the most consequential places in all of Japan. As one of just three senior branches of the Tokugawa family—which ruled over Japan for 260 years—Mito’s ruling family enjoyed unparalleled status and exerted enormous influence throughout its history. In the seventeenth century, its scholars produced some of early modern Japan’s most important historical scholarship. In the eighteenth century, it developed a robust and pragmatic program of reform to confront depopulation and foreign threats. In the nineteenth century, it became the birthplace of a revolutionary ideology that transformed Japan into a modern, imperial nation. The power of these ideas swept across Japan, inspiring activists everywhere to take up the cause of building a new nation—but they also devastated Mito, leading to a brutal civil war that scarred its people for generations. This book complements existing studies of Mito’s ideas by focusing on the history of Mito as a place and telling the stories of Mito’s politicians, reformers, and ordinary people from the beginning of the domain’s history to its end.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793641900
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
This book examines early modern Mito, today an ordinary provincial capital on the outskirts of the Tokyo commuter belt, but once the headquarters of Mito Domain, one of the most consequential places in all of Japan. As one of just three senior branches of the Tokugawa family—which ruled over Japan for 260 years—Mito’s ruling family enjoyed unparalleled status and exerted enormous influence throughout its history. In the seventeenth century, its scholars produced some of early modern Japan’s most important historical scholarship. In the eighteenth century, it developed a robust and pragmatic program of reform to confront depopulation and foreign threats. In the nineteenth century, it became the birthplace of a revolutionary ideology that transformed Japan into a modern, imperial nation. The power of these ideas swept across Japan, inspiring activists everywhere to take up the cause of building a new nation—but they also devastated Mito, leading to a brutal civil war that scarred its people for generations. This book complements existing studies of Mito’s ideas by focusing on the history of Mito as a place and telling the stories of Mito’s politicians, reformers, and ordinary people from the beginning of the domain’s history to its end.
Evanescence and Form
Author: C. Inouye
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230615481
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book explores the Japanese notion of hakanasa - the evanescence of all things. Responses to this idea have been various and even contradictory: asceticism, fatalism, conformism, hedonism, materialism, and careerism. This book examines the ties between an epistemology of constant change and Japan's formal emphasis on etiquette and visuality.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230615481
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book explores the Japanese notion of hakanasa - the evanescence of all things. Responses to this idea have been various and even contradictory: asceticism, fatalism, conformism, hedonism, materialism, and careerism. This book examines the ties between an epistemology of constant change and Japan's formal emphasis on etiquette and visuality.
Re-Viewing the Past
Author: Sean D. O’Reilly
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501336037
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Re-Viewing the Past: The Uses of History in the Cinema of Imperial Japan analyzes the complicated relationship between history films, audiences, reviewers and censors in Japan for the critically important years from 1925-1945. First contextualizing the history of the popular “Bakumatsu” period (1853-1868), the moment of Japan's emergence as a modern nation, Sean O'Reilly paves the way for a reinterpretation of Japanese pre and postwar cinema. Setting a film in the Bakumatsu period offered 'cultural breathing room' to both filmmakers and viewers, offering a cinematic space where apolitical entertainment and now-forbidden themes like romance still reigned. Some filmmakers-and viewers-even conceived of these films as being a form of resistance against Japan's growing militarism. As comparisons between the popularity of such films versus that of state-sponsored propaganda films show, audiences responded enthusiastically to these glimmers of resistance. O'Reilly argues that we should turn our attention to the much more popular films of the time that were major hits with audiences in order to understand what resonated with wartime spectators, and to speculate about why this might have been the case. Including clips of these rare films, a so-far neglected area of Japanese film history is now firmly situated in context to offer a thought-provoking, multidisciplinary approach.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501336037
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Re-Viewing the Past: The Uses of History in the Cinema of Imperial Japan analyzes the complicated relationship between history films, audiences, reviewers and censors in Japan for the critically important years from 1925-1945. First contextualizing the history of the popular “Bakumatsu” period (1853-1868), the moment of Japan's emergence as a modern nation, Sean O'Reilly paves the way for a reinterpretation of Japanese pre and postwar cinema. Setting a film in the Bakumatsu period offered 'cultural breathing room' to both filmmakers and viewers, offering a cinematic space where apolitical entertainment and now-forbidden themes like romance still reigned. Some filmmakers-and viewers-even conceived of these films as being a form of resistance against Japan's growing militarism. As comparisons between the popularity of such films versus that of state-sponsored propaganda films show, audiences responded enthusiastically to these glimmers of resistance. O'Reilly argues that we should turn our attention to the much more popular films of the time that were major hits with audiences in order to understand what resonated with wartime spectators, and to speculate about why this might have been the case. Including clips of these rare films, a so-far neglected area of Japanese film history is now firmly situated in context to offer a thought-provoking, multidisciplinary approach.
Technology and the Culture of Progress in Meiji Japan
Author: David G. Wittner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134080476
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
Introduction : Meiji modernization revisited -- Tradition and modernization -- Iron machines and brick buildings : the material culture of silk reeling -- Smelting for civilization : technical choice and the modernization of the Iron industry -- Bunmei kaika to gijutsu : technology's role in 'civilization and enlightenment' -- Conclusion : from technological determinism to techno-imperialism.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134080476
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
Introduction : Meiji modernization revisited -- Tradition and modernization -- Iron machines and brick buildings : the material culture of silk reeling -- Smelting for civilization : technical choice and the modernization of the Iron industry -- Bunmei kaika to gijutsu : technology's role in 'civilization and enlightenment' -- Conclusion : from technological determinism to techno-imperialism.
The Mito Ideology
Author: J. Victor Koschmann
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520337050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520337050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.
Shiga Shigetaka 1863-1927
Author: Masako Gavin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113611906X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Shiga Shigetaka was a pioneering advocate of the preservation of Japan's cultural identity in the face of increasing pressure from the west. This book presents a realistic picture of Shiga's beliefs and thus gain insight into modern Japanese intellectual history.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113611906X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Shiga Shigetaka was a pioneering advocate of the preservation of Japan's cultural identity in the face of increasing pressure from the west. This book presents a realistic picture of Shiga's beliefs and thus gain insight into modern Japanese intellectual history.
The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion
Author: Bernhard Scheid
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134168748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
The Japanese Middle Ages were a period when forms of secrecy dominated religious practice. This fascinating collection traces out the secret characteristics and practices in Japanese religion, as well as analyzing the decline of religious esotericism in Japan. The essays in this impressive work refer to Esoteric Buddhism as the core of Japan’s "culture of secrecy". Esoteric Buddhism developed in almost all Buddhist countries of Asia, but it was of particular importance in Japan where its impact went far beyond the borders of Buddhism, also affecting Shinto as well as non-religious forms of discourse. The contributors focus on the impact of Esoteric Buddhism on Japanese culture, and also include comparative chapters on India and China. Whilst concentrating on the Japanese medieval period, this book will give readers familiar with present day Japan, many explanations for the still visible remnants of Japan’s medieval culture of secrecy.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134168748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
The Japanese Middle Ages were a period when forms of secrecy dominated religious practice. This fascinating collection traces out the secret characteristics and practices in Japanese religion, as well as analyzing the decline of religious esotericism in Japan. The essays in this impressive work refer to Esoteric Buddhism as the core of Japan’s "culture of secrecy". Esoteric Buddhism developed in almost all Buddhist countries of Asia, but it was of particular importance in Japan where its impact went far beyond the borders of Buddhism, also affecting Shinto as well as non-religious forms of discourse. The contributors focus on the impact of Esoteric Buddhism on Japanese culture, and also include comparative chapters on India and China. Whilst concentrating on the Japanese medieval period, this book will give readers familiar with present day Japan, many explanations for the still visible remnants of Japan’s medieval culture of secrecy.
Private Academies of the Tokugawa Period
Author: Richard Rubinger
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400856728
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Widening the focus of previous studies of Japanese education during the Tokugawa period, Richard Rubinger emphasizes the role of the shijuku, or private academies of advanced studies, in preparing Japan for its modern transformation. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400856728
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Widening the focus of previous studies of Japanese education during the Tokugawa period, Richard Rubinger emphasizes the role of the shijuku, or private academies of advanced studies, in preparing Japan for its modern transformation. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.