Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique

Description

By any measure, Japan's modern empire was formidable. The only major non-western colonial power in the 20th century, Japan controlled a vast area of Asia and numerous archipelagos in the Pacific Ocean. The massive extraction of resources and extensive cultural assimilation policies radically impacted the lives of millions of Asians and Micronesians, and the political, economic, and cultural ramifications of this era are still felt today. The Japanese empire lasted from 1869-1945. During this time, how was the Japanese imperial project understood, imagined, and lived? Reading Colonial Japan is a unique anthology that aims to deepen knowledge of Japanese colonialism(s) by providing an eclectic selection of translated Japanese primary sources and analytical essays that illuminate Japan's many and varied colonial projects. The primary documents highlight how central cultural production and dissemination were to the colonial effort, while accentuating the myriad ways colonialism permeated every facet of life. The variety of genres the explored includes legal documents, children's literature, cookbooks, serialized comics, and literary texts by well-known authors of the time. These cultural works, produced by a broad spectrum of "ordinary" Japanese citizens (a housewife in Manchuria, settlers in Korea, manga artists and fiction writers in mainland Japan, and so on), functioned effectively to reinforce the official policies that controlled and violated the lives of the colonized throughout Japan's empire. By making available and analyzing a wide-range of sources that represent "media" during the Japanese colonial period, Reading Colonial Japan draws attention to the powerful role that language and imagination played in producing the material realities of Japanese colonialism. Contents Contributors Acknowledgments Note on Japanese Names Introduction - Michele M. Mason and Helen J. S. Lee Chapter One Text: The Shores of the Sorachi River - Kunikida Doppo, Translation by Michele M. Mason Context/Critique: Writing Ainu Out/Writing Japanese In: The “Nature” of Japanese Colonialism in Hokkaido - Michele M. Mason Chapter Two Text: Hokkaido Former Natives Protection Law, Translation by Richard Siddle Context/Critique Rule in the Name of “Protection”: The Vocabulary of Colonialism - Komori Yōichi, Translation by Michele M. Mason Chapter Three Text: Officer Ukuma - Ikemiyagi Sekihō, Translation by Davinder L. Bhowmik Context/Critique: Subaltern Identity in Okinawa - Davinder L. Bhowmik Chapter Four Text: Demon Bird - Satō Haruo, Translation by Robert Tierney Context/Critique: Violence, Borders, Identity: An Ethnographic Narrative Set in Colonial Taiwan - Robert Tierney Chapter Five Text: The Manual of Home Cuisine - The Women’s Division of the Green Flag Association, Translation by Helen J. S. Lee Context/Critique: Eating for the Emperor: The Nationalization of Settler Homes and Bodies in the Kōminka Era - Helen J. S. Lee Chapter Six Text: Wolf Forest, Basket Forest, and Thief Forest - Miyazawa Kenji, Translation by Kota Inoue Context/Critique: A Little Story of Settler Colonialism: Imperialist Consciousness and Children’s Literature in the 1920s - Kota Inoue Chapter Seven Text: Manchu Girl - Koizumi Kikue, Translation by Kimberly T. Kono Context/Critique: Imperializing Motherhood: The Education of a “Manchu Girl” in Colonial Manchuria - Kimberly T. Kono Chapter Eight Text: The Adventures of Dankichi - Shimada Keizō, Translation by Helen J. S. Lee Context/Critique: Popular Orientalism and Japanese Views of Asia - Kawamura Minato, Translation by Kota Inoue and Helen J. S. Lee