Cognitive Resonance

This is entirely a postscript, since I have been ridiculously busy the past few months--I was in Tokyo for 10 days last month, and I'll be heading back for another two weeks this Saturday for the Kadokawa Media Mix Summer Program at the University of Tokyo, which is quite exciting.

In the meantime, however, last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking the academic/educational track of AnimeExpo, which was even more enjoyable than 2012. I was on the "Japanese Society and Japan's History" panel, and I spoke about "Record of Dying Days: The Alternate History of Ooku."

Thanks to MIkhail Koulikov for organizing the programming, to AX for hosting, and to everyone who attended! 

I had the privilege of giving a guest lecture on anime, manga, and folktales in Japanese popular culture at the Asian Art Museum as part of the UC Berkeley History-Social Studies Project last summer, and the video is online at the AAM Education site. I'll actually be doing some more work with the AAM this summer, so watch this space for more updates!

I passed my qualifying exam this morning. I couldn't be happier. It went great, and I had a great time. With many thanks to my examiners, and to everyone who's provided support this semester--moral, caloric, emotional, etc, etc.

I'm one of five recipients of the Berkeley Center for New Media's Summer Research Awards this year. Many thanks!

Bibliographic Data: Waswo, Ann. “The Transformation of Rural Society, 1900-1950.” In The Cambridge History of Japan vol. 6, ed. Peter Duus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 541-605.

Main Argument: Land reform during the occupation, "though certainly important, was the culmination of slow, evolutionary processes that date from the late nineteenth century" (542). The origins of that process lie in four early Meiji policies: the land tax reform, the reform of local administration, compulsory elementary education and universal military conscription.

( Transformation of rural society )

Bibliographic Data: Peattie, Mark R. “The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945.” In The Cambridge History of Japan vol. 6, ed. Peter Duus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 217-70.

Main Argument: "Japanese imperialism was more situational than deliberate in origin. The aggressive movement of Japanese forces into Korea, China, and Micronesia was as much due to the absence of effective power to resist it as it was to specific Japanese policies and planning" (223). Also, "the inner logic of Japan's strategic doctrine thus committed the empire to ever-expanding and ever-receding security goals, each colonial acquisition being seen as a 'base' or 'outpost' from which the empire could, in some way, control a sphere of influence over more distant areas" (220).

( The colonial empire )
Bibliographic Data: Najita, Tetsuo and Harry Harootunian. "Japanese Revolt Against the West: Political and Cultural Criticism in the Twentieth Century." In The Cambridge History of Japan vol. 6, ed. Peter Duus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 711-74.

Main Argument:

Many believed that by realizing the best of East and West, Japan had achieved a new cosmopolitan culture. The recognition of having achieved this unprecedented synthesis validated the subsequent belief that Japan was uniquely qualified to assume leadership in Asia, although much of the rhetoric that the writers used referred to the world at large. Whereas an earlier cosmopolitanism promoted the ideal of cultural diversity and equivalence based on the principle of a common humanity, which served also to restrain excessive claims to exceptionalism, the new culturalism of the 1930s proposed that Japan was appointed to lead the world to a higher level of cultural synthesis that surpassed Western modernism itself. (712)

( Fascism in Japan )