2014
February 21st
Reform the Stove, Recover the Forest: The Ondol Problem and the Politics of Efficiency in Colonial Korea
David Fedman, PhD Candidate, Stanford University
Few features of Koreans’ everyday life elicited as much comment from sojourners to turn-of-the-century Korea as the ondol, the radiant heated-floor system conventional to Korean dwellings. Routinely highlighted as a distinctive feature of life in the peninsula, Japanese settlers and officials took great interest in Koreans’ so-called “ondol lifestyle” (ondoru seikatsu): a rhythm to and outlook on daily life structured by the heating of the home. Indeed, to many commentators the ondol formed a source not just of heat but of a peculiarly Korean disposition.
Yet for the corps of Japanese foresters dispatched to Korea upon its annexation there was not just an ondol lifestyle; there was also an ondol problem (ondoru mondai)—the unregulated use of forest biomass for fuel. In the eyes of forestry experts tasked with the reclamation of Korea’s “bald mountains,” the Korean home and its uneconomical stove was ground zero of deforestation, then linked to larger fears of environmental and national decline. But foresters were not the only ones to call for reform to the stove. From doctors concerned with public health to community leaders concerned with sloth, a wide array of critics, both Korean and Japanese, put forward a new vision for the Korean home and its hearth. Bringing together these various and often conflicting agendas, this talk explores the ondol as a site of contestation over conservation, modernization, and resource management—what I call the politics of efficiency in colonial Korea. In so doing, I seek not only to examine the often-conflicting perceptions of waste, conservation, and ecological modernity in Korea but also to consider the ways in which Korea's ondol problem was entangled with concurrent debates about race, gender, and cultural assimilation in Japan's empire.
March 28th
Envisioning the Imperial: Empress Teimei, Feminine Decorum, and Mass Media Photography
Alison Miller, PhD Candidate, Art History, University of Kansas
This presentation will examine the political significance of the image of the Japanese Empress Teimei (1884-1951) with a focus on issues of gender and class. Set against a background of overseas militarism, turbulent domestic politics, an evolving middle class, and the expansion of roles for women to play outside the home, the early decades of the twentieth century in Japan were a crucial period for the formation of modern ideas about femininity and womanhood.
Before, during, and after the rule of her husband Emperor Taishō (1879-1926; r. 1912-1926), Empress Teimei held a highly public role, and was frequently seen in a variety of visual media. As a public figure, Empress Teimei held great sway over women’s decorum in the first three decades of the twentieth century. She was, for example, the first Empress to establish monogamous modern family relations, and was the first modern Empress to mother the successive Emperor.
Through the investigation of various discursive forms of visual materials featuring Empress Teimei, this talk aims to reveal the political significance of Teimei as a role model of middle-class and aristocratic femininity. In particular, I will examine newspaper photographs featuring Empress Teimei and Emperor Taishō to determine how the gendered imperial image changed during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
May 30th
“Tokyo’s Acropolis” and Antiproduction: Understanding Yasukuni Shrine as a Mode of Governance in the Meiji Period
Joshua Baxter, PhD Candidate, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto
The Yasukuni Issue has received a lot of international attention since Prime Minister Nakasone paid his respects to the war dead on August 15, 1985. Since then it has been a cyclical problem both domestically and internationally and from many perspectives including law, religion, politics and foreign diplomacy. Nonetheless, given the strong opinions and political ramifications that surround Yasukuni Shrine very little has been written on its emergence in the Meiji period in English or Japanese. Most scholars simply cover its early history by noting some key dates before jumping into discussions on the emperor system, state religion, and war. Generally any mention of Yasukuni’s history is to preface the postwar issues that the shrine presents to Japanese society. A few scholars have even suggested that Yasukuni Shrine didn’t even enter into the consciousness of the Japanese people until the Taisho period. This project differs from previous scholarship by approaching Yasukuni historically and by focussing on its political economy to produce a critique of the shrine and Japanese historiography.
The aim of this chapter is to examine the political economy of Yasukuni Shrine in order to understand how it is connected to the development of capitalism and the commodity form. In contrast to today, throughout Meiji the shrine grounds were more similar to Edo period entertainment districts, such as Asakusa and Ryōgoku, with their freak shows and fun houses. The annual horse races, fireworks, sumo matches and even occasional visits by a circus meant the shrine had more than just religious and political implications. In fact, in 1907 Nagano Uheiji, a Meiji period architect, declared that Yasukuni Shrine and Kudan hill should be made into “Tokyo’s Acropolis” with its own Romanesque forum dedicated to misemono and a marketplace. Key to understanding how this carnivalesque atmosphere is connected to the development of a modern economy is Deleuze and Guattari’s formulation of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and, in particular, their concept of antiproduction as a means of the modern state to ensure the production of surplus value. Through the policing of entertainment such as the misemono it becomes evident that the state needed to discipline subjects on how to produce surplus value which in turn produced the necessity of the state to then adjudicate these surpluses.
June 20 2014
Before the Bombs: Rentogen and Medicine in Japan’s Irradiated Pasts
Shi-Lin Loh, Harvard University, History and East Asian Languages/Science and Technology Studies
Wilhelm Roentgen’s late-nineteenth century discovery of X-rays is widely recognized as a milestone in the histories of radiation science and technology. In terms of their broader social impact, X-rays not only revolutionized the relationship of human bodies to medical treatment, but also helped to popularize the understanding of radiation as seemingly magical phenomenon that affected living flesh. This paper conducts an historically-oriented inquiry into the incorporation of X-rays (rentogen) into medical practice, focusing on the case study of Japan during the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The growing use of X-ray machines for the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and illnesses changed how medical practitioners saw human bodies – both literally and figuratively – and even the purpose of medicine itself. In order for X-rays to be used as a tool of medicine, they required a combination of basic scientific knowledge, the maintenance of complicated instruments, and the manufacture of commodities. In this way, their practical application in medicine involved not only doctors, nurses and patients, but also technicians, scientists, and manufacturers. I present the working argument that the development and use of X-ray or rentogen technology thus played an essential part in producing what we might think of as the phenomenon of scientific modernity in medicine and society.