2021

January 22nd (Online Meeting)

Tameyuki Amano as Editor of the Tōyō Keizai Shimpō (Oriental Economist)

Aiko Ikeo, Waseda University, Faculty of Commerce

Tameyuki Amano (1861–1938) was an economist, economic journalist, statesman, educator, and a manager of economic magazine publishing company in the Meiji era. At Tokyo University (established in 1877), Amano took courses in the History of Philosophy, Political Economy, and Political Philosophy during 1879–1882. Lectures in these courses were conducted in English by Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), a graduate from Harvard College. After his graduation from university in 1882, Amano taught Political Economy in Japanese at Tokyo Senmon Gakko (Waseda University) from the time of its establishment (in 1882). Amano was eager to issue economic periodicals. Amano was elected as one of the first members of the House of Representatives in 1890 and he lost during the second election in 1892. In 1895, Amano became a guest writer for the Toyo Keizai Shimpo (Oriental Economist) when Chuzo Machida established it as an economic magazine issued every ten days. Amano wrote a by-line editorial and other anonymous articles in every issue. After Machida was transferred to the Bank of Japan in 1897, Amano assumed responsibility for running the publishing company. Amano wrote influential editorials on domestic taxation, diplomatic relations and international trade, monetary systems and public bonds, modern banking, and exchange markets (stocks and rice). Moreover, Toyo Keizai Shimpo was exchanged for the Yale Review for a while. At Yale University, Kanichi Asakawa (1873–1948) (a graduate from Tokyo Senmon Gakko) began to teach in 1907.

February 5th (Online Meeting; Video available here)

British Troops in Japan: 1864 - 1875 – Highlighting ‘The Thin Red Line’ Around Yokohama

Thomas French, Ritsumeikan University

Between 1864 and 1875 thousands of British troops resided in a purpose build garrison on the slopes overlooking Yokohama. Despite forming the majority of the permanent foreign community for years and being central to many events and developments during their residence, the history of the garrison has been almost entirely unexamined in English. Within accounts of the era the black, white, and grey tones of the diplomacy aspect shine through and the glitter of the silver, gold, and copper of the economic and trading links is reflected, but the “dash of red”, then prominent in the landscape, has faded into the background. This paper argues the significance of the British garrison has been underrated within studies of the period and seeks to restore their visibility within the scholarship, alongside highlighting the roles they played in a volatile and dynamic era of Japanese history. A number of fresh interpretations based on hitherto unemployed primary sources are presented, as are some initial assessments of first-hand accounts of participants.

March 12th (Online Meeting)

The "Special Companies" and Japanese Economic History, 1880-2020

Simon James Bytheway, Nihon University

At the end of the Second World War over a thousand “wartime institutions” were ordered to cease operations by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Tokyo. Less than a century later, very little is known about these institutions deemed central to the Japanese war effort. At their very core were the parastatal “special companies” (Tokushu-gaisha): the special banks and financial institutions (including the Bank of Japan and the colonial central banks), the huge colonial development companies (exemplified by the South Manchuria Railway Company), the vast array of Manchurian industrial enterprises, and the myriad of closely-related subsidiaries and spin-off companies. Ostensibly, all of these public policy special companies were closed-down by the end of September 1945, often with US Army MPs symbolically taking control of their head-offices in Tokyo! In reality, though, many of these companies stayed in business, continued to function, and often were the only institution capable of providing goods and services to a certain sector of the economy (that is, they were “too big to fail”). Similarly, many large and once-profitable special companies were able to reform, regroup, and re-capitalise their operations, particularly in the years after the Allied Occupation. Remarkably, a surprisingly large number of key former special companies are among Japan’s largest companies and are now globally active in their respective fields, especially in banking and finance. Against this background, my presentation also aims to examine how the former special companies fared in the post-war period, and continue to shape Japan’s economic development in the twenty-first century.

April 9th (Online Meeting; Video available here)

Henry Miller and the Allure of Japan

Wayne Arnold, University of Kitakyushu

Throughout his life, American author Henry Miller (1891-1980) found himself drawn to Japan. This allure was not one-sided. As early as 1940, Japanese literary scholars started to take note of Miller’s literature, specifically his three primary works published in Paris during the 1930s, Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939). Miller’s rise to fame across Japan began in 1953, resulting from the publication of the quickly banned Japanese versions of Cancer and Sexus (1949). Perhaps his most famous association with the country occurred in 1967, with the highly publicized and ill-fated marriage to jazz pianist Hoki Tokuda (ホキ徳田). Yet, previous biographies on Miller have overlooked a rich history of mutual infatuation between Miller and Japan. No extensive research in Japan has approached the topic of the Japanese interest in Miller. This talk provides an overview of this hitherto unexplored relationship. Drawing on archival materials in the United States and Japan, privately held letters from Miller in Japan, interviews with Japanese who knew Miller, and the myriad Japanese weekly magazines reporting on Miller, I outline the significance of Japan for Miller, and Miller for Japan. What will be revealed is a new avenue through which to examine the post-war interest in Japan with American culture and literature as perceived through Miller’s personal life and novels.

May 14th (Online Meeting; Video available - please contact speaker at ivantriola91@gmail.com)

Religion on Your Doorstep: The Magazines and Newspapers Craze that Revolutionized Religious Propaganda in Japan between the 1920s and the 1930s

Ivan Triola, University of Cambridge

In the early twentieth century, religions risked becoming irrelevant because of the pressure to conform to the international standards of the modern nation, in which science-based thought was considered superior and more adequate to the new era. However, religious organizations found a way to legitimize their belief systems in modern Japan and potentially attract new followers: regular publishing. By the 1930s, magazines had become a medium of national mass consumption. Production and distribution of religious magazines/newspapers started as early as the 1890s but became widespread only after the 1920s. Recently, scholarship on media and religions has focused particularly on digital media, often overlooking the role of print, especially in the case of newer religions (known in religious studies as New Religions and New-New Religions) which became popular in the 1900s. Yet, to understand the dynamics behind the growth of New Religions, it is imperative to explore the historical significance of print media in shaping their success, as print remains the only constant of propaganda in the twentieth century.

By investigating the history and content of newspapers and magazines published by three New Religions (Tenrikyō, Ōmoto, and Kurozumikyō), I argue that increased circulation of mainstream monthly and weekly papers in the late Taishō (1912 – 1926) and early Shōwa (1926 – 1989) Japan became also the base for a revolution in proselytism and helped religions maintain currency. This paper concludes that religious propaganda underwent a revolution for three main reasons: 1) to answer the demand coming from a modern society of consumers by adapting to the market requests: i.e. people loved magazines, religious organizations provided them; 2) subscription-based papers eliminated the necessity of proximity to conduct propaganda, facilitating national (and even international) scale expansion through doorstep delivery service; 3) finally, magazines and newspapers dethroned (Buddhist) scriptures from their long-held monopoly of religious print by providing fresh content, being affordable enough to attract followers, and especially conveying religious teachings in a light, palatable format while also creating print-based religious communities.

June 11th (Online Meeting)

The Aroma of a place in the Sunshine: Breathing in Japanese history through the fiction of Endō Shūsaku

Gwyn McClelland, University of New England

Catholic fiction writer, Endō Shūsaku (1923-1996) wrote originally for an exclusively Japanese audience, although an increasing number of translations of his works have become available world-wide. Endō’s best-selling novels are often set in historic contexts, sometimes touching upon his own experience as a Christian in a largely non-Christian country. By his use of aroma throughout his fiction Endō evokes features of an aesthetic sensibility – dissonant aromas and scents of deathliness and life, expressed in the relationship of Christianity to the landscape – or what he calls the ‘swamp’ of Japan. Swamps are themselves caught between deathliness and life, an ecological community reeking of decay essential in itself for life, and so, this metaphor hints of Endō’s concern to find the transcendent in places which give off an offensive odor. The work of Julia Kristeva and Mary Douglas about boundaries between death and life, and about dirt, or filth, support my discussion. Endō subtly critiques perceptions of impurity that impinge on socio-economic and political class. Endō struggled to identify with a Christian ‘set of clothing’, which clashed with his Japanese sensibility – resulting in ambiguity in his narratives, fiction-writing and reflections. By analysing Endō’s use of smell as a fictional-device, I aim as a historian to investigate a range of aromas, scents and smells in the writing of Japanese history. I pick up on Endō’s use of olfactory tropes as he linked spiritual and transcendental themes to bodies and matter. The aromas he writes of are located in space and time and present socio-cultural, psychological and political interpretations and I consider how Endō’s writing could be considered as a sensory transnationalism. Within Endō’s oeuvre, we discern a European-Orientalist perspective through a Japanese sensibility, including a socio-cultural classism and a spiritualist interpretation of stench as sin.

July 9th (Online Meeting - re-scheduled to February 2022)

Navigating Development Financing in the Waning Cold War: India, World Bank and Japan in Economic Liberalisation, 1981-1991

Reiko Kanazawa, University of Edinburgh

From 1989 to 1991, India was in the middle of two crises: political instability with the assassinations or resignations of prime ministers or finance officials, combined with a mounting economic balance of payments crisis. After a series of negotiations with World Bank and other actors (still surrounded by rumour), in July 1991, Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister under P. V. Narasimha Rao's Prime Ministership, declared India would embark on reforms and fully liberalise its economy. Policy analysts focus on the rationale behind India's management of national finances. Development historians focus on the skills in economic diplomacy of Indian finance officials. International relations scholars focus on India's close relationship with World Bank and increasingly assertive negotiation tactics with other donors. Significant questions remain for broader global histories of development in the 1980s. What was the state of development financing after the oil shocks and floating exchange rates? What new actors are involved in development financing and for what reasons? And why did India have a relatively smooth liberalisation transition despite a major political crisis?

This paper tries to answer the above questions by re-telling India's path to formal economic liberalisation, paying attention to the trajectories of three key actors: India (emerging economy), World Bank (development financing institution) and Japan (donor and lender). A critical aspect is making sense of Japan's increased interest in expanding economic relations with India in the 1980s, most successfully in the Maruti-Suzuki venture, and how this impacted upon the politics of negotiating liberalisation. Bringing together new archival material, it considers how historians understand and make meaning of this period of economic liberalisation/structural adjustment in the 1980s. It would be grateful for feedback from Japanese history experts.

August 27th (Online Meeting)

From Conceptualism to Kyūdō: "Conditioning" in the Practice of Hirokazu Kosaka

Keenan Jay, University of Chicago

In 1973 Hirokazu Kosaka ended his young artistic career in order to become ordained as a Shingon Buddhist priest. Raised in the Kansai area of Japan but educated at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Kosaka artistic trajectory provides a compelling case study of postwar cultural hybridity between Japanese and American art. Historicization of Kosaka’s work has typically framed and analyzed his early practice through the categories of Southern California conceptual and performance art during the late 1960s and early 1970s. While this framework is vital, particularly to establishing the relatively little scholarship that exists on Kosaka’s work, my aim is toward a more specific analysis of his Japanese influences. This presentation therefore focuses on the influence of the Gutai Art Association on Kosaka and his training in kyūdō (Japanese traditional archery) in order to elucidate what he calls “conditioning,” a key aspect of his practice that distinguishes it from other "performance" artists of the period. The centrality of "conditioning" to Kosaka’s oeuvre is supported by his use of the term “body art” rather than the more common “performance art" when discussing his early works. I propose that his use of the term indicates a rejection of performance's implied viewer-artist binary and instead solicits analysis through a Japanese Buddhist training of embodied, egoless action. To end, I consider how this notion of “conditioning” might contribute to and broaden a Neo-Avant-Garde discourse.

September 10th (Online Meeting)

Rightward Pragmatic Drift among Tibetans in Japan

Stephen Christopher, Tokyo Metropolitan University

In the 1960s, five Tibetan schoolboys were relocated from India to Saitama, near Tokyo. The story of their relocation and subsequent role in Japanese Anti-Communist cultural politics has received almost no scholarly attention. The most prominent first- and second-generation Tibetans are still alive and their narratives are unique when juxtaposed with the Tibetan diaspora settled in western countries. In the case of Japan, many of the sponsors were Japanese rightists who exerted considerably influence; moreover, between the 1970s-90s, Tibetans struggled to belong (and garner political support for Tibetan independence) because many Japanese leftists were opposed the ‘Dalai Lama clique’ and shared sympathies with Chinese Communism. Tibetan narratives, full of loss and potential, show how the Tibetan diaspora in Japan were (and still sometimes are) pragmatically drifting rightward to accommodate their patrons: Japanese rightwing, militaristic, pas-Asianist and anti-Han groups. Through ethnographic findings with Tibetans and Japanese supporters, I argue that while political self-identification is messy in Japan, the contemporary Left/Right political polarity of the Tibetan support community has its roots in post-war anti-Communist politics. I argue that Tibetan rightward pragmatic drift mirrors the niche positioning of Tibetan Buddhism in Japan--and impacts everything from Chinese propaganda, Japanese volunteerism, transnational patronage and Tibetan sociality.

November 26th (Online Meeting)

Nihonjinron as Deterritorialization: The Late Soviet Union and the Discourse on Japan's Cultural Uniqueness

Alexander Bukh, Victoria University of Wellington

This talk analyses the discourse on Japan’s cultural identity that emerged in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and dominated the Soviet public’s image of Japan throughout the following decades. Its purpose is twofold. The first is to critically examine the overwhelmingly popular discourse on Japan’s culture and national character, and the factors that brought about its popularity. The second and the broader goal, is to contribute to the literature on nihonjinron and the role performed by constructs of an exotic ‘other’ in various socio-political contexts. By locating the essentialist image of Japan in the broader discursive context of the late Soviet period, this paper shows that nihonjinron as a form of knowledge is not necessarily a site where hierarchical relationships between the ‘self’ and the exotic ‘other’ of the hegemonic discourse are produced. Depending on the broader discursive context, this paper shows, essentialist images of the 'other' may actually constitute a subversion in relation to the hegemonic discourse.