Description
Book SynopsisDeparting from earlier studies of kokugaku (which means "the study of our country"), this title considers how three of the more marginalized participants in the movement challenged its principal founder and engaged its fundamental concerns about what defines the Japanese nation and unifies those within it.
Trade Review“
Before the Nation is a significant addition to the field of Japanese intellectual history and a very fine book.”—Leslie Pincus, author of
Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shuzo and the Rise of National Aesthetics“In
Before the Nation Susan L. Burns offers rock-solid research on a crucial topic in the intellectual history of state-formation and nationalism in Japan.”—J. Victor Koschmann, author of
Revolution and Subjectivity in Postwar JapanTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: Between Community and the Nation 1
1 Late Tokugawa Society and the Crisis of Community 16
2 Before the Kojikiden: The Divine Age Narrative in Tokugawa Japan 35
3 Motoori Norinaga: Discovering Japan 68
4 Ueda Akinari: History and Community 102
5 Fujitani Mitsue: The Poetics of Community 131
6 Tachibana Moribe: Cosmology and Community 158
7 National Literature, Intellectual History, and the New Kokugaku 187
Conclusion: Imagined Japan(s) 220
Appendix: "Reading" the Kojiki 227
Notes 231
Works Cited 259
Index 271
