Description
Book SynopsisNew Times in Modern Japan concerns the transformation of time--the reckoning of time--during Japan''s Meiji period, specifically from around 1870 to 1900. Time literally changed as the archipelago synchronized with the Western imperialists'' reckoning of time. The solar calendar and clock became standard timekeeping devices, and society adapted to the abstractions inherent in modern notions of time. This set off a cascade of changes that completely reconfigured how humans interacted with each other and with their environment--a process whose analysis carries implications for other non-Western societies as well.
By examining topics ranging from geology, ghosts, childhood, art history, and architecture to nature as a whole, Stefan Tanaka explores how changing conceptions of time destabilized inherited knowledge and practices and ultimately facilitated the reconfiguration of the archipelago''s heterogeneous communities into the liberal-capitalist nation-state, Japan.
Trade Review
"Scholars with an interest in the onset and consequences of modernity in Japan will find much in this important new work by Stefan Tanaka to stimulate and challenge them."--Daniel Botsman, Journal of Asian Studies
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix Prelude: Time, Pasts, History 1 Chapter 1: Discovery of Pasts 27 Discovery One: Pasts prior to History 30 Discovery Two: Loss of Function 31 Discovery Three: The Archipelago Has a Past 39 Elevation of Time over Space 48 Chapter 2: "Nothing Is the Way It Should Be" 54 Space of Experience: Shuten Doji 55 Nature as a Machine 60 (An)Other View: Durability of the Imprinted Form 65 "Secrets of the Human World": Meiji Ghosts 69 Stories, Tales, History 76 Denigration of Experience 82 Chapter 3: Naturalization of Nation: Essential Time 85 The Externalization of Nature 89 Like a Dragonfly: The Instability of Being Other 92 Spirituality from a Dead Past 101 Nature and Nation 108 Chapter 4: Naturalization of Nation: Chronological Time 111 History as Histoire 114 Chronology: An Alibi of Time 118 Specters of History: National Literature and Art History 126 From Ghosts to Children: The Idea of Childhood 133 Conceptual Map 137 Chapter 5: Socialization of Society 144 The "Social Problem" 147 A Cry for Experience as Experience 151 Contestation of Wills 160 The Socialization of a National Society 164 Chapter 6: Socialization of Nature: Museumification 168 Frames 170 Nostalgia 177 Childhood 179 The Tutelary Complex 182 Ghostly Remnants? 190 Epilogue 193 Works Cited 203 Index 219
