Book Announcement: Values, Identity and Equality in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Japan

vij Values, Identity, and Equality in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Japan

Edited by Peter Nosco, University of British Columbia, James E. Ketelaar University of Chicago, and Yasunori Kojima, International Christian University, Tokyo

The chapters in this volume variously challenge a number of long-standing assumptions regarding eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese society, and especially that society’s values, structure and hierarchy; the practical limits of state authority; and the emergence of individual and collective identity. By interrogating the concept of equality on both sides of the 1868 divide, the volume extends this discussion beyond the late-Tokugawa period into the early-Meiji and even into the present. An Epilogue examines some of the historiographical issues that form a background to this enquiry. Taken together, the chapters offer answers and perspectives that are highly original and should prove stimulating to all those interested in early modern Japanese cultural, intellectual, and social history
Contributors include: Daniel Botsman, W. Puck Brecher, Gideon Fujiwara, Eiko Ikegami, Jun’ichi Isomae, James E. Ketelaar, Yasunori Kojima, Peter Nosco, Naoki Sakai, Gregory Smits, M. William Steele, and Anne Walthall.

The chapter titles are as follows:

Peter Nosco and James E. Ketelaar Introduction: Values, Identity, and Equality in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Japan

PART 1—VALUES IN PRACTICE

Eiko Ikegami Waiting for the Flying Fish to Leap: Revisiting the Values and Individuality of Tokugawa People as Practiced

Anne Walthall Good Older Brother, Bad Younger Brother: Sibling Rivalry in the Hirata School

Puck Brecher Being a Brat: The Ethics of Child Disobedience in the Edo Period

PART 2—THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY

Peter Nosco The Early Modern Co-Emergence of Individuality and Collective Identity

Gideon Fujiwara Rebirth of a Hirata School Nativist: Tsuruya Ariyo and HisKaganabe Journal

Gregory Smits New Cultures, New Identities: Becoming Okinawan and Japanese in Nineteenth-Century Ryukyu

PART 3—EROTIC EMOTIONALITY AND PARODY

James E. Ketelaar Searching for Erotic Emotionality in Tokugawa Japan

Yasunori Kojima Laughter Connects the Sacred (sei 聖) and the Sexual (sei 性): The Blossoming of Parody in the Edo Culture

PART 4—EQUALITY AND MODERNITY

William Steele The Unconventional Origins of Modern Japan: Mantei Ōga vs. Fukuzawa Yukichi

Daniel V. Botsman Flowery Tales: Ōe Taku (1847–1921), Kōbe and the Making of Meiji Japan’s ‘Emancipation Moment’

Naoki Sakai From Relational Identity to Specific Identity: On Equality and Nationality

EPILOGUE—THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ISSUES

Jun’ichi Isomae Epilogue: Reimagining Early Modern Japan—Beyond the Imagined/Invented Modern Nation

For further information, please visit http://www.brill.com/products/book/values-identity-and-equality-eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-japan

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Paula lives in the vortex of academic life. She studies medieval Japanese history.

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