Organizer: Atsuko Aoki, Brown University/Rikkyo University
Chair: Atsuko Aoki, Brown University/Rikkyo University
Miyamoto Tsuneichi: A Renewed Method for Human Sciences in Japan
Jōkō Yonetarō and The Politics of “Modern” Education in Colonial Korea
11 February 1889: the Birth of Modern Japan
Microhistorical Approaches to Understanding Japanese Modernity
Organizer: Atsuko Aoki, Brown University/Rikkyo University
Chair: Atsuko Aoki, Brown University/Rikkyo University
This panel intends to
introduce the use of microhistorical methods in understanding modern
Japanese history. Alexandre Mangin examines the works of Japanese
ethnographer Miyamoto Tsuneichi, whose achievements have not been
introduced and recognized sufficiently enough in the field of
English-language Japanese Studies. By introducing and exploring
Miyamoto’s research method and the depths and denseness of his
narratives, Mangin’s paper attempts to show how Miyamoto was engaged in
reclaiming the voices and lifestyles of traditional but marginalized
rural people in rapidly modernizing Japan. Atsuko Aoki turns to Japan’s
colony, Korea, and delves into the life of Jōkō Yonetarō, a Japanese
teacher in colonial Korea who was imprisoned for his anti-imperialistic
views. As a source, Aoki uses his diary, which illustrates the author’s
inner conflict concerning the meaning of “colonial modernity,” which
can be exemplified by his very workplace – modern public schools in
Korea established by Japan. On the other hand, Lionel Babicz focuses on
one day, instead of a particular person, – February 11, 1889, still at
the dawn of Japanese modern history. Babicz’s paper introduces three
events (promulgation of the Meiji Constitution, the assassination of
Mori Arinori, and the launching of the Nihon – a major
influential newspaper) that took place on the day, and considers what
ensued – how and to what extent these events determined the course of
Japanese modernization and modernity.
Miyamoto Tsuneichi: A Renewed Method for Human Sciences in Japan
Miyamoto Tsuneichi (1970-1981) is known
in Japan as one of the most important minzoku-gakusha (ethnographer of
the countryside). He was engaged in extensive field work that covered
all of Japan, dealing with popular arts and other forms of cultural
traditions. During his study of Japan, he focused on particular social
groups, whom hitherto had been rather marginalized as a legitimate
academic subject, and accumulated an encyclopedic amount of data –
unsurpassed in terms of quantity and of the depth of understanding of
“forgotten” people. Miyamoto’s study covers every domain of non-urban
life: economy, topography, arts and customs, religious belief,
architecture, techniques and tools of the traditional professions,
especially agriculture. As a disciple of Yanagita Kunio (founder of
Japanese folklore ethnology) and Shibusawa Keizō (pioneer in
mingu-gaku), Miyamoto’s observations and historical researches
problematized the Japanese being or the Being-in-Japan in its diversity
and wealth of its culture. This presentation intends to introduce and
explore Miyamoto’s research method (especially, the use of maps,
photographs and the importance of his research style – walking), so as
to show how deeply he renewed the discipline and inscribed it in what
we call today “modernity,” even if he is the heir of a tradition as
well, travelling with such authors as Furukawa Koshokōken and Noda Senkōin. And lastly, this paper will touch on Miyamoto’s posterity among young ethnographers/researchers today.
Jōkō Yonetarō and The Politics of “Modern” Education in Colonial Korea
This paper is a
bibliographical essay on the Jōkō Yonetarō, using his diary as the
primary source written during his stay in colonial Korea in the 1920s.
This paper first discusses the significance of this diary as a
historical artifact of the Japanese colonialism and its bibliographic
implications to scholarship. It then examines the author’s perception
of “modernity” in colonized Korea as it appears in the text. Jōkō
Yonetarō migrated from Japan in 1918 at the age of 16 to Korea. He
became an elementary school teacher in 1922 and taught and served as
principal at public schools in. In 1930 he was arrested and indicted on
charges of instigating his colleagues and students to commit labor
union activities, and was purged from the teaching profession for good.
The diary, consisting of 32 notebooks and the court record of his
interrogations, spans these eight years of his teaching career. The
bibliographic and empirical contribution of this diary is that it
offers minute details on various aspects of everyday Japanese
colonialism, which previously available historical materials such as
magazines, newspapers, official documents, and memoirs, have failed to
show us in depths. The diary is rich in narratives about
teacher-student relationships in colonial Korean schools, the Japanese
teacher community and networks, daily interaction between Japanese and
Koreans in rural areas, and interethnic romance, all of which provide
new and additional evidence to scholarship on the social history of
Japanese settlers, as well as on the history of Japan’s colonial
education.
11 February 1889: the Birth of Modern Japan
Modern Japan was officially born on 11
February 1889 with the promulgation of the Meiji constitution.
Nevertheless, the dramatic events of the day and its signification have
never been the object of a detailed study. By choosing Kigensetsu – the
day commemorating the ascension to the throne of the first emperor,
Jimmu – to promulgate the first modern constitution, Meiji leaders
opted to link the mythical origins of the imperial dynasty to Japanese
modernity. In addition to the Meiji constitution, other events would
also make this day a defining moment in Japanese modern history. Mori
Arinori, the iconoclastic Minister of Education, was stabbed in his
home while getting ready to go out to the Imperial Palace for the
promulgation ceremony, and would die the following day. Mori was one of
the most extreme proponents of Westernization, and of a nationalist
education. His death would symbolize the end of the enlightened form of
nationalism which dominated since the Restoration, and open the way to
the return of Confucianist values in education and to the promulgation
of the Imperial Rescript on Education. A third event of significance
saw a young journalist named Kuga Katsunan launching a newspaper, Nihon, which would become one of the major cultural voices of Meiji Japan. Kuga and Nihon
attempted to answer a question which tormented a whole generation of
young people: is it possible to be both Japanese and modern? By
reconstructing this dramatic course of events, the paper will attempt
to define the significance of 11 February 1889 in modern Japanese
history.
Discussant: Mark E. Caprio, Rikkyo University