Overcoming Modernity

Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-231-14396-7
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 510 g

Reihe: Weatherhead Books on Asia

In the summer of 1942 Japan's leading cultural authorities gathered in Tokyo to discuss the massive cultural, technological, and intellectual changes that had transformed Japan since the Meiji period. They feared that without a sufficient understanding of these developments, the Japanese people would lose their identity to the reckless and rapid process of modernization.

The participants of this symposium hoped to settle the question of Japanese cultural identity at a time when their country was already at war with England and the United States. They presented papers and held roundtable discussions analyzing the effects of modernity from the diverse perspectives of literature, history, theology, film, music, philosophy, and science. Taken together, their work represents a complex portrait of intellectual discourse in wartime Japan, marked not only by a turn toward fascism but also by a profound sense of cultural crisis and anxiety.

Overcoming Modernity is the first English translation of the symposium proceedings. Originally published in 1942, this material remains one of the most valuable documents of wartime Japanese intellectual history. Richard F. Calichman reproduces the entire proceedings and includes a critical introduction that provides thorough background of the symposium and its reception among postwar Japanese thinkers and critics. The aim of this conference was to go beyond facile and unreflective discussions concerning Japan's new spiritual order and examine more substantially the phenomenon of Japanese modernization and westernization. This does not mean, however, that a consensus was reached among the symposium's participants. Their tense debate reflects the problematic efforts within Japan, if not throughout the rest of the world at the time, to resolve the troubling issues of modernity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Calichman, Richard

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kultursoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. A Note on Contemporary Spirit2. My Views on "Overcoming Modernity"3. From Our Standpoint: Reflections on Overcoming Modernity4. The Theological Grounds of Overcoming Modernity: How Can Modern Man Find God?5. The Heart of Imperial Loyalty6. The Course of Overcoming Modernity7. What is to be destroyed?8. A Brief Account9. On the Overcoming of Science10. Doubts Regarding "Modernity"11. A Note on "Overcoming Modernity"12. Concluding Remarks to "Overcoming Modernity" 13. Roundtable Discussion: Day One14. Roundtable Discussion: Day TwoSymposium ParticipantsGlossaryIndex of Names

Über Autor(innen)

Richard F. Calichman is an associate professor of Japan Studies and chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the City College of New York, CUNY. His previous publications include Contemporary Japanese Thought, What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, and Takeuchi Yoshimi: Displacing the West.