One among many orientalist[i] stereotypes of Asians is that they are masters of imitation (or adaptation) but lack original creativity (or invention); an assumption which looks ridiculous when one spends just a little time studying any given Asian culture, I would say. Rather, I spot the tendency to imitate (instead of inventing) in modern popular…
Category: History
Final Letters of Kamikaze Pilots
Here in the United States, kamikaze pilots are seen as evil or misguided at the least. They took the lives of many American soldiers during World War II. Our history books often fail to show how kamikaze pilots were as human as the Americans they killed. This is a collection of letters from kamikaze pilots…
Considering the Bombing of Hiroshima
With President Obama’s scheduled visit to Hiroshima, he will become the first US president to visit the site of the first wartime atomic explosion. People have debated the need to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski, but most of the arguments come from hindsight. At the time, the outcome of the war was uncertain….
Gender Expectations of Edo Period Japan
The Edo period made Japan Japan. This long segment of peace shaped Japanese gender expectations and continues to influence them today. Japan was once a matriarchal society. The influx of Confucian ideas from China around the 15th century eroded the ability of women to hold power. Confucian ideas stressed hierarchy, male dominance, integrity, and righteousness….
Musings III: On the Use of Premodern Japanese in Anime
Hard but hardly useful? As a master student of Japanese Studies, I am obliged to concern myself not only with modern popular culture and anime but also with the subject of Premodern Japanese. To be precise, I’m learning to read texts from the Edo period and older which use bungo, or premodern grammar. I’m also…
Musings On Nameless Old Women in Edo-Period Popular Literature
About a year ago, I was looking at Edo-period book illustrations and reading name cartuoches – until I stumbled upon two which did not actually contain a name! I was working behind the scenes of an exhibition at my former university (Goethe-University Frankfurt Main, Germany[1]), which owns a small but very well-preserved collection of mid-…