Japan And Asian Modernities

The effect of Japan on the challenges and complexities of the modernisation process that globalisation has brought to the fore in Asia are the subject of this interdisciplinary volume by leading scholars in the field. Using fascinating examples drawn from current business and organisational practice in Asia, it focuses on the impact that Japanese modernity has made in Asia as a model to be imitated because of its apparent success in adopting western technologies while retaining its own cultural identity. At the same time, Japan itself is a dominant force in modernity in East and South East Asia, exporting its own type of modernisation, management and business practices, and models of 'traditional' social relations which do not necessarily correspond to the traditions of other Asian cultures.This adds another element to the conventional model of modernity as a dialogue between West and East; without considering Japan's special significance in the region, any critical assessment of the modernising process in Asia would not be possible. This emphasis is the special contribution of this innovative work which aims to show the extent to which the experiences of one non-Western modernity can influence others; to highlight the problems of cultural identity that must be faced by modernising societies; and, above all aims to contribute to the larger debates on intercultural communication that are vital for achieving genuine understanding between representatives of different cultures, traditions and world views.Besides Asian and Japanese Studies specialists, "Japan and Asian Modernities" is addressed to a larger audience of academics and specialists working in the areas of history of ideas, political science, the sociology and anthropology of business, comparative cultural studies and economics or other disciplines related to contemporary East and South-East Asia where the subject of alternative modernities is relevant.

The recent transnational reach of Japanese television dramas in East and Southeast Asia is unprecedented, and not simply in terms of the range and scale of diffusion, but also of the intense sympathy many young Asians feel toward the characters in Japanese dramas, so that they cope with their own modern lives by emulating the lives on screen. Through the empirical analysis of how Japanese youth dramas are (re)produced, circulated, regulated, and consumed in East and Southeast Asia, each chapter in this volume variously explores the ways in which intra-Asian cultural flows highlight cultural resonance and asymmetry in the region under the decentering processes of globalization. Key questions include: What is the nature of Japanese cultural power and influence in the region and how is it historically overdetermined? How is it similar to and different from "Americanization" and other Asian cultural sub-centers? What kinds of images and sense of intimacy and distance are perceived through the reception of Japanese youth dramas?

Japan was the first Asian nation to face the full impact of modernity. Like the rest of Japanese society, Buddhist institutions, individuals, and thought were drawn into the dynamics of confronting the modern age. Japanese Buddhism had to face multiple challenges, but it also contributed to modern Japanese society in numerous ways. Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan makes accessible the voices of Japanese Buddhists during the early phase of high modernity. The volume offers original translations of key texts—many available for the first time in English—by central actors in Japan’s transition to the modern era, including the works of Inoue Enryō, Gesshō, Hara Tanzan, Shimaji Mokurai, Kiyozawa Manshi, Murakami Senshō, Tanaka Chigaku, and Shaku Sōen. All of these writers are well recognized by Buddhist studies scholars and Japanese historians but have drawn little attention elsewhere; this stands in marked contrast to the reception of Japanese Buddhism since D. T. Suzuki, the towering figure of Japanese Zen in the first half of the twentieth century. The present book fills the chronological gap between the premodern era and the twentieth century by focusing on the crucial transition period of the nineteenth century. Issues central to the interaction of Japanese Buddhism with modernity inform the five major parts of the work: sectarian reform, the nation, science and philosophy, social reform, and Japan and Asia. Throughout the chapters, the globally entangled dimension—both in relation to the West, especially the direct and indirect impact of Christianity, and to Buddhist Asia—is of great importance. The Introduction emphasizes not only how Japanese Buddhism was part of a broader, globally shared reaction of religions to the specific challenges of modernity, but also goes into great detail in laying out the specifics of the Japanese case.

The effect of Japan on the challenges and complexities of the modernisation process that globalisation has brought to the fore in Asia are the subject of this interdisciplinary volume by leading scholars in the field. Using fascinating examples drawn from current business and organisational practice in Asia, it focuses on the impact that Japanese modernity has made in Asia as a model to be imitated because of its apparent success in adopting western technologies while retaining its own cultural identity. At the same time, Japan itself is a dominant force in modernity in East and South East Asia, exporting its own type of modernisation, management and business practices, and models of 'traditional' social relations which do not necessarily correspond to the traditions of other Asian cultures.This adds another element to the conventional model of modernity as a dialogue between West and East; without considering Japan's special significance in the region, any critical assessment of the modernising process in Asia would not be possible. This emphasis is the special contribution of this innovative work which aims to show the extent to which the experiences of one non-Western modernity can influence others; to highlight the problems of cultural identity that must be faced by modernising societies; and, above all aims to contribute to the larger debates on intercultural communication that are vital for achieving genuine understanding between representatives of different cultures, traditions and world views.Besides Asian and Japanese Studies specialists, "Japan and Asian Modernities" is addressed to a larger audience of academics and specialists working in the areas of history of ideas, political science, the sociology and anthropology of business, comparative cultural studies and economics or other disciplines related to contemporary East and South-East Asia where the subject of alternative modernities is relevant.

"Mid-nineteenth century Russian radicals who witnessed the Meiji Restoration saw it as the most sweeping revolution in recent history and the impetus for future global progress. Acting outside imperial encounters, they initiated underground transnational networks with Japan. Prominent intellectuals and cultural figures, from Peter Kropotkin and Lev Tolstoy to Saigo Takamori and Tokutomi Roka, pursued these unofficial relationships through correspondence, travel, and networking, despite diplomatic and military conflicts between their respective nations.Tracing these non-state networks, Anarchist Modernity uncovers a major current in Japanese intellectual and cultural life between 1860 and 1930 that might be described as “cooperatist anarchist modernity”—a commitment to realizing a modern society through mutual aid and voluntary activity, without the intervention of state governance. These efforts later crystallized into such movements as the Nonwar Movement, Esperantism, and the popularization of the natural sciences.Examining cooperatist anarchism as an intellectual foundation of modern Japan, Sho Konishi offers a new approach to Japanese history that fundamentally challenges the “logic” of Western modernity. It looks beyond this foundational construct of modern history writing to understand people, practices, and cultural expressions that have been forgotten or dismissed as products of anti-modern nativist counter urges against the West."

The story of Catholicism and Protestantism in China, Japan, and Korea has been told in great detail. The existing literature is especially rich in documenting church and missionary activities as well as how varied regions and cultures have translated Christian ideas and practices. Less evident, however, are studies that contextualize Christianity within the larger economic, political, social, and cultural developments in each of the three countries and its diasporas. The contributors to Encountering Modernity address such concerns and collectively provide insights into Christianity’s role in the development of East Asia and as it took shape among East Asians in the United States. The work brings together studies of Christianity in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan and its diasporas to expand the field through new angles of vision and interpretation. Its mode of analysis not only results in a deeper understanding of Christianity, but also produces more informed and nuanced histories of East Asian countries that take seriously the structures and sensibilities of religion—broadly understood and within a national and transnational context. It critically investigates how Protestant Christianity was negotiated and interpreted by individuals in Korea, China (with a brief look at Taiwan), and Japan starting in the nineteenth century as all three countries became incorporated into the global economy and the international nation-state system anchored by the West. People in East Asia from various walks of life studied and, in some cases, embraced principles of Christianity as a way to frame and make meaningful the economic, political, and social changes they experienced because of modernity. Encountering Modernity makes a significant contribution by moving beyond issues of missiology and church history to ask how Christianity represented an encounter with modernity that set into motion tremendous changes throughout East Asia and in transnational diasporic communities in the United States.

Japan today is haunted by the ghosts its spectacular modernity has generated. Deep anxieties about the potential loss of national identity and continuity disturb many in Japan, despite widespread insistence that it has remained culturally intact. In this provocative conjoining of ethnography, history, and cultural criticism, Marilyn Ivy discloses these anxieties—and the attempts to contain them—as she tracks what she calls the vanishing: marginalized events, sites, and cultural practices suspended at moments of impending disappearance. Ivy shows how a fascination with cultural margins accompanied the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state. This fascination culminated in the early twentieth-century establishment of Japanese folklore studies and its attempts to record the spectral, sometimes violent, narratives of those margins. She then traces the obsession with the vanishing through a range of contemporary reconfigurations: efforts by remote communities to promote themselves as nostalgic sites of authenticity, storytelling practices as signs of premodern presence, mass travel campaigns, recallings of the dead by blind mediums, and itinerant, kabuki-inspired populist theater.