The Postwar Developments Of Japanese Studies In The United States

This volume of twelve essays with useful bibliographies, in the fields of history, art, religion, literature, anthropology, political science, and law, documents the history of United States scholarship on Japan since 1945.

This volume of twelve essays with useful bibliographies, in the fields of history, art, religion, literature, anthropology, political science, and law, documents the history of United States scholarship on Japan since 1945.

A Companion to Japanese History provides an authoritative overview of current debates and approaches within the study of Japan’s history. Composed of 30 chapters written by an international group of scholars Combines traditional perspectives with the most recent scholarly concerns Supplements a chronological survey with targeted thematic analyses Presents stimulating interventions into individual controversies

Does Japan really matter anymore? The challenges of recent Japanese history have led some pundits and scholars to publicly wonder whether Japan's significance is starting to wane. The multidisciplinary essays that comprise Japan Since 1945 demonstrate its ongoing importance and relevance. Examining the historical context to the social, cultural, and political underpinnings of Japan's postwar development, the contributors re-engage earlier discourses and introduce new veins of research. Japan Since 1945 provides a much needed update to existing scholarly work on the history of contemporary Japan. It moves beyond the 'lost decade' and 'terrible devastation' frameworks that have thus far defined too much of the discussion, offering a more nuanced picture of the nation's postwar development.

Within a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States government began to plan a policy for a defeated Japan. In order to avoid any future attacks on the United States, Japanese society had to be changed. Politicians, Japan specialists, historians, political scientists, and anthropologists debated the future of Japan. Topics ranged from the future role of the Emperor and politics, to Japanese economy, to re-education of the Japanese people. Eventually an overall policy for postwar Japan was formulated, which was to a high degree executed by General Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan. This study is based on research in the records of the government policy planners, both private papers and official records. It is the first book-length study of the American planning for the occupation of Japan, including the drafting of policy, not only in the State Department but also in the War Department, Office of Strategic Services, and the Office of War Information. The analysis focuses on the development of strategies for remodeling postwar Japan as well as on the meaning of Japan constructed by various planners and decision makers and the impact of their constructions on American Occupation policy.

The complex and coherent development of Japanese art during thecourse of the nineteenth century was inadvertently disrupted by apolitical event: the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Scholars of both thepreceding Edo (1615-1868) and the succeeding Meiji (1868-1912) erashave shunned the decades bordering this arbitrary divide, thus creatingan art-historical void that the former view as a period of waningtechnical and creative inventiveness and the latter as one threatenedby Meiji reforms and indiscriminate westernization and modernization.Challenging Past and Present, to the contrary, demonstrates that theperiod 1840-1890, as seen progressively rather than retrospectively, experienced a dramatic transformation in the visual arts, which in turnmade possible the creative achievements of the twentieth century

In fall 1997 the Center for Japanese Studies at The University of Michigan celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. The November symposium featured more than fifty speakers, moderators, and musicians who celebrated the occasion and offered reminiscences on the Center's multifaceted scholarly and professional missions, discussions of the accomplishments of its al-umni/ae, and perspectives on wartime and postwar Japan-U.S. relations. As the first American interdisciplinary institute devoted to education and research on Japan, The University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies has a path-making legacy. This volume, which includes the public presentations from the November 1997 symposium, reflects that legacy and the university's long and continuing involvement in Asia, which dates back to the 1870s.