This remarkable book examines the complex history of Japanese colonial and postcolonial interactions with Korea, particularly in matters of cultural policy. E. Taylor Atkins focuses on past and present Japanese fascination with Korean culture as he reassesses colonial anthropology, heritage curation, cultural policy, and Korean performance art in Japanese mass media culture. Atkins challenges the prevailing view that imperial Japan demonstrated contempt for Koreans through suppression of Korean culture. In his analysis, the Japanese preoccupation with Koreana provided the empire with a poignant vision of its own past, now lost--including communal living and social solidarity--which then allowed Japanese to grieve for their former selves. At the same time, the specific objects of Japan's gaze--folk theater, dances, shamanism, music, and material heritage--became emblems of national identity in postcolonial Korea.
E. Taylor Atkins is Professor of History at Northern Illinois University and the author of Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan.
"Deeply researched and elegantly written, Primitive Selves reaches beyond the confines of the colonial era to the present Japanese preoccupation with Korea. This is an absolute must-read for students and scholars of East Asia."—Sabine Frühstück, author of Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army
"A gem to be consulted by all students of anthropology, history, ethno-musicology, and colonial studies."—Hyung Il Pai, author of Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State Formation Theories
"The hallmark of Atkins' scholarship is his ability to take something seemingly marginal—Japanese jazz, Koreana—and use it as a lens to explore cultural practices, national sensibilities, and modern ideologies. In doing so, this book uncovers the anxieties about authenticity that underlie the Japanese fixation with Korean culture across the twentieth century. This is a great example of how to write the empire into the history of modern Japan."—Louise Young, author of Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism
280 pp.6 x 9Illus: 18 b/w photographs
9780520266742$34.95|£30.00Paper
Aug 2010