[KS] Re: Oguma Eiji

[Mark Caprio]

If you have trouble please let me know and I will send
you a copy of the review.  Just send me a mailing address.

Regards,

Mark Caprio
>
> Thank you very much for your information. I will check it out right away.
>
> > I have since learned that this book has been
> > reviewed quite extensively in the U.S.
>
> Does anybody on the list and also in the U.S. know of its existence?
> And if possible, where and in what terms?
>
> =========================
>
> From: Michael Goodwin <mgoodwin at greenvillenc.com>
>
> > Now you have made me very curious! I wonder if you could take a minute
> > to explain for me what these two books (see below) are about (i.e., the
> > arguments they put forth).
>
> > #1. The Myth of the Homogeneous Nation (Tokyo: Shinyosya, 1995)
> > #2 The Boundaries of the Japanese (Tokyo: Shinyosya, 1998),
>
>
> Thank you for your interest. I am sure the above message will do better
> as an answer. In any case, although I think I will need more than "a minute"
> to well "explain" the arguments put forth in both books - #1 is about 400pp,
> and #2 about 800pp. - "a minute's" explanation might be something like
> follows.
> In the first book, Oguma's main argument is that, what has been so called
> the "myth" of Japan/Japanese as a homogeneous nation/people is a
> relatively recent, in fact, a "post-war" (WW2) construction. In other
> words, before Japan has lost the war, and with it forced to give up Taiwan
> and Korea, the overall ideology was that Japan/Japanese are "hybrid"
> nation/people. This ideology helped Japanese policy of assimilating the
> colonized in the climax of Japanese imperial expansion, thus before the war.
>
> The second book shifts the focus mainly put on the "discourse of
> assimilation" in the former, and balances it with the "discourse of
> separation," in dealing with the From Lew at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Thu Jun 22 19:48:33 2000
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Subject: Re: Oguma Eiji
From:  Lew at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (Walter K. Lew)
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>> #1. The Myth of the Homogeneous Nation (Tokyo: Shinyosya, 1995)
>> #2 The Boundaries of the Japanese (Tokyo: Shinyosya, 1998),
>
>Thank you for your interest. I am sure the above message will do better
>as an answer. In any case, although I think I will need more than "a minute"
>to well "explain" the arguments put forth in both books - #1 is about 400pp,
>and #2 about 800pp. - "a minute's" explanation might be something like
>follows.
>In the first book, Oguma's main argument is that, what has been so called
>the "myth" of Japan/Japanese as a homogeneous nation/people is a
>relatively recent, in fact, a "post-war" (WW2) construction. In other
>words, before Japan has lost the war, and with it forced to give up Taiwan
>and Korea, the overall ideology was that Japan/Japanese are "hybrid"
>nation/people. This ideology helped Japanese policy of assimilating the
>colonized in the climax of Japanese imperial expansion, thus before the war.

*Last year as part of a history seminar project, I did a stilted, rather
literal translation of two pages [87-88] from chap. V of Oguma's _The Myth
of the Homogenous Nation_ (Tanitsu minzoku shinwa no kigen), titled "Theory
of the Common Ancestry of Japan and Korea" (Nissen dósóron).  This of c is
practically nothing, but I thought I might as well put it to some use,
however limited, for the recent thread on Oguma, esp. since even this small
section adds some nuances to Ms. Shim's summary. As for the rest of the
book, don't ask me!: I haven't read it (although I find Tessa
Morris-Suzuki's use of theorists like Oguma in her various recent
publications quite valuable). In any case, for those who are interested,
the two (ploddingly) translated pages follow below.  Yrs, Walter

        The "theory of the common ancestry of Japan and Korea," which
posits that the ancestors of "Japanese" and Koreans were identical: in the
current study of modern history it is treated as one of the most abominable
ideologies that served as justification for Imperial Japan's invasion [of
Korea].
        However, even though it is a fact that the theory of the common
ancestry of J and K was used for the sake of the invasion, from another
perspective its ideological position is hard to grasp.  First of all, it
was a generic term for views that were quite different from each other.
For instance, even when speaking of theories of common ancestry, their
character differs slightly depending on whether we take them as claiming
that "Koreans are the ancestors of Japanese" or "Japanese are the ancestors
of Koreans."  Secondly, the theory is a kind of racial mixture theory at
the same time that it was also a type of the "theory of one homogenous
people throughout the Great Japanese Empire."  This was because it held
that the Japanese people have the same ancestors as people living on the
[Asian] continent at the same time that it was an assertion that the Great
Japanese Empire, which included Korea, was established by people of the
same ancestry [as those it conquered].
        However, most aspects of theories of the common ancestry of J and K
agreed on the point that J and K have had mutual interaction (invasion also
being a type of interaction) since ancient times.  Extreme theories that
suppose that it was only the "Japanese" who unilaterally advanced onto the
[Korean] peninsula and that not a single Korean came to the archipelago [of
Japan] have been rare.  But again, although it is possible to see
characteristics in theories of the common ancestry of J and K of the
"theory of a homogenous race throughout the Great Japanese Empire," they
were clearly different from arguments which claimed that "Japanese" were an
isolated, pure-blooded race without parallel anywhere in the world.  As I
state below, many Meiji-era theorists of common ancestry did not intend a
theory of the Japanese race's pure-bloodedness; rather, they were positive
advocates of the theory of mixed races.

###

Walter K. Lew
11811 Venice Blvd.  #138
Los Angeles, CA  90066




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