Tim Yamamura Dissertation Final

UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Science Fiction Futures and the Ocean as History: Literature, Diaspora, and the Pacific War Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3j87r1ck Author Yamamura, Tim Publication Date 2014 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ SCIENCE FICTION FUTURES AND THE OCEAN AS HISTORY: LITERATURE, DIASPORA, AND THE PACIFIC WAR A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LITERATURE by Timothy Jitsuo Yamamura December 2014 The Dissertation of Tim Yamamura is approved: __________________________________________ Professor Rob Wilson, chair __________________________________________ Professor Karen Tei Yamashita __________________________________________ Professor Christine Hong __________________________________________ Professor Noriko Aso __________________________________________ Professor Alan Christy ________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © 2014 Tim Yamamura All rights reserved Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi Introduction: Science Fiction and the Perils of Prophecy: Literature, 1 Diasporic “Aliens,” and the “Origins” of the Pacific War Chapter 1: Far Out Worlds: American Orientalism, Alienation, and the 49 Speculative Dialogues of Percival Lowell and Lafcadio Hearn Chapter 2: Alien-Nation: Science Fiction, Sea Power, and the “Alien” in the 106 Pacific War Chapter 3: What Lies Beneath: ⁠ Japanese Literary Modernity, Transpacific 162 Racial Form, and the Science Fictions of “Nation” Across Shifting Seas Chapter 4: Urashima Taro Narratives Across Diasporic Time: Theorizing the 217 Intersections of Nikkei Literature and Science Fiction Conclusion: Beyond “Test Subjects”: Diasporic Science Fiction and the 254 Transnational Future Bibliography 263 iii Abstract Science Fiction Futures and the Ocean as History: Literature, Diaspora, and the Pacific War This dissertation traces a kind of literary “origin” to the Pacific War by analyzing the mass circulation of emergent science fiction — written in both the United States and Japan — that prophesied the perils of war in the Pacific from the late-nineteenth century on. Through an analysis of both canonical and minoritized works by writers including Ursula Le Guin, Abe Kobo, Lafcadio Hearn, Percival Lowell, Toshio Mori, Alfred Mahan, Hector Bywater, Sato Kojiro, Juliet Kono, E. Lily Yu, Robert Heinlein, Homer Lea, John Okada, Hiroshi Kashiwagi, and in dialogue with the growing field of science fiction cultural studies, I develop a problematic that has been implicit within the representation of “aliens” within literature and cultural theory. I show how science fiction, since its emergence, has actively negotiated with the conditions of diaspora as a modern formation, here seen in a particular context of the Nikkei in America, deemed “enemy-alien” by science fiction and Executive Order alike. Through an analysis of the dialogues between future war writers on both sides of the Pacific, I trace a pre-history to the language of the Japanese American incarceration, specifically the designation of “enemy-alien” deployed against iv communities across the western hemisphere to justify military targeting, “internment,” and subsequent diasporizations as “test subjects” for the U.S. war- effort. Thus, I show how early representations of the “alien from another world” can be read as foreshadowing the impossible conditions imposed upon Japanese American communities upon the start of the Pacific War. Yet an analysis of the historic intersections between science fiction and Asian American representation also helps us to recognize the ways in which Japanese American and Chinese American writers in diaspora, however ambivalently, have experimented with the tropes and themes of science fiction as a means to contest, and reimagine, their historic conditions of alienation. While pre-war science fiction reveals the mystifications of print capitalist circulation across the Pacific, post-war science fiction by Asian American writers can help us imagine the possibilities of a future no longer contained by the contradictions of diaspora in a globalizing universe. v Acknowledgements This dissertation has many “origins,” for it has been supported by the generosity of many individuals and institutions, without whose help I could not have accomplished this project. Insofar as this dissertation represents the culmination of my graduate training in literary and cultural studies, meaning many years of course work in the disciplines of World Literature, History, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures, American Studies, and the History of Consciousness, I must thank the many excellent professors at the University of California, Santa Cruz whom I have had the privilege of learning from over the years. This includes, most of all, my advisor, Rob Wilson, as well as my dissertation committee members, Karen Tei Yamashita, Christine Hong, Alan Christy, and Noriko Aso. This also includes the professors who taught me valuable lessons as I developed my approach to research and pedagogy, especially, Helene Moglen, Kirsten Gruesz, Vilashini Cooppan, Chris Connery, Louis Chude-Sokei, Nathaniel Mackey, Jim Clifford, Juan Poblete, and, finally, Micah Perks, who mentored me as a teacher. I would also like to thank the scholars whom I worked with at the University of Southern California for their mentorship during the initial stages of my graduate career, in particular Anne Sokolsky, David Bialock, Dominic Cheung, James Ragan, Syd Field, Donald Freed, and Lon Kurashige. And, of course, I thank the many vi incredible teachers at Seattle University who inspired my pursuits in the literary arts, in particular, Bill Taylor, Bill Dore, Ki Gottberg, Joy Sherman, David Leigh, and Edwin Weihe. I must also thank the institutions and their staff that have generously supported my dissertation research. These include the UC Santa Cruz Graduate Division of Humanities, the UC Santa Cruz Literature Department, and the UC Pacific Rim Research Program. Yet this means that I owe my thanks to the wonderful administrators who helped me navigate through institutional waters, in particular, Lisa Nishioka, Paula Jastine, Emily Gregg, and Carol Stoneburner. Lastly within my professional community, it is my fellow graduate students that I owe much respect and appreciation, for they have been my foundation of interlocution as fellow scholars, yet many have also supported me as friends. In particular, I would like to thank my dissertation writing group, led by Prof. Hong -- Steph Chan, Melissa Poulsen, Jasmine Syedullah, Christy Montgomery, and Sherwin Mendoza -- along with Surya Parekh, Fritzie De Mata, and Calvin McMillan. And, of course, I must acknowledge my family and friends. My loved ones have been invaluable to my success and well-being while I worked through the trials of graduate study, for they have been great sources of emotional support, but they have also helped me make ends meet along my dissertation travels. I would like to thank my Tom family, especially my uncle Genie Tom, for providing me with housing at his condo near Chinatown while I worked in the Pacific Archives at the University vii of Hawaii. Also supportive were my family and friends who provided me transportation, lodging, and fun when I was archiving in Seattle, in particular, Jimmy and Eileen Yoshida, as well as my “ohana” from Seattle University, Ivan and Stephanie Uyehara, and Vivian Esteban, who, along with Frank Kitamoto, helped introduce me to the history of Bainbridge Island, the first test site for what became the mass removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. I also thank my communities in the Bay Area for helping me stay anchored as I wrote this dissertation, especially Kathryn Roper, Jim Corby, Kenji Taguma and the Nichi Bei Foundation, Pearl Wong and the Asian American Theater Company, and the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, especially my fellow “Dreamers.” Finally, I give my gratitude and love to my parents and grandparents: Jay and Linda Yamamura, along with Jitsuo and Teiko Yamamura and Mary and George Satomi, for the way they raised me, and for making sure that I had the opportunity to go to college, both by their hard work, but also, in the case of my grandparents, by giving part of their internment camp settlement to help me pay for school. Thus, they gave me the opportunity to pursue a life driven by my intellectual passions, a journey that led me to UC Santa Crus, and to this doctoral dissertation. I would like to think that this research can be read in honor of their history, and of the hardships they endured during the war. viii Introduction Science Fiction and the Perils of Prophecy: Literature, Diasporic “Aliens,” and the “Origins” of the Pacific War This dissertation traces a kind of literary “origin” to the “Pacific War” by analyzing the archive of science fiction future-war texts that prophesied the perils of war in the Pacific from the late-nineteenth century on. While Japan’s first strike at Pearl Harbor, as with its decisive defeat precipitated by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are now mainstays of the contemporary imagination, repeated in countless works of culture across genre and form, the war between the United States and Japan

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