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Interpreting Nationality in Postwar Japan: “Disrespectful” Representation of the Emperor

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INTERPRETING NATIONALITY IN POSTWAR JAPAN: “DISRESPECTFUL” REPRESENTATION OF THE EMPEROR A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by JEFFREY CLAYTON DUBOIS AUGUST 2013 © 2013 JEFFREY CLAYTON DUBOIS INTERPRETING NATIONALITY IN POSTWAR JAPAN: “DISRESPECTFUL” REPRESENTATION OF THE EMPEROR Jeffrey Clayton DuBois, Ph.D. Cornell University 2013 This dissertation aims to understand the articulation of nationality in postwar Japan by looking at literary texts that theorize the nature of the emperor and “emperor system” (tennōsei) as a phenomenon specific to the postwar itself. I analyze texts that comment on the nature of “disrespect” toward the emperor, and in some cases perform that very disrespect, which I argue is ultimately the deconstruction of the emperor system itself. The texts under consideration were written at two points in time: the immediate postwar (around 1946) and the time marked by protests of the renewed U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960. I consider these points in time as “discursive spaces” that the texts capture by bringing together a constellation of images and forces, and that allow for productive cross-reading of the texts. Chapter One introduces some of the theoretical premises for the project, and emphasizes my focus on the discursive representation of the emperor as opposed to the tendency of scholarship to focus on the individual emperor as historical and political agent. Chapter Two traces the invention of the postwar emperor system to narratives deployed to project the image of a human and sympathetic emperor who at once broke with the past and represented absolute continuity with it. Chapter Three turns to Nakano Shigeharu’s postwar writings on the emperor that show the contradictions inherent in the “emperor system” itself as well as the role of media and society in reproducing it discursively. The narrator of his text, Goshaku no Saku, believes that the only means to liberate the emperor from the emperor system is to take the notion of the “human” emperor to its logical conclusion: “elevate” the emperor to the status of citizen. Chapter Four argues that Sakaguchi Ango’s postwar writing on the emperor leads to very similar conclusions, but frames it as “descent” to humanity. Chapter Five considers the context of 1960 in which the postwar narrative of the peaceful emperor became challenged by remilitarization and the renewed Security Treaty; the image of the emperor was mobilized not to unify opposing views, but rend them apart. I argue that Fukazawa Shichirō’s Fūryū Mutan depicts this very disunity. However, reaction to the text as event shifted the debate from literary representation of the emperor to the ways that the terrorism circumvents free speech. In Chapter Six, I argue that Mishima capitalizes on this shift and creates a moral equivalence between terrorism and political revolt by defining a notion of militaristic glory as the protection of Japanese culture. In the process, he designs a theory of emperor system that reproduces a foreign fantasy. Chapter Seven argues for the relevance of asking today the same questions raised by the authors. ii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Jeffrey DuBois grew up in Horseheads, NY, a stone’s throw from Ithaca. After high school, he spent one year in northern Japan as part of the International Rotary Youth Exchange program. He completed his B.A. in Comparative Literature and Japanese Studies at the University of Rochester in 2003. After living and working in New York City and then Saitama, Japan, he returned to Upstate New York to pursue his Ph.D. in Asian Studies at Cornell in 2005. iii Dedicated to Melissa and Penn, who make it all worthwhile. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I consider myself incredibly lucky and privileged to have studied with Brett de Bary and Naoki Sakai. Their scholarship and teaching has been a model of ethical and academic integrity that has profoundly shaped by my notion of what a scholar ought to be. Brett was especially generous when I worked with her as teaching assistant, treating me as a collaborator and equal in the teaching experience. I am also grateful to Katsuya Hirano and Victor Koschmann, whose seminars early in my graduate career were formative for conceiving this project. The guidance of Kyoko Selden in reading Japanese texts was invaluable, and I miss her deeply. My project came more clearly into focus during a year-long visit to Waseda University, where I attended the seminar of Umemori Naoyuki. Many thanks to him for sponsoring my visit and providing stimulating discussions and readings. Robert Sukle has also been very helpful and patient in training me to be a Japanese language instructor. My friends in the program have been a source of encouragement and inspiration over the years. I would like to especially recognize Chris Ahn, Chris Jones, Masaki Matsubara, Takeshi Kimoto, Tom Patton, Gavin Walker, Franz Hofer, Annmaria Shimabuku, Masaki Kinjo, Akiko Ishii, Seokwon Lee, Noriaki Hoshino, Arina Rotaru, Deokyo Choi, Clarence Lee, Dexter Thomas, and Tyran Grillo. Dan McKee deserves special thanks. His support has been unflagging, and has come in the form of dissertation advice, taking me out for a jog, stocking the library with books and v films relevant to my work, and serving as proxy committee member at the last minute. Finally, my son Penn was born in my second to last year at Cornell. He’s been a source of endless joy, and a great source of motivation to finish this dissertation. My wife Melissa has been boundlessly supportive and understanding in my final push to complete this, and I am forever grateful to her. Her mother, Karyn Plante, also deserves special credit for her care of Penn. My parents, Richard and Rosalyn DuBois, have always supported my choices and interests. Their encouraging me to study abroad after high school is why I am here today. Thank you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 What it’s not 1 1.2 Figurative decapitation 4 1.3 Discursive space 7 1.4 Temporality 11 1.5 Influences 14 1.6 Chapter summaries 15 CHAPTER TWO: 20 THE RESTRUCTURED EMPEROR SYSTEM OF POSTWAR JAPAN Japan’s Two Bodies: The “National Body” Amidst War Defeat 2.1 The embodied voice speaks 20 2.2 Emperor System as Duality 25 2.3 The Man, the Myth, the… Broom? 32 2.4 The fate of kokutai: in the Diet and out 39 2.4.1 Sasaki: the kokutai is gone 48 2.4.2 Watsuji’s “cultural community” 51 CHAPTER THREE: 59 NAKANO SHIGEHARU AND THE EMPEROR’S ASCENT TO CITIZEN 3.1 Overview 59 3.2 The context: coopting the embodied voice 60 3.3 The text: Goshaku no Sake 64 3.4 The responsibility of an educator 83 3.5 Representing the representation: Media in Goshaku no Sake 87 3.6 The Puppet and the missing Puppeteer 97 vii 3.7 Descent/Ascent: the language of democracy 103 3.8 The postwar emperor system as sick mutt 106 3.9 Conclusion: disrespect the Man, not the man 114 CHAPTER FOUR: 116 SAKAGUCHI ANGO AND THE EMPEROR’S DESCENT TO PLAIN HUMAN 4.1 Overview 116 4.2 Dear Your Majesty 118 4.3 The sentiment reserved for a celebrity 124 4.4 Respect for humanity 127 4.5 Daraku as deconstruction 134 4.5.1 The emperor as arbitrary 140 4.5.2 To betray and worship 149 4.5.3 Significance of surrender 152 CHAPTER FIVE: 165 FUKAZAWA, LAUGHTER, AND THE BLACKOUT The emperor as symbol of disunity 5.1 Remilitarization: peddling back the pacifist narrative 165 5.2 Symbol of disunity 168 5.3 Consummating the marriage to new media 173 5.4 Fūryū Mutan: No room for symbols 176 5.4.1 Brief outline of Fūryū Mutan 177 5.4.2 Exceeding the bounds of proper representation 181 5.4.3 Disruptive temporality 184 5.4.4 Dirty mouths: the language of the text 187 5.4.5 The space for laughter 193 5.5 Nakano’s reaction 199 5.6 Aftermath 212 viii 5.7 The literary shift to terrorism 215 CHAPTER SIX: 222 MISHIMA’S EMPEROR OF TERROR 6.1 Yūkoku: bringing the coup to the present 222 6.2 Relativizing terrorism 228 6.3 Pretending to like democracy 233 6.4 Kita Ikki’s anti-kokutairon 236 6.5 Mishima’s (ab)use of Kita 245 6.6 Coopting the voices of the dead 252 6.7 Bunka Bōeiron: a “retrogressive” theory of time 258 6.8 Culture as the militant defense of culture 264 6.9 Mishima’s Orientalism 267 CHAPTER SEVEN: 275 CONCLUSION 7.1 Relevance to today 275 7.2 New expressions of collectivity 279 7.3 Chysanthemum Taboo in the Red, White, and Blue 281 7.4 Tennōsei theory 284 7.5 Let’s own it 288 BIBLIOGRAPHY 290 ix CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 What it’s not This project is not about the emperor of Japan. It is rather about how the image of the emperor is mobilized and represented for the production of nationality in Japan. We have plenty—in fact, too many—books about the emperor in English. The problem with these books is that in focusing all their attention on the individual emperor—his movements, second-hand accounts of his conversations, his political acumen, his internal feelings—they are completely incapable of theorizing the “emperor system” (tennōsei) and how it is the production of nationality itself. Immersed in the intricate and intimate details of an emperor’s life, the authors of these books “embed” themselves into the imperial palace of their fantasy; they lack the critical distance needed to recognize that the actual will of the emperor is completely irrelevant to the ideology, not to mention that it is remarkably unspectacular and boring.
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