Theories and Methods in Japanese Studies: Current State and Future Developments
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Hans Dieter Ölschleger (ed.) Theories and Methods in Japanese Studies: Current State and Future Developments Papers in Honor of Josef Kreiner V&R unipress Bonn University Press Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.des abrufbar. ISBN 978-3-89971-355-8 Veröffentlichungen der Bonn University Press erscheinen im Verlag V&R unipress GmbH. © 2008, V&R unipress in Göttingen / www.vr-unipress.de Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. Hinweis zu § 52a UrhG: Weder das Werk noch seine Teile dürfen ohne vorherige schriftliche Einwilligung des Verlages öffentlich zugänglich gemacht werden. 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Table of Contents PREFACE...........................................................................................................7 Ronald DORE Japan – Sixty Years of Modernization? .........................................................11 KUWAYAMA Takami Japanese Anthropology and Folklore Studies................................................25 ITŌ Abito The Distinctiveness and Marginality of Japanese Culture.............................43 FUKUTA AJIO How the Task of Studying Yanagita Kunio Has Developed..........................63 ISHIGE Naomichi Historical Survey of the Food Culture ...........................................................75 Hans Dieter ÖLSCHLEGER The Cultural Turn in German Japanese Studies.............................................91 Klaus ANTONI The Divine Country: On State and Religion in Modern Japan ....................101 Sepp LINHART The Study of Japanese Values .....................................................................123 Axel KLEIN Studies on the Japanese Political System.....................................................141 Ralph LÜTZELER German Geographical Research on Japan ...................................................153 SASAKI Kōmei The Origins of Japanese Ethnic Culture – Looking Back and Forward........................................................................................................167 5 Table of Contents Patrick HEINRICH Casting Light on the Past: Lessons on the Origin and Formation of Japanese-Ryūkyūan..................................................................................... 185 TAKARA Kurayoshi Mainstream and Future Tasks of Studies in Ryūkyūan History.................. 205 Gregory SMITS Ryūkyū’s Relations with China and Japan.................................................. 215 Rosa CAROLI Recent Trends in Historiography on Modern Okinawa .............................. 229 Ulrike SCHAEDE Japan’s Business Practices in the 21st Century........................................... 251 Karl August NEUHAUSEN Ultima Orientis Thule Reconsidered........................................................... 271 Wolfgang MICHEL Medicine and Allied Sciences in the Cultural Exchange ............................ 285 Christian OBERLÄNDER Japan’s Deutschlandpolitik in the Postwar Period ...................................... 303 Claudius C. MÜLLER Museums of Ethnology and Japanese Studies............................................. 313 Timon SCREECH An Iconography of Nihon-bashi.................................................................. 323 Justin STAGL Japan As the Other – A Personal Account .................................................. 337 Harumi BEFU Consumer Nihonjinron................................................................................ 345 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS............................................................................... 357 6 Preface On February 2 and 3, 2006, the Institute of Japanese Studies / Center for Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Bonn convened an international symposium, »State, Current Developments, and Future Tasks in Japanese Studies« at the University Club in Bonn. The immediate reason for this sym- posium was the retirement of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Josef Kreiner, the speaker of the Center for Modern Japanese Studies and for decades – with an interrup- tion of eight years because of his position as founding director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies between 1988 and 1996 – managing director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at Bonn University. 19 colleagues and friends of Prof. Kreiner from all over the world, led by the doyen of Japanese Studies, Ronald Dore, presented papers on various aspects of the broad range of interest of Professor Kreiner, such as »Anthropology, Ethnology, and Folklore Studies«, »Ethnogenesis, Ryūkyū, and Ainu Studies«, and »Images of Japan, the Role of Museums and Collections, and Japanese-European Contacts«, as the various parts of this symposium were named. At the end of the symposium, those present unanimously decided to publish the proceed- ings in honor of Prof. Kreiner. The aforementioned threefold structure of the symposium is reflected in this volume, although some papers – from a variety of reasons – could not be included here. On the other hand, some colleagues and friends of Prof. Kreiner who were not present at the symposium in Bonn volunteered to con- tribute papers covering selected aspects of these topics. The results of this joint effort to honor Prof. Kreiner and his contributions to Japanese Studies are presented in this book. Finally the editor would like to thank the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms- University of Bonn, which has made possible the symposium in February 2006 as well as the publication of this book by a generous grant. Dr. Carole Gee and Jeanne Haunschild, both from Bonn, read and corrected several contributions to this volumes. To both of them, the editor offers his sincerest thanks. And last but not least, thanks go to Tomoe Steineck, Jeanne Haun- schild, and members of the Center for Intercultural Communation in Tokyo, who translated several contributions from the Japanese. Hans Dieter Ölschleger Bonn, September 2007 7 Preface Note: For Japanese, Chinese, and other East Asian names, we generally follow the convention of writing the surname first, followed by the given name, without a comma separating them. The sole exceptions to this rule are: (1) names in »References Cited«; here – for reasons of uniformity – the names are consistently written in the European order and separated by a comma if the order is inverted; (2) names of Europeans or Americans of Asian descent; these names are written in the European order. For the transliteration of Japanese words, the Hepburn system is used; for Chinese, the Pinyin. In place names, long vowels in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe have not been marked. The style of the individual papers has been preserved, therefore standardi- zation by the editor has been kept at a minimum. 8 Key Note Speech Ronald Dore Japan – Sixty Years of Modernization? It is a great honor and pleasure to be invited to celebrate Josef Kreiner’s non-retirement. At this distance I don’t very clearly recall what we talked about when he and Sepp Linhart invited me to Vienna thirty or forty years ago. All I vaguely remember are pleasant strolls along the banks of the Da- nube. But I am sure that whatever our talk was, part of our sense of rapport sprang from our shared experience of having passed from wondering at the exotic ways of Japanese villagers to finding ourselves comfortably at home with them. We also shared an acquaintance with the ebullient Oka Masao whose enthusiastic presence did so much to get Japanese studies going in Vienna. Nor do I remember what I lectured on, but I am sure that it wasn’t quite such a demanding subject as the one he has asked me to talk about today: namely what Japanese studies mean for the world today. Unfortunately I cannot speak for the world today, I can only say what Japa- nese studies mean for me, and what I think Japanese studies ought to mean for the world today. We all have our own Japans, our own personal Japan- problematik, and what are universities for if not to keep the spirit of curiosity alive by giving free range to individual curiosities? But there is one particular question which has been tantalizing me for most of my adult life. It is a ques- tion which has preoccupied a lot of influential thinkers, from Condorcet to Weber, from Morgan to Marx, from Spencer to Fukuyama. It is also a question which ought to be of concern to anyone interested in the long-term future of the human race. Put in its simplest and most abstract form it is this: is there any inevitability about the direction of social evolution? More elaborately, it goes like this. There is one undeniably cumulative and uni-directional trend in the history of world societies over the last millennium, namely the steady – and for the last century vastly accelerating – accumulation of scientific knowledge and its technological application. Is there any reason for thinking that this has inevi- table and perhaps equally unilinear consequences for social relations and pat- terns of governance? And if so, are these consequences the same everywhere? And are those changes aptly summed up as increasing individuation, accompa- nied by increasing individualism? Postwar Japan’s Search for Modernity It is a question which