The Standpoint of World History and Imperial Japan
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The Standpoint of World History and Imperial Japan by Takeshi Kimoto This thesis/dissertation document has been electronically approved by the following individuals: Sakai,Naoki (Chairperson) de Bary,Brett (Minor Member) Koschmann,Julien Victor (Minor Member) THE STANDPOINT OF WORLD HISTORY AND IMPERIAL JAPAN 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 Takeshi Kimoto August 2010 © 2010 Takeshi Kimoto THE STANDPOINT OF WORLD HISTORY AND IMPERIAL JAPAN Takeshi Kimoto, Ph. D. Cornell University 2010 This dissertation will reread the intellectual history of the Japanese empire from the perspective of sekaishi or “world history.” World history was an idea that was discussed by a number of scholars, intellectuals and writers intending to create a “new world order” in the Asia-Pacific region when the empire was faced with the crisis of total war since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. In this dissertation, I argue that modern Japan was a colonial empire and equipped with a universalist mode of legitimization for its system of rule and integration of its multiethnic populations. By discussing the Japanese Romantics and the Kyoto school of philosophy, I will show how they sought to integrate and mobilize the nation and the imperial subjects in the colonies through the idea of world history. First of all, I will thematize the Japanese Romantic writer Yasuda Yojūrō in order to show that Yasuda, contrary to his established image as an anti-modern, aesthetic and ethnic nationalist, in fact advocated the idea of world history. To this end, I will seek to demonstrate how his notion of world history was consistent with, and derived immanently from, his important literary notion of “romantic irony” by looking at his discussions of the German Romantic writer Friedrich Schlegel. Moreover, I will closely examine his narrative of world history and his rhetorical practice of romantic irony in his encounter with the colonial intellectual Hyun Yong Sup in his travelogues on colonial Korea. In turn, I will suggest the critical stakes in Hyun’s ironic response to the imperial universalism. Second, I will examine the wartime discussions of “philosophy of world history” by the second generation of the Kyoto school such as Kōyama Iwao and Nishitani Keiji. By focusing on their conception of sōryokusen or “total war,” I will aim to reveal internal contradictions of the notion of world history, which I describe as antinomies. Through these treatments, I will intend to demonstrate how the universalist idea of world history served for Japan’s imperial formation in both the metropole and the colony and how it was entangled with ironies and antinomies. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Takeshi Kimoto was born in Tokyo, Japan on December 14, 1971 and grew up in Kokubunji, Tokyo. He attended Waseda University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy in 1998. He continued to study at the graduate school of the same university and received a Master of Arts in Philosophy in 2001. He then attended the graduate school in the field of the area studies at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He first visited Cornell University in 2002 as an exchange student and then officially enrolled in a Ph.D. program in East Asian Literature at Cornell in 2003. He received a M.A. degree in the same field in 2006. iii Dedicated to my mother, Michiko Kimoto iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude and respect to my advisor Naoki Sakai. His influence is simply beyond description. If I had not met him, I would not have thought of pursuing a Ph.D. in the United States. Also, this dissertation would not have been completed without the warm encouragements and proper guidance of my other advisors Brett de Bary and J. Victor Koschmann. I am also deeply indebted to Prof. Emeritus Harry Harootunian of New York University. What I learned from them is just invaluable. I would also like to thank Profs. Minoru Iwasaki, Masafumi Yonetani and Toshio Nakano of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, who have developed the international research projects between TUFS and Cornell. In particular, my former advisor Iwasaki encouraged me in many ways and supported my decision to apply for a Ph.D. program at Cornell. Thanks also goes to other professors from whose seminars I have learned a great deal, including Profs. Michael Shin, Tomiko Yoda, Katsuya Hirano, Geoff Waite, Dominick LaCapra, and Ann Stoler. I appreciated the comments on my chapter by Profs. Yi Jinkyung and Ko Byung Kwon of the Suyu Research Institute in Seoul. I also thank Prof. Takahiro Nakajima and Yuji Nishiyama of the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy and Prof. Lee Seung Ryul, Yim Sung Mo, and Takeshi Fujii of the Institute for Korean Historical Studies for giving me opportunities to present my works. In retrospect, the beginning of my intellectual pursuit was in my high school years. I owe much to my senior friends, Hirokazu Ouchi, Hirotaka Kasai, and Tetsuya Kimura. The friendship with them led me to study at Cornell. Rich Calichman, John Kim, and Pedro Erber, who I had med in Tokyo, encouraged me to come to Cornell. The experience of working with Rich on translations taught me many valuable things. For the eight years at Cornell, I have had many wonderful friends and colleagues. From v bottom of my heart, I would like to say thank you to each: Akiko Ishii, Travis Workman, the late Mihoko Kajikawa, Annmaria Shimabuku, Seok Won Lee, Yoshiaki Mihara, Aaron Moore, Deokhyo Choi, Noriaki Hoshino, Chris Ahn, Gavin Walker, Jeff DuBois, Lisa Onaga, InYoung Bong, Peter Lavelle, Minhwa Ahn, Masaki Kinjo, Sookyeong Hong, Taik Kim, Yayoi Koizumi, Seth Jacobowitz, Dan Mckee, Yuko Shibata, Amalia Herrman, Arina Rotaru, Taran Kang, Franz Hofer, and Daena Funabashi. I could not have met these friends anywhere else. It was Mihoko who strongly encouraged me to apply for a Ph.D. here. I wish I could tell her that following her advice was a good choice. Also, without Seok Won’s valuable assist, I could not have finished my dissertation. Also, Annmaria and John helped me out when I was on the job market. I will never forget their friendship. I am also grateful for my colleagues outside Cornell with whom I have worked together: Hideaki Tobe, Ken Kawashima, Fabian Schaefer, Viren Murthy, Choi Jinseok, Hong Jeong-uk, Yi Young- jae, and Hwang Ho-duk. I learned a great deal about teaching from my colleagues in the Asian Studies Department at Cornell: the late Yasuko Nakanishi, Kyoko Selden, Naomi Larson, Toshihiro Asai, Sahoko Ichikawa, Misako Suzuki, Robert Sukle, Robin McNeal, Bruce Rusk and Keith Taylor. Theresa Pettit was one of the best teachers for me. Also, I thank my former housemates Travis, Akiko, Yoshi, Jeff, Noriaki, Lutz Becks and Todd Noyes for making my life in Ithaca enjoyable. I will keep the memories of the dogs Sylvester and Thunder, too. My friend and housemate Chris Kai-Jones was a thoughtful interlocutor and helped me with proofreading the entire manuscript. I deeply appreciate this. He and his family Vanessa, Aisha and their dog Totoro made my days of dissertation writing a pleasant experience. My old friends in Tokyo, Mitsuhiko Hasegawa and Hiroshi Shindo, remained loyal while I was abroad. Finally, I would like to express my deepest love for my mother Michiko Kimoto and my brother Hirokazu. I owe her more than I can ever say. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Dedication iv Acknowledgments v Table of Contents vii Introduction: World History, Universality, and the Aporias of Empire 1 Chapter 1: Polemics of Reading: Yasuda Yojūrō and the Question of Imperialism 14 Chapter 2: A Genealogy of Romantic Irony: Yasuda Yojūrō and the Early German Romantics 60 Chapter 3: Romantic Colonialism: Yasuda Yojūrō and the Korean Peninsula as the “Japanese Bridge” 88 Chapter 4: Antinomies of Total War 135 Bibliography 169 vii Introduction: World History, Universality, and the Aporias of Empire In a way, the “Overcoming Modernity” symposium represented a condensed version of the aporias of modern Japanese history. Faced with the urgent task of interpreting the idea of eternal warfare at a time of total war, the symposium marked the explosion of such traditional oppositions as those of reactionism and restoration, reverence for the Emperor and exclusion of foreigners, isolationism and the opening of the country, ultranationalism and ‘civilization and enlightenment,” and East and West. —Takeuchi Yoshimi, “Overcoming Modernity” (1959) 1 This dissertation will reread the intellectual history of the Japanese empire from the perspective of sekaishi or “world history.” World history was an idea that was discussed by a number of scholars, intellectuals and writers intending to create a “new world order” in the Asia-Pacific region when the empire was faced with the crisis of total war since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. In this dissertation, I argue that modern Japan was a colonial empire and equipped with a universalist mode of legitimization for its system of rule and integration of its multiethnic populations. By discussing the Japanese Romantics and the Kyoto school of philosophy, I will show how they sought to integrate and mobilize the nation and the imperial subjects in the colonies through the idea of world history. First of all, I will thematize the Japanese Romantic writer Yasuda Yojūrō in order to show that Yasuda, contrary to his established image as an anti-modern, aesthetic and ethnic nationalist, in fact advocated the idea of world history. To this end, I will seek to demonstrate how his notion of world history was consistent with, and derived immanently from, his important literary notion of “Romantic irony” by looking at his discussions of the German Romantic writer Friedrich Schlegel.