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Preface Preface PREFACE This volume has been a project of the Northeast Asia Council of the Asso- ciation for Asian Studies (NEAC). It was a unique experiment in that a democratically elected body held an open competition for papers that would result in an interdisciplinary volume offering fresh perspectives on early twentieth-century Japan. The general themes that would treat the period 1900 to 1930 were three: geographical and cultural space; cosmopolitanism and national identity; and diversity, autonomy, and integration. Moreover, the project Planning Committee for NEAC encouraged the integration or “main- streaming” of issues that cut across the above-mentioned themes, such as gender and cultural values. While the Japanese experience would be at the core of the project, the Planning Committee held that the experience of the neighboring peoples in Korea, Taiwan, the Pacific Islands, and the Chinese mainland was vital to the understanding of the late Meiji, Taishò, and early Shòwa periods. The committee therefore solicited proposals from specialists on the colonial periods in Korea, Taiwan, and the Pacific Islands and from China specialists on topics related to Japanese expansion on the mainland. The purpose of this preface is to provide a brief history of this project, and to acknowledge those who made its conceptualization and actualization possible. For both history and acknowledgment, one must mention first the Japanese publishing house of Maruzen Co., Ltd. In May 1994, the Meiji Studies Conference was held at Harvard University—inspired, in part, by Maruzen’s gift to Harvard of the invaluable Meiji Microfilm Set that it had produced. The Northeast Asia Council sent Germaine Hoston and Sharon Minichiello as representatives to the conference, at which time they solidi- xi xii PREFACE fied an idea that Meiji Conference organizer Helen Hardacre had suggested earlier—that there be a follow-up to the Meiji Conference that would focus on the Taishò era. By the end of 1994, a Planning Committee was in place, consisting of Hoston and Minichiello as co-chairs, Gail Lee Bernstein, Don- ald N. Clark, Tetsuo Najita, and J. Thomas Rimer. John W. Dower agreed to serve as consultant and later Miriam Silverberg as NEAC representative. The call for papers for the Taishò conference went out in November/ December 1994. It would be held November 1–5, 1995, in Maui, Hawai‘i—twenty-five years after that held in Quail Roost, North Carolina, which resulted in the first Taishò volume, Japan in Crisis, Essays on Taishò Democracy (edited by Bernard S. Silberman and H. D. Harootunian), ap- pearing in 1974. There was an enthusiastic response to the call for papers, with approximately sixty applications. The work of the Planning Committee was exceedingly difficult when it met in February 1995 to make its decisions. John Dower and Tetsuo Najita could not be there for the three-day meeting. Still, Dower wrote detailed comments from Cambridge, noting the conspicu- ous absence in the applicants’ abstracts of more traditional research themes and approaches: “Apparently the state has been finished off, and the capital- ists too (almost), along with all those bourgeois chameleons in the Diet, not to mention the bureaucracy and military. Requiescat in pace Kindaika-ron—and whatever-the-Latin-is-for-becoming-undead to ethnicity and gender.” In an extended telephone call, Najita made similar observations. He further advised that we not try to fill in what was missing; rather, we should capitalize on the wealth of what we had, considering it a commentary on new scholarship in the field as of 1995, and try to produce with the chosen essays an exceptional volume. When the conference convened at the Westin-Maui on November 1, 1995, the participants had read in advance each of the participants’ papers. Each day’s meetings could proceed, therefore, in a workshop format, with the goal of promoting the cross-fertilization of ideas. Professors Shin’ichi Kitaoka (Rikkyò University, and now the University of Tokyo) and Osamu Mihashi (Wakò University) participated in the discussions as Japan observers and Professor Takie Lebra (University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa) as our Western observer. At the end of the conference, Professor Kitaoka commented on the three themes the Planning Committee originally chose in 1994—geographi- cal and cultural space; cosmopolitanism and national identity; and diversity, autonomy, and integration. These, he suggested, had collectively facilitated a fresh examination of Japan’s periphery during the early twentieth century, which was constituent to a deeper understanding of her center during the same period. xiii Preface In addition to Professors Hoston, Bernstein, Clark, Najita, Rimer, Dower, and Silverberg, along with the conference observers I have named above, I wish to thank many others who contributed to this project. Our sponsors were many, beginning with the tremendous support from the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies and Maruzen Co., Ltd. The Korea Research Foundation, Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Kamigata Cultural Foundation, Central Pacific Bank of Hawai‘i, and The Westin-Maui all supplied crucial funding. The project would not have been possible without the sustained support of the Kajiyama Publications Fund and many units within the University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa. The Japanese Studies Endowment Fund of the University of Hawai‘i (through a grant from the Japanese government) provided both start-up and ongoing funding. Those who contributed to the richness of events surrounding the origi- nal Maui Conference included Professor Lucy Lower, the Honolulu Acad- emy of Arts, and the Taishò Singers of Honolulu. Thanks also go to the many individuals and organizations involved in the outreach component of the conference. The Hawai‘i Committee for the Humanities provided much of the funding. Gay Satsuma, outreach director, coordinated the interisland appearances of our speakers—Professors Barbara Brooks, Elaine Gerbert, Jeffrey Hanes, Roy Starrs, and E. Patricia Tsurumi. Our assistants on site at the conference were invaluable, and appreciation goes to Angela Carbonaro, Marcia Hoston-Barra, and Gay Satsuma. The production of this book would not have been possible without Patricia Crosby, executive editor of the University of Hawai‘i Press, Masako Kobayashi Ikeda, our managing editor, and Brian Masshardt, editorial assis- tant at the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa. I want to thank these and all of the above for their important roles in conceiv- ing this project and moving it forward. .

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