A01=Stefan Tanaka
Alterity
Antiquarian
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Author_Stefan Tanaka
Bodhisattva
Buddhism
Cambridge University Press
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Chronology
Clark University
Columbia University Press
Conflation
Confucianism
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Edo period
Epistemology
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Everyday life
Experience
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Historicity
Historiography
Hokkaido
Inoue
Institution
Jacques Derrida
Japanese art
Kokugaku
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Meiji period
Modernity
Modernization theory
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National Endowment for the Humanities
Naturalization
Nihon Shoki
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Shigeno
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Taiheiki
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The Other Hand
The Various
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University of Michigan Press
Western culture
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Product details
- ISBN 9780691128016
- Weight: 369g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 23 Jul 2006
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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New Times in Modern Japan concerns the transformation of time--the reckoning of time--during Japan's Meiji period, specifically from around 1870 to 1900. Time literally changed as the archipelago synchronized with the Western imperialists' reckoning of time. The solar calendar and clock became standard timekeeping devices, and society adapted to the abstractions inherent in modern notions of time. This set off a cascade of changes that completely reconfigured how humans interacted with each other and with their environment--a process whose analysis carries implications for other non-Western societies as well. By examining topics ranging from geology, ghosts, childhood, art history, and architecture to nature as a whole, Stefan Tanaka explores how changing conceptions of time destabilized inherited knowledge and practices and ultimately facilitated the reconfiguration of the archipelago's heterogeneous communities into the liberal-capitalist nation-state, Japan.
However, this revolutionary transformation--where, in the words of Lewis Mumford, "the clock, not the steam engine," is the key mechanism of the industrial age--has received little more than a footnote in the history of Japan. This book's innovative focus on time not only shifts attention away from debates about the failure (or success) of "modernization" toward how individuals interact with the overlay of abstract concepts upon their lives; it also illuminates the roles of history as discourse and as practice in this reconfiguration of society. In doing so, it will influence discussions about modernity well beyond the borders of Japan.
Stefan Tanaka is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of "Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History".
