Comments on: The Soul of Japan

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:32:51 +0000

More worrisome than Keene’s book, for me, is the much more common trend of publishing erudite scholarship about Japanese history that no one but other Ph.D.s in Japanese history will ever be able to read.

I’ve tried three times to disagree with this, and each time I realized that you weren’t saying what I thought you were saying and I agreed with you. So, I agree with you.

By: Morgan Pitelka

Morgan Pitelka — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:27:39 +0000

Thanks for these follow up comments. I guess that for me, it is self evident that the idea of a country having a soul is preposterous. But I’d rather see Keene, or whoever, make an argument like this that is at least of interest to a large group of people than engage in the historiographical equivalent of navel gazing. Also, the essentialist quality of the argument makes for a fertile teaching moment, though I’m happy to let my students come to their own conclusions, as long as they write analytically and use evidence. More worrisome than Keene’s book, for me, is the much more common trend of publishing erudite scholarship about Japanese history that no one but other Ph.D.s in Japanese history will ever be able to read. What an unbelievable waste of time and energy. If I want to know more about a topic like Ashikaga Yoshimasa, I’m not going to rely on a book in English – I’m going to go to the sources, or at least the Japanese secondary sources, myself. This is my personal pet peeve and I’ve attacked it many times and in many places, most notoriously arguing on PMJS that refusing to translate specialized Japanese terms into English is a form of intellectual cowardice. If we have any kind of educational ambitions that extend beyond patting ourselves on the back or arguing with our colleagues in Japan, then we really need to intentionally address ourselves to a much wider readership.

By: David Eason

David Eason — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:52:05 +0000

I am also using Conlan’s monograph this time around, although only select chapters rather than the entire book. I have to once again agree with Jonathan that in all the instances where I have assigned this book – or even just parts of the book – to a class the reaction has been quite pronounced. Some students are surprised or uncomfortable and no doubt want to go back to their already established images of samurai based on movies, comics, and video games. But, after the initial shock, most students also seem to come to appreciate the larger history and are gratified to learn that samurai were not simply one-dimensional, fight-to-the-death killing machines, but in fact a group with complex behaviors, beliefs, and norms.

Also, to follow up on a comment made by Luke Roberts, I seem to recall that it was Naitô Kônan who is said to have once famously stated that, in order to understand modern Japan, there was virtually no reason or need to study the history of Japan prior to the Onin War.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:17:25 +0000

What I’m using this semester for my samurai class is Conlan’s State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan, and I’m contemplating using it for my general survey — it’s such a shock to the system for people expecting idealized Zen/Bushido/Kamikaze attitudes. It’s got some complex sections, especially on linguistic and social flux, but it does cover a great deal of really good ground.

By: David Eason

David Eason — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:18:27 +0000

I agree that there really does not appear to be much available in the way of accessible texts on medieval Japan for undergraduates. Like Jonathan, I also attempted to have students read large sections of Berry’s _The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto_ in a survey course on pre-1600 Japanese history that I taught last year but encountered similarly dismal results. Though I similarly appreciate and enjoy the book immensely, I do not think that I will be trying to assign it in a general Japanese history course again any time soon.

I am encouraged by Morgan’s experiences with Keene’s book on Yoshimasa, and I might even consider using it in a class at some point in the future once I first looked at it a bit closer myself. As Morgan knows, sweeping generalizations such as anything being the “soul of Japan” infuriates me though, as it runs against everything I believe about stressing the need to understand historical contexts as a defense against the kind of transcendental essentialism that a statement like the “soul of Japan” invokes.

This time around at least, I am asking students to write a paper based on a variety of medieval codes and battle accounts and to formulate an argument that addresses warrior behavior – in other words, practice versus the ideal. I am admittedly a bit anxious about this, but I have hopes that this approach will elicit some thoughtful and well-argued responses.