Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945

by E. Taylor Atkins

Overview

This remarkable book examines the complex history of Japanese colonial and postcolonial interactions with Korea, particularly in matters of cultural policy. E. Taylor Atkins focuses on past and present Japanese fascination with Korean culture as he reassesses colonial anthropology, heritage curation, cultural policy, and Korean performance art in Japanese mass media culture. Atkins challenges the prevailing view that imperial Japan demonstrated contempt for Koreans through suppression of Korean culture. In his analysis, the Japanese preoccupation with Koreana provided the empire with a poignant vision of its own past, now lost—including communal living and social solidarity—which then allowed Japanese to grieve for their former selves. At the same time, the specific objects of Japan's gaze—folk theater, dances, shamanism, music, and material heritage—became emblems of national identity in postcolonial Korea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520266742
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	08/25/2010
Series:	Colonialisms , #5
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

E. Taylor Atkins is Professor of History at Northern Illinois University and the author of Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Note on Transliteration xv

Introduction 1

1 A Long Engagement 13

2 Ethnography as Self-Reflection: Japanese Anthropology in Colonial Korea 52

3 Curating Koreana: The Management of Culture in Colonial Korea 102

4 The First K-Wave: Koreaphilia in Imperial Japanese Popular Culture 147

Epilogue: Postcolonial Valorizations 187

Notes 201

Bibliography 235

Index 257

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Atkins succeeds in illustrating the many anxieties and self-contradictions that shaped the Japanese reception, handling and discussion of Korean traditional and popular culture throughout the official, anthropological, curatorial and popular spheres."—Japan Times

"An asset not only to scholars of Japanese and Korean studies but to readers interested in colonial histories, postcolonial studies, racial studies and cultural studies in general, thanks to its comparative interdisciplinary approach."—
Int Journal of Cultural Policy

"The author is to be commended for amassing a wide range of cultural productions . . . and shaping them into a more general claim about the relationship between colonialism and culture within the context of modernity."—Korean Studies

"Atkins's study offers a refreshing new perspective."—Journal of Japanese Studies

Editorial Reviews

The author is to be commended for amassing a wide range of cultural productions . . . and shaping them into a more general claim about the relationship between colonialism and culture within the context of modernity.

Korean Studies - Todd Henry

Atkins’s study offers a refreshing new perspective.

Journal Of Japanese Studies

Atkins succeeds in illustrating the many anxieties and self-contradictions that shaped the Japanese reception, handling and discussion of Korean traditional and popular culture throughout the official, anthropological, curatorial and popular spheres.

Japan Times

An asset not only to scholars of Japanese and Korean studies but to readers interested in colonial histories, postcolonial studies, racial studies and cultural studies in general, thanks to its comparative interdisciplinary approach.“

Int Journal Of Cultural Policy - Joowon Yuk