Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame

by Robert Thomas Tierney

Overview

Tropics of Savagery is an incisive and provocative study of the figures and tropes of “savagery” in Japanese colonial culture. Through a rigorous analysis of literary works, ethnographic studies, and a variety of other discourses, Robert Thomas Tierney demonstrates how imperial Japan constructed its own identity in relation both to the West and to the people it colonized. By examining the representations of Taiwanese aborigines and indigenous Micronesians in the works of prominent writers, he shows that the trope of the savage underwent several metamorphoses over the course of Japan's colonial period—violent headhunter to be subjugated, ethnographic other to be studied, happy primitive to be exoticized, and hybrid colonial subject to be assimilated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520265783
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	05/20/2010
Series:	Asia Pacific Modern , #5
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robert Thomas Tierney is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. From Taming Savages to Going Native: Self and Other on the Taiwan Aboriginal Frontier
2. Ethnography and Literature: Sat Haruo’s Colonial Journey to Taiwan
3. The Adventures of Momotar in the South Seas: Folklore, Colonial Policy, Parody
4. The Colonial Eyeglasses of Nakajima Atsushi

Conclusion: Cannibalism in Postwar Literature

Notes
Glossary of Japanese Terms
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Tierney has demonstrated adequately an insightful argument sustaining the similarity between the experiences of non-Western and Western colonization."—Bltn of the Institute of Chinese Literature & Philosophy

"An invaluable window through which one can appreciate wide-ranging experiences and interpretations of colonialism in prewar and wartime Japan."—World History Connected

Editorial Reviews

Tierney has demonstrated adequately an insightful argument sustaining the similarity between the experiences of non-Western and Western colonization.

Bltn Of The Institute Of Chinese Literature & Philosophy

An invaluable window through which one can appreciate wide-ranging experiences and interpretations of colonialism in prewar and wartime Japan.

World History Connected

Tierney has demonstrated adequately an insightful argument sustaining the similarity between the experiences of non-Western and Western colonization.

Bltn Of The Ícaro|Ícaro|Ícaro|Institute Of Chinese Literature & Philosophy