Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Reluctant Complicity in a Fascist Age: Nishida Kitarō’s The Problem of Japanese Culture and Iwanami Culture, 1938-1941

Henares, Joseph Alambra
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1556903910811186

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, East Asian Studies.
This thesis studies the thought of Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro through an analysis of his 1938 lecture series The Problem of Japanese Culture (Nihon bunka no mondai), his 1940 monograph The Problem of Japanese Culture, and reactions in the Japanese press to Nishida's writings from 1940 to 1941. Chapter 1 argues that The Problem of Japanese Culture includes anti-ultranationalist motifs, which I term "academic liberty" and "global orientation," as well as nationalist motifs like those I term "Japanese essentialism," "anti-Sinic differentiation," and "imperial centrality," and that the existence of these motifs in Nishida's work can be understood to be the result of Nishida's dialogue with the transnational Iwanami culture that developed around publishing house Iwanami Shoten. Chapter 2 argues that these motifs are made more nationalistic in The Problem of Japanese Culture as a result of Iwanami Shigeo's indictment during the 1939-1940 Tsuda Incident, during which historian Tsuda Sokichi was brought to trial by ultranationalist forces. Chapter 3 identifies Iwanami writers, anti-Nishida ultranationalists, and pro-Nishida ultranationalists as representing the three main strands of interpretation of Nishida's thought from 1940 through 1941, and argues that the more nationalistic tone and content of The Problem of Japanese Culture allowed for the assertion of an ultranationalist reading of Nishida.
Melissa Curley (Advisor)
Philip Brown (Committee Member)
Richard Torrance (Committee Member)
102 p.
Asian Studies; History; Modern History; Philosophy
Nishida Kitaro; Iwanami Culture; ultranationalism; Japanese intellectual history; Japanese philosophy; war; modern Japanese history; Iwanami Shigeo; Minoda Muneki; Watsuji Tetsuro; Nihon bunka no mondai; Problem of Japanese Culture; Konoe Fumimaro

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Henares, J. A. (2019). Reluctant Complicity in a Fascist Age: Nishida Kitarō’s The Problem of Japanese Culture and Iwanami Culture, 1938-1941 [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1556903910811186

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Henares, Joseph. Reluctant Complicity in a Fascist Age: Nishida Kitarō’s The Problem of Japanese Culture and Iwanami Culture, 1938-1941 . 2019. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1556903910811186.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Henares, Joseph. "Reluctant Complicity in a Fascist Age: Nishida Kitarō’s The Problem of Japanese Culture and Iwanami Culture, 1938-1941 ." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1556903910811186

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1556903910811186
488
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.