Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how imperial Japan's zoologist-activists negotiated science, nation- and empire-building, and local interests to select state-protected Natural Monuments, when dealing with animals and their habitats that did not fit the political boundaries the central government sought to draw.

Paper long abstract:

The 1919 establishment of Japan's state-led Natural Monument protection law was part of a wider movement amongst imperialist powers. Rapid nineteenth century industrialization and urbanization raised concerns about the resulting destruction of the environment. Voices lamenting the loss of indigenous flora and fauna, geological features, and scenic beauties, led to private and public endeavors in Europe and the United States to shield them from further damage. The Japanese followed by the turn of the century, looking specifically to the German model. Activists saw these monuments as memorials to nature's creations and human relationship with them, comparable to the manufactured kinds commemorating past heroes, and places and events deemed historic. In designating monuments at the national level, the central government chose those that supported contemporaneous nation and empire building, often in negotiation with local and private interests. Science was an additional factor to determine conservation or native statuses when choosing plants, animals, or minerals to protect.

Identifying animals that could represent Japanese-ness was particularly difficult, since they had to be charismatic, inspirational, recognizable, and memorable, and because political borders were meaningless to non-human creatures. Migratory birds like crested ibis (Nipponia nippon) and red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis), although named after the archipelago, were migratory and hence only resided in Japan part-time. Contemporary science located world-renown creatures such as the giant salamander (Megalobatrachus japonicas) and Japanese raccoon-dogs (Nyctereutes viverrinus) both on the continent and the archipelago. Many of the creatures identified as endemic, such as Mikado pheasant (Calophasis mikado, Taiwan) and Ryūkyū robin (Erithacus komadori), were of colonial origins. This paper examines how zoologist-activists like Watase Shōzaburō, Tanaka Shigeho, and Kaburagi Tokio navigated hurdles to create Japanese animals, based on their discourse in official journals like Shiseki Meishō Tennen Kinenbutsu, government-commissioned investigation reports, and more general writings. It ends by discussing how similar attempts at conservation occur now in the genome age.

Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates how Port Arthur war sites (Ryojun senseki) from the Russo-Japanese War were, through various representations, performances, and discourses from 1905 to 1945, made into powerful sites of memory utilized to justify Japanese colonial rule in perpetuity.

Paper long abstract:

Port Arthur (Ch. Lüshun, Jp. Ryojun) was the scene of a seven-month-long siege during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) that resulted in over 100,000 casualties on both sides. Following the conflict, the city became the global face and main point of entry for Japan's Manchurian empire. Port Arthur had tremendous symbolic value for the greater Japanese empire throughout the following period to 1945. Through the relatively recent concept of "war sites (senseki)," which connected modern ideas of historical preservation with the "cult of the fallen soldier," Port Arthur was transformed into a giant memorial for the imperial Japanese war dead, and subsequently used to justify Japan's colonial claims to rule. This paper examines Port Arthur war sites (Ryojun senseki) as socially produced spaces where memories, narratives, and ideologies of war were shaped, circulated, and (re)produced in service of Japanese nation and empire building. It proposes a triadic view of the space of war sites as being comprised of representations such as monument building, performances including educational tourism, and discourses centering on the "heroic war dead (eirei)" and the idea of Port Arthur as "sacred space (seichi)." The meanings, interpretations, and uses of war sites, the paper argues, were not fait accompli; rather, they emerged as a result of activities involving many makers and shapers of memory. In particular, the paper identifies military elites such as Nogi Maresuke and Tōgō Heihachirō who advocated for some of the earliest and most prominent Port Arthur war site memorials, as well as the Society to Preserve War Sites in Manchuria (Manshū Senseki Hozon-kai) which furthered this process in the 1910s. In addition, it examines war site tourism promoted by agencies such as the South Manchurian Railway Company (Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushikigaisha) which sponsored educational tours and visits by notable literati including Natsume Sōseki and Yosano Akiko to Port Arthur war sites at this time. Finally, the paper concludes by touching on the state of Port Arthur war sites today, including their re-invention and re-use for Japanese and global tourism from the 1990s.

Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, I will analyze how global currents influenced the representations of national history and of narratives of "Great Men" in public space in Meiji Japan. In particular, I will look at the process of planning and building public statuary and memorials.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, I will analyze how global currents influenced the representations of national history and of narratives of "Great Men" in public space in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Japan.

Modern nations follow similar patterns when constructing national history and legitimizing the current political and social system, notwithstanding claims for uniqueness inherent in each and every version of nationhood. One ingredient of national narratives that most modern nations share are heroic stories of "Great Men." The importance of these stories has to be seen against the background of the "Great Man View of History," which forcefully emerged in the nineteenth century and was introduced to Japan in the 1870s. Its influx triggered the publication of numerous monumental biographies of "Great Men" (ijin-den) as well as the construction of hundreds of memorials—secular memorials, public sculpture, and shrines—dedicated to the ijin all over the country.

Although Japan has a long history of Buddhist bronze statuary, memorials dedicated to historical personalities were almost unknown before the Meiji era, in particular, public bronze statuary depicting historical figures. Between 1880 and 1940, however, more than 700 statues were set up throughout the empire, resulting in the development of a dense network of personalized sites of national history. I will demonstrate how international discourses affected the construction of these "realms of memory" and disentangle global, national, and regional factors that shaped discourses regarding the representation of national heroes in the public sphere.

While the focus of the presentation will be on the Meiji and the Taisho periods, I will demonstrate that the "Great Man View of History" remains highly influential in present-day Japan.