- Convenors:
-
Robin Kietlinski
(City University of New York - LaGuardia Community College)
Oleg Benesch (University of York)
Miriam Kadia (University of Colorado Boulder)
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- Discussant:
-
Lisa Yoshikawa
(Hobart and William Smith Colleges)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- History
Short Abstract
This panel examines Japanese diplomatic history through three case studies. They show how diplomacy operates across realms—from bilateral relations to cultural exchange and sports. Analyzing both Western and Asian ties reveals how Japan has navigated its international position over time.
Long Abstract
This panel challenges conventional narratives of Japanese diplomatic history by examining the diverse actors, cultural practices, and symbolic resources that shaped Japan's international relations beyond formal treaty negotiations. While traditional diplomatic history emphasizes state-level agreements and official negotiations, these three papers reveal the complex ways that transpacific relationships were established and maintained from the mid-19th century through the postwar period.
Benesch traces the samurai's enduring role as a diplomatic symbol from the late Tokugawa period through the postwar era. By examining martial arts instruction, gift exchanges, and the circulation of samurai objects, his paper shows how both state and private actors deployed cultural iconography to advance Japan's interests abroad, ultimately contributing to the samurai's rehabilitation and global popularity after 1945.
Kietlinski examines Townsend Harris's trajectory from educational reformer to diplomatic pioneer, demonstrating how his pedagogical philosophies informed his negotiations during Japan's opening to the West. By foregrounding Harris's background in higher education, this paper illustrates how one individual shaped the foundational moments of U.S.-Japan relations, complicating narratives that privilege geopolitical strategy over personal agency and cross-cultural understanding.
Kadia’s paper shifts to the postwar period, exploring how Japanese alpinists' Himalayan expeditions became instruments of informal diplomacy that rehabilitated the imperial institution. Through mountaineering's intersection with Japanese-Nepali monarchical relations, this paper reveals how athletic achievement and royal contact enabled the Shōwa emperor's transformation from wartime leader to constitutional sovereign and goodwill ambassador, demonstrating the power of non-state cultural exchanges in reshaping national image.
Together, these papers demonstrate that Japanese diplomatic history extends far beyond treaty texts to encompass individual actors, athletic spectacle, and cultural performance. By centering these unconventional diplomatic narratives, the panel offers a more expansive understanding of how Japan negotiated its place in the international order across periods of dramatic political transformation.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
Drawing on Townsend Harris's personal journals and official correspondence, this paper argues that his educational philosophy that emphasized rational discourse and mutual understanding shaped his strategic interactions with Japanese officials during a critical period of modernization in Japan.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the career trajectory of Townsend Harris, whose transition from educational administrator to diplomatic pioneer highlights the foundation of U.S.-Japan relations. Before his appointment as the first U.S. Consul General to Japan in 1856, Harris founded the Free Academy (later City University of New York), demonstrating his commitment to public education and civic engagement. In Japan, he negotiated the Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1858), which occurred during Japan's tumultuous transition from Tokugawa isolationism to international engagement. This paper analyzes how Harris's background informed his diplomatic approach to cross-cultural negotiation. Drawing on Harris's personal journals and official correspondence, the paper argues that his educational philosophy that emphasized rational discourse and mutual understanding shaped his strategic interactions with Japanese officials during a critical period of modernization. By contextualizing Harris's dual legacy within mid-nineteenth-century American expansionism and Japanese institutional transformation, this paper contributes to broader discussions about the role of individual agency in shaping early transpacific diplomacy and the complex power dynamics inherent in treaty negotiations during Japan's opening to the West.
Paper short abstract
This paper traces the samurai's enduring role as a diplomatic symbol from the 1860s onward. By examining martial arts instruction and the circulation of objects, I show how samurai iconography was deployed to advance Japan's interests abroad, contributing to the samurai's current global popularity.
Paper long abstract
Members of the samurai class formed the vast majority of Japan's leadership and overseas missions in the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods. Even after the samurai were abolished in the 1870s, former samurai continued to hold prominent roles in government, the military, and business. In other countries, the samurai continued to be seen as emblematic of Japan, and reached a global peak of popularity during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. This was used by both state and private actors to promote Japan's culture and interests abroad, with samurai swords and armors frequently given as diplomatic gifts, while martial arts instructors became celebrities who trained foreign elites. This talk explores how samurai-related objects and activities were a key component of formal and informal diplomacy in Imperial Japan, and how these helped to lay the groundwork for the rehabilitation of the samurai image after the Second World War into the global icon it is today.
Paper short abstract
In the 1950s, Japanese alpinists mounted a series of expeditions culminating in a first ascent of the world's eighth-highest mountain, Manaslu. I argue that the climbs built a relationship between the Japanese and Nepali monarchies that rehabilitated the Shōwa emperor as a diplomat and civic patron.
Paper long abstract
Between 1952 and 1956, Japanese alpinists mounted a series of highly publicized expeditions to Manaslu (8163m), the world’s eighth-highest mountain located in the Nepal Himalaya. As historians have argued, the 1956 summit was a step toward the restoration of national pride in the wake of defeat in World War II and the disgrace of the Allied Occupation. This talk focuses on the under-explored significance of the climbs in building a relationship between the Japanese and Nepali monarchies. I argue that, through contact with one of Asia’s few remaining royal families, the Japanese imperial house whitewashed the Shōwa emperor’s responsibility for wartime atrocities, normalized him as a constitutional sovereign, and established his role as goodwill diplomat and patron of civic society.