From the Director: Modernity and Before: Some Issues for Japanese Historical Studies

T here was a time in the 1980s when it seemed that every book published in American history in this country addressed, from one angle or another, the trinity of class, race and gender. Much valuable work resulted, although one sometimes felt these keywords were invoked more for their sanctifying effect than their analytic power. In the 1990s in the field of Japanese historical, cultural and literary studies one notes a similarly ubiquitous triad of modernity, empire and gender. A glance at the titles of some of the most interesting and significant recent books gives a sense of this. Important edited collections include Japan’s Competing Modernities: Issues in Culture and Democracy, 1900-1930 (Sharon Minichiello, ed.) and Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan (Stephen Vlastos, ed.). Excellent single-author monographs that have these keywords front and center include Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (Louise Young), Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan (Gerald Figal), and Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood, and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan (Kathleen Uno). The list could easily be expanded if one looked beyond titles to substance.