In 1700 Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a samurai of the province of Saga in northern Kyushu, retired from active duty in order to spend his remaining years praying for his lord, who had died that year. In collaboration with a younger associate, Tashiro Tsuramoto, who recorded his lectures and conversations, Tsunetomo authored a book entitled Hagakure. Finished in 1716, the work had taken six years, and upon completion it consisted of eleven volumes of short passages, mainly of a moral or anecdotal nature. Through didactic illustrations Tsunetomo delineated behaviour proper to the samurai class. Realizing that the extended age of peace of the Tokugawa period was having a debilitating effect on the morals of the warrior class, Tsunetomo attempted in Hagakure to reverse this trend. Aware of the changing circumstances, in which the samurai were increasingly assuming the role of administrators rather than warriors, Tsunetomo emphasized the development of mental attitudes appropriate to the battlefield. Self discipline and unquestioning loyalty, such as might be expected of an ideal warrior, even to the extent of being resigned to death at any time, was, he believed, a prerequisite to service of any kind. By developing such moral virtues as rectitude, courage, honour, decorum, compassion, unselfishness, frugality, and, most importantly, loyalty, Tsunetomo expected a samurai to prepare himself to serve his lord in any capacity. On the other hand, he derided samurai who were obsessed with intellectual or artistic pursuits, stating that they often became excessively proud and lost their ability to carry out their duties effectively. Because of Tsunetomo's emphasis on regional history and on loyalty to his provincial lord, Hagakure, would most certainly have displeased the authorities in Edo had it been widely circulated. Therefore, following the author's orders, it remained secret among the leading samurai of Saga until the middle of the nineteenth century. Then the rigorous loyalty found in Hagakure was redirected away from the regional lord to the emperor, in keeping with the rising sense of nationalism which accompanied the imperial restoration. Hagakure thus took on a new function. During the period of militarism leading to the Pacific War, Tsunetomo's declaration that a warrior must be resigned to death in the cause of loyalty brought widespread recognition to Hagakure. In fact, the book came to be equated with a determination to die for the sake of the emperor. To give a manageable structure to the hundreds of loosely associated passages of which Hagakure is composed, a modified framework of Confucian mores has been employed in this essay. Since the most prevalent philosophy of the book, and indeed of the whole Edo period, was Neo-Confucianism, this framework, however artificial, seems appropriate. Other approaches may also have been possible for Hagakure contains much more than only Neo-Confucian philosophy. The emphasis on simplicity and the reliance on one's own efforts, concepts which form intregal parts of Zen Buddhism, also held great appeal to Tsunetomo. He did not clearly conceptualize his beliefs as being Confucian, Buddhist, or native Japanese components. Rather all his ideas were amalgamated into a syncretism which he expresses Hagakure as the way of the warrior. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uppsala. / Corrections and explanatory remarks to part 1: v. 2, p. 45. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Uppsala. / Corrections and explanatory remarks to part 1: v. 2, p. 45. Includes bibliographical references.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:32:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edelson Geraldo Goncalves.pdf: 850235 bytes, checksum: 9983a5e657d2eeabd1f2e38c3b1b5a25 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-25 / Esta dissertação aborda o esquadrão Kamikaze, os pilotos suicidas japoneses na Segunda Guerra Mundial. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a trajetória deste grupo dento do cenário político e cultural do Japão Imperial durante o período da Segunda Guerra, abordando a formação do modelo de governo que acabou se aliando a alemães e italianos durante o conflito mundial, e também a ideologia que guiou a população japonesa durante este período, ideologia esta sustentada principalmente pelo ethos que foi construído e desenvolvido durante a primeira metade do século XX: o Bushido. Os membros do esquadrão Kamikaze acabaram entrando para a História, sobretudo no ocidente, como exemplos de fanatismo por uma causa, mas através da observação de fontes que vão desde testemunhos de pessoas que tiveram que conviver e lidar com os Kamikaze (como aliados e inimigos), até as palavras dos próprios Kamikaze, deixadas por meios como cartas e diários, buscaremos entender qual era o posicionamento destes pilotos dentro desse cenário, afastando-nos do estereótipo vigente para buscar compreender as motivações políticas e culturais que levavam estes pilotos a aceitar este sacrifício, nominalmente feito pela honra do Imperador e pela grandeza do Império

Film is a popular media with many impressions and messages. The message can, among other things, be conducted through various historical uses within the films. As a viewer, it is important to have the knowledge of how to analyse these messages and the use of history. The essay makes an analysis of the use of history of six different films based on Japanese culture. The analysis is made by categorizing the films within the different history uses. This is done through a narrative film analysis of the samurai as a symbol in the films and the characteristics shown by the samurai. The result of the analysis is, that the samurais characteristics is shown in several different ways, for example as a strong and loyal warrior, but also as a spiritual character who is interested in writing and reading poems. Some of the films also show the humanity of the samurai, where themselves fail to live up to the ideal of the samurai. The films create a complex image of the samurai who do not always adhere to the ideal depending on what the film aims to show the audience. The samurais were in the earlier films shown to be loyal to the nation but in the later films the direction of the loyalty changed towards the family. The categories used by the films are five out of seven: ideological, political-educational, existential, non-use and commercial. Political-pedagogical and commercial history was the two most common categories and was present in all films, while non-use was the third most popular category and was clearly relevant in five of six films. The result also shows that the time has influenced the film's production both filmically and through messages.

The Meiji Restoration was the revolution that overthrew the feudal regime of the Tokugawa period in late nineteenth-century Japan. It was also the time of the opening of the country to the rest of the world, and Japan had to confront with Western powers. The Meiji government boldly accepted the new technologies from the West, and succeeded in swiftly industrializing the nation. However, this same government had been aggressive exclusionists and ultra-nationalists before the Restoration. In light of this fact, I investigate how national identity is linked to engineering education in Japan. My focus is on the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE), or Kobu-daigakko, in Tokyo during the late nineteenth century. The ICE was at the forefront of Westernization in the Meiji government. I specifically examine Yozo Yamao and Hirobumi Ito, who studied in Britain and were the co-founders of the college; Henry Dyer, the first principal; and the students of the ICE. As a result of the investigation, I conclude that the spirit of samurai (former warriors) was the ethos for Westernization at the ICE. They followed ethical code for the samurai, the essence of which was lordly pride as a ruling class. They upheld their ethical standard after the Meiji Restoration. Their spirit of rivalry and loyalty urged Yamao, Ito, and the students to emulate Western technology for ensuring the independence of Japan. The course of the ICE's development reveals that non-engineering motivations shared a mutual relationship with the engineering education of those at the ICE. / Master of Science