Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 393-417). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Theses (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains vi, 76 p. Bibliography: p. 73-74.

xvii, 417 p. : ill., maps. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / In the postwar era, early modern or Edo period (1600-1868) Japan has most often been represented as a culture in isolation due to ostensibly draconian Bakufu regime policies that promised death to any one returning from abroad ( sakokuron , or the "Closed-Country" theory). While historians of Japan acknowledge limited contact with Dutch, Chinese, Korean, and Ryukyuans, the two hundred and sixty-some years of the Edo Period has consistently been interpreted as a time in which an indigenous Japanese culture developed and flourished without the corrupting influence of extensive foreign contact. This project takes as its subject the stories of thousands of Japanese fisherman and sailors who became distressed at sea ( hyôryûmin ) and subsequently drifted throughout the Pacific before being rescued and repatriated by foreigners during the late 18 th and 19 th centuries. The hundreds of narratives that comprise this textual category of early modern hyôryûki or "castaway narratives" served as the primary means of representing encounters with foreigners in and around the Pacific region and, in turn projecting an emerging Japanese national consciousness. The origins of these hyôryûki are tied to the earlier establishment of diplomatic protocol for handling repatriated castaways primarily within an East Asian context and the kuchigaki ("oral testimonial") narrative records that resulted from interrogations of the repatriated subjects by both bakufu and domain officials. Late Edo castaways also had their stories of drift recorded in kuchigaki form, however with the encroachment of first Russian, and later English, American, and other western ships in the waters off the coast of Japan in the late Edo period (post-1780) other hyôryûki forms--both scholarly and popular--came to proliferate, as it became imperative to translate and re-imagine geopolitical developments in the greater Pacific. This dissertation not only uncovers a diverse textual and cultural category of hyôryûki , but also the complicated interrelationship between cultural production and concrete territorial and political concerns of the State. In so doing, it not only challenges traditional historiography of early modern Japan, but also reclaims a certain cultural specificity for the late Edo Japanese hyôryûki , contextualizing these texts within a more global process of colonization and modern Nation-State formation. / Committee in charge: Stephen Kohl, Chairperson, East Asian Languages & Literature; Alisa Freedman, Member, East Asian Languages & Literature; Maram Epstein, Member, East Asian Languages & Literature; Jeffrey Hanes, Outside Member, History

In a tale of survival, dubbed that of the “South Seas Crusoes”, a group of men overcame the odds by setting up camp on a deserted volcanic sub-Antarctic island in the middle of the Southern Indian Ocean. This group of men formed the crew of the Norwegian SS Solglimt sealing vessel which had wrecked on the sub-Antarctic Marion Island in October 1908. More than a century later remains of the shipwreck of the SS Solglimt can still be found lying exposed below the water in the bay of Ships Cove. In the valley north of the bay, the remnants of the shipwreck survivor camp associated with the wreck holds hidden stories of a terrestrial maritime landscape formed out of tragedy and the need to survive. It is mainly the remains of this camp which forms the basis of the research and discussion for this dissertation. The following study is not only an attempt to add to our knowledge and understanding of the archaeological remains on Marion Island, it is also to add to an existing body of knowledge involving shipwreck survivor camps. The remains on Marion Island have produced the perfect opportunity to fill gaps within the discipline of Maritime Archaeology, especially in South Africa where too often emphasis is placed on shipwreck studies and not enough on the events taking place before or after the crisis event. The following dissertation uses archaeological techniques alongside historical documents as a way to better understand the socio-cultural behaviour of survivors during events of disaster, isolation and the necessity to survive. The study will be used as a comparison to similar studies around the world and hopes to add to an existing body of knowledge involving survivor camps and disaster-response studies from an archaeological and anthropological perspective. / Anthropology and Archaeology / M.A. (Archaeology)