This thesis reviews Yasukuni’s symbolic power and transformation from its foundation in 1869 to contemporary times in order to analyze the potent and variant meanings of the Yasukuni symbol. The paramount importance of the site is to ritualize the war dead, whether for national, personal, or religious purposes. While examining the shrine’s many functions, this paper does not try to defend or obscure the serious causal effects of the shrine’s symbolic power but to situate the intentions and controversies in a historical context to see how Yasukuni became what it is, and how it remains important to the Japanese. Beyond looking at Yasukuni through its many controversies (mondai), this thesis explains how the shrine has been important and continues to be a highly active ritual site with deep cultural and religious meaning. In order to understand current Japanese opinions of the significance of Yasukuni shrine, fieldwork was undertaken from June 2011 to October 2012. Research was conducted primarily in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan. The Kanagawa prefecture, close to the Tokyo area, facilitated repeat visits to the shrine. / text

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Arts

The association between nostalgia, nature and disenchantment has been and still is a very common trope in cultural and literary studies (Saler 138) within the scope of modernity. In fact, it has almost become “a cliché of our time” (Saler 138) in which people often view modern experience as an oppressive status of disillusionment rather than a liberating condition of enlightenment. Since this thesis aims to open up and point at different dimensions of modernity and become “part of a grandiose modernist project yet to be finished” (Hu 23-4), I would like to use Miyazaki’s works to argue that modernity is never a simple, one-sided condition of being ‘disenchanted’ as proclaimed by many scholars. In order to pinpoint some of the contradictory impulsions and potentialities of the experience of modernity, this thesis would first start with a brief overview on the ideas of ‘disenchantment’ and ‘nostalgia’ and their relations to the experience of modernity. The second part would be a general introduction to Miyazaki’s anime, briefly introducing his works in terms of style, content, characterization and such. In particular, I would like to point out how Miyazaki’s works have created alter-tales about disenchanted modernity by showing the multiple facets of modern life and exploring the possibility to (re)enchant modern experiences through his childlike protagonists and the fantastical form of anime. Part three to five would be comprehensive textual analyses about Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Spirited Away (2001) respectively, examining their relationships with and responses to the ambivalent experiences of modernity. The concluding part of this thesis would reflect on the contribution as well as the limitation of my research in regards to the writing of modern experiences and the ongoing modernist project. / published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Not available / text

The purpose of this thesis is to use the history of music theory to study cultural change in Japan. It has been said that “music is number” (Sima Qian), that it is the “organon of philosophy” (Schelling), that the discovery of the identity of certain simple mathematical ratios with the basic aural consonances—ascribed to Ling Lun in the East and Pythagoras in the West—is the inaugural instance of the “mathematization of reality.” It is this isomorphic relationship between mathematics and music that allows us to unlock the latter and all that it represents with the precision of the former. Indeed, it is my contention that music theory provides one of the crispest articulations of particular mentalités. This thesis is comprised of six chapters Chapter one outlines the history of music theory and shows how it applies to the history of modern Japan. Chapter two describes the way that music theory changed musical sensibility: music-theoretical ideas were imported by bureaucrats, actualized in school songbooks, and through these and other means suppressed the initially unfavorable reaction to Western music through a concerted effort to "hear through" the music to the ideas beneath. Chapter three looks at the way that the twelve tone equal division of the octave functioned analogously to Panofsky's perspectival "symbolische Form": a condition of possibility that rendered intellectually invisible other ways of organizing sound. Chapter four investigates the idea of a “natural scale” and traces attempts in Japan to provide rational, scientific justifications for Japanese scalar formations. Chapter five shows how a particular form of the pentatonic scale—one that both overlapped with the "universal" scale of pre-modernity and was compatible with the diatonic system—came to represent the “Japanese essence” within the constraints of the twelve tone system. Chapter six discusses the double nature of this pentatonic scale through a description of how it symbolized Japan’s entry into the “rationality” of the modern musical system while simultaneously objectifying “Japan” within that system as a specific lack. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

No description available.

This thesis explores a viable domestic legal framework for Japanese private space activities. Ideally, Japanese space legislation would govern private entities in a way that promotes commercialization while also fulfilling international obligations, doing both with an especial focus on commercial launch activities. First, I analyze current Japanese space law and space policies and continue by identifying Japan's problems in this arena. Next, I present research regarding other countries' space legislation solutions and examine how other nations' regulations do or do not solve problems similar to Japan's. Then, I assess the applicability of the foreign countries' approaches to Japan's situation. Finally, I propose ideas for a new legal structure for space activities in Japan and discuss possible implementation. I do so within the context of existing space policy problems that Japan must first tackle in order to successfully develop and enforce such new laws in the future.

Studies of the Early Meiji Period have until now been mainly articulated around the issue of continuity and discontinuity between the Edo and Meiji eras. Thus Tokyo has become the central locus of production of multiple discourses on Japanese modernity, urbanity and culture. / This work adopts a discontinuist approach by considering each era as two entirely distinct, although related, historical assemblages. For this, I focus my study on the conditions of production of Tokyo as a modern urban space. The entry into modernity is the crossing of a threshold. As Edo is marked by the order of the general equivalent and the law of the sumptury, Tokyo is produced in abstract space. We shift from an essentially heterogeneous space to a homogeneous, fragmented and hierarchized space. Following Henri Lefebvre, I try to analyze the production of modern abstract space as it is associated with a new mode of control of social space through administrative policies, cartography and urbanism.

This thesis examines the popularity of comic magazines among Japanese adult readers--primarily it looks at the male audience, but it also considers female response. It analyses texts of specific men's comics to illustrate the discourse of "masculinity-through-occupation" which these magazines offer to readers. In addition it explores the phenomenon of "readership response" by examining a selection of "reader letters." The role-adaptation-through-enjoyment possibilities these comic magazines provide to male readers is compared to parallel possibilities for female readers by examining both women's responses to male comics, and the nature of narrative in women's comics.

Recent discourse in international politics has seen a remarkable increase in the use of the word ‘civilisation’. This phenomenon has stimulated research that seeks to investigate the concept of the ‘standard of civilisation’ in the historical development of international politics, and the implications that this has had and may continue to have on the regional and global level. In this context, this thesis examines the evolving idea of the standard of civilisation as it relates to Japan. Throughout this investigation, the thesis sheds light on a nexus between the discourse of civilisation and militarisation. The linkage between civilisation and militarisation is most evident in the debate over Japan’s remilitarisation in the post-Second World War era. In analysing this case, the thesis also points out the potential ramifications of the discourse of civilisation in international politics, including issues surrounding the promotion of liberal democracy and the military alliance relationship between the United States and Japan. The thesis concludes by stating the importance of an awareness of dangers that may manifest themselves as a consequence of the linkage between civilisation and militarisation.