LEADER 03829nam 2200481 a 450 001 9910810333003321 005 20240131144552.0 010 $a0-8223-9633-5 024 7 $a10.1515/9780822396338 035 $a(CKB)3710000000124911 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10881098 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3007845 035 $a(DE-B1597)553682 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780822396338 035 $a(OCoLC)1058516826 035 $a(EXLCZ)993710000000124911 100 $a20150424d2000|||| s|| | 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||#|||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aAsia-Pacific : Culture, Politics, and Society : Civilization and Monsters : Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan$b[electronic resource] 210 $aDurham, NC, USA$cDuke University Press$d20000101 210 $cDuke University Press 215 $a1 online resource (305 p.) 225 0 $aAsia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society 311 $a1-306-86749-5 311 $a0-8223-2384-2 327 $tFrontmatter --$tCONTENTS --$tAcknowledgments --$tPrologue: Monsters in the Twilight if Enlightenment --$tPART I. SUPERNATURAL SIGNIFICATIONS --$tPART II. DISCIPLINING DEMONS --$tPART III. MODERN MYSTERIES --$tNotes --$tGlossary --$tBibliography --$tIndex 330 $aMonsters, ghosts, the supernatural, the fantastic, the mysterious. These are not usually considered the ?stuff? of modernism. More often they are regarded as inconsequential to the study of the modern, or, at best, seen as representative of traditional beliefs that are overcome and left behind in the transformation toward modernity. In Civilization and Monsters Gerald Figal asserts that discourse on the fantastic was at the heart of the historical configuration of Japanese modernity?that the representation of the magical and mysterious played an integral part in the production of modernity beginning in Meiji Japan (1868?1912).After discussing the role of the fantastic in everyday Japan at the eve of the Meiji period, Figal draws new connections between folklorists, writers, educators, state ideologues, and policymakers, all of whom crossed paths in a contest over supernatural terrain. He shows the ways in which a determined Meiji state was engaged in a battle to suppress, denigrate, manipulate, or reincorporate folk belief as part of an effort toward the consolidation of a modern national culture. Modern medicine and education, functioning as a means for the state to exercise its power, redefined folk practices as a source of evil. Diverse local spirits were supplanted by a new Japanese Spirit, embodied by the newly constituted emperor, the supernatural source of the nation?s strength. The monsters of folklore were identified, catalogued, and characterized according to a new regime of modern reason. But whether engaged to support state power and forge a national citizenry or to critique the arbitrary nature of that power, the fantastic, as Figal maintains, is the constant condition of Japanese modernity in all its contradictions. Furthermore, he argues, modernity in general is born of fantasy in ways that have scarcely been recognized.Bringing unexplored and provocative new ideas to the Japan specialist, Civilization and Monsters will also appeal to readers concerned with issues of modernity in general. 606 $aHISTORY$2bisac 606 $aAsia / Japan$2bisac 615 7$aHISTORY 615 7$aAsia / Japan 676 $a398.2/0952/09034 700 $aFigal$b Gerald A.$f1962-$01657324 801 0$bDE-B1597 801 1$bDE-B1597 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910810333003321 996 $aAsia-Pacific : Culture, Politics, and Society : Civilization and Monsters : Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan$94084417 997 $aUNINA