Promise of Freedom: Nation, Sovereign, and Empire in Japan's Modernity

 

 

 

Looking back upon the extra-long twentieth-century that begins in the latter half of the nineteenth century and that continues today, it has become increasingly clear that “freedom” is not necessarily the antithesis of oppression and domination. Instead, as Michel Foucault’s writings and critics of liberalism have shown, “freedom” has too often been the condition for the workings of power. One of the most obvious examples in modern Japanese history of this relationship between freedom and power, is the Japanese empire’s promise to free those in the Asia-Pacific from the bonds of EuroAmerican colonialism and racism. Yet this relation between the promise of freedom and new oppressions—which should not be simply reduced to duplicity—is not peculiar to the period of the Second World War. Nor is it peculiar to Japan and East Asia. It has been a recurring theme in modern history throughout the world, including in North America, Europe, and beyond. This talk grapples with this question through the example of Japan, while discussing the complicity of freedom with the oppressions that have accompanied nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, the “emperor system,” and various forms of social discrimination.

 

 

Takashi Fujitani is a retired professor and the Inaugural Dr. David Chu Chair in Asia Pacific Studies, Asian Institute. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Professor Fujitani comes to the University of Toronto from the University of California, San Diego, where he was a professor of modern Japanese history for two decades. Professor Fujitani’s books include Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (University of California Press, 1996), Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) (Duke University Press, 2001), and Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans in WWII (University of California Press, 2011). He has held numerous grants and fellowships, including from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Stanford Humanities Center, and Social Science Research Council. He is also editor of the series Asia Pacific Modern (UC Press).