The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 34 (2023)

English-Language Works by JAAS Members
2021
The following is a list of citations and abstracts of recent publications written in
English by members of the Japanese Association for American Studies on topics
related to American Studies.

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS
Ishii, Noriko. “Imagining an Anti-Racist Cosmopolitanism: Localization,Imperialism and Transnational Women’s Activism in Interwar Japan.” Journal ofColonialism and Colonial History 22, no. 3 (2021) doi:10.1353/cch.2021.0044.
This article is a case study of American and Japanese missionaries’ collaboration in theexpansion of a Japanese women’s college to examine the complexities of friendshipwithin the context of American and Japanese imperialism during the interwar period(1918–1941). Missionaries’ expressions of internationalism or friendship conveniently
masked the unequal hierarchy of multiple colonialisms and racism. Yet genderautonomy in this women’s college expansion campaign created a shared public venue
for aspirational anti-racist cosmopolitanism.

Matsuda, Takuya. “Back with Butterflies: (Post-)World War II Fiction of AméricoParedes.” South Central Review 38.1 (2021): 37–57.
This article examines Américo Paredes’s short stories set in post-WWII Japan, which
depict interracial relationships between Mexican American soldiers and Japanesewomen. As opposed to many Anglo-authored mainstream narratives of this genre,
Paredes’s stories satirically expose issues of racism, sexism, and imperialism in such
relationships to claim that the war was continuing throughout the occupation.

Ochiai, Akiko. “From Underrepresentation to ‘Dual Heritage’ and Beyond:Contemporary African American Monument-Building.” Soundings: An163

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Interdisciplinary Journal 104: 4 (2021): 320–61.
African American monuments erected following the Civil Rights Movement
juxtaposed with former Confederate monuments, created a parallel “dual heritage.”
More recently, “counter-monuments” have contested prior memorialization, while
the Black Lives Matter movement urged total removal of Confederate monuments.
This essay explores African American monumental commemoration over the past half
century to reconsider desegregation of the memorial landscape.

Tatsumi, Takayuki. “American Renaissance in the Age of Theory: A Far EastVersion.” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 9 (Fall 2021):423–32.
This article is part of a special forum organized by Professor Yoshiaki Furui,
entitled “Japanizing American Literary Studies.” It traces the way postwar JapaneseAmericanists translated the canons of American literary history, digested post-New
Critical and poststructuralist theoretical approaches, and published their own articles
on American Renaissance writers in English, some of which were highly acclaimed by
North American specialists.

Tatsumi, Takayuki. “Introduction: In the Age of Transnational Science Fiction.”
Mechademia: Second Arc 14.1 (Fall 2021): 1–7.
Serving as guest editor of the journal’s special “science ﬁction” issue, the author
compares the history of western science ﬁction with that of Japanese science ﬁction
and describes the advent of transnational science ﬁction with reference to such works
as the distinguished Chinese writer Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem and the 2017
Nobel Laureate in Literature Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021).

Tsuji, Shoko. “Fedallah and the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands: Ambiguous Images ofAsians in Moby-Dick.” Ecocriticism Review 14 (2021): 33–45.
Fedallah, the Parsee and Captain Ahab’s harpooner in Moby-Dick, has long been
misinterpreted and devalued by critics as a ghostlike Asian character. This paper,
however, examines and highlights Fedallah’s positive and multivocal characteristics
and also demonstrates that he evokes an image of the people of actual Asian islands,
especially the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands.

Tsukada, Hiroyuki. “Powhatan and the Fate of the Lost Colonists of Roanoke:
Decoding William Strachey’s Imaginary Geography.” North Carolina Historical
Review 98, no. 1 (January 2021): 42–64.
This study examines William Strachey’s writings and other literary sources to tryto resolve the mysterious circumstances in which the lost colonists of Roanoke
disappeared and were assumed to have been murdered. It attempts to oﬀer a logicalexplanation for how the colonists disappeared by examining evidence of the path they

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took through Native grounds.

Uno, Hiroko. “Japanese Approach to Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.” J19: The Journalof Nineteenth-Century Americanists 9, 2 (2021): 443–451.
This article explores the reasons that Emily Dickinson’s poetry has been and continues
to be actively studied in Japan. It explains how Dickinson’s poetry appeals to Japanesesensibilities such as a love of nature and resembles Japanese cultural forms such as
haiku and black-and-white drawings, in which Japanese take pleasure in using their
imagination to complete a poem or ﬁll the white space in a work of art.

Uno, Hiroko, “Teaching Emily Dickinson in Japan.” The Emily Dickinson
International Society Bulletin 33, 1 (2021): 12–14.
It is diﬃcult to teach Emily Dickinson’s poetry to Japanese students, not only because
her poetry is ambiguous even to native speakers of English, but also because theJapanese language is completely diﬀerent from English in its structure and idiom.
Here, I discuss the strategies I use in my classes to make use of the similarities between
Dickinson’s poetry and haiku.

ARTICLES IN BOOKS
Sasaki, Yutaka. “SSRC’s Committee on Comparative Politics and the Struggle toConstruct a General Theory of Political Modernization Using the Japanese Model:
Scholarly Endeavors of Robert E. Ward.” In International Society in the Early
Twentieth Century Asia-Pacific: Imperial Rivalries, International Organizations,and Experts, edited by Hiroo Nakajima (New York: Routledge, 2021): 140–164.
This article focuses on scholarly views regarding the political modernization ofJapan expressed by the Committee on Comparative Politics (the CCP) of the Social
Science Research Council. It mainly analyzes the academic motives of Robert E.
Ward, a member of the CCP and Japan expert, to construct a general theory of politicalmodernization by using the example of the modernization of Japan.

Takahara, Shusuke. “Woodrow Wilson’s Intervention in North Russia and Siberia.”
In Russian International Relations in War and Revolution, 1914–1922 Book 2:
Revolution and Civil War, edited by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, OlegBudnitskii, Michael Hughes, and David MacLaren McDonald (Bloomington, IN:Slavica Publishers, 2021): 301–15.
This chapter seeks a more complete understanding of the U.S. intervention in boththe northern Russia and Siberian theaters from 1914–1922. These two elements ofAmerican policy should not be seen as entirely distinct, but rather as parts of theWoodrow Wilson administration’s overall policy regarding Russia.

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Tatsumi, Takayuki. “The Difference Engine in a Post-Enlightenment Context:Franklin, Emerson, and Gibson and Sterling.” In William Gibson and the Futures ofContemporary Culture, edited by Mitch R. Murray and Mathias Nilges (Iowa City:
University of Iowa Press, 2021):81–94.
This article closely analyzes the transnational perspective of The Diﬀerence Engine(1990), the only collaborative novel of William Gibson, known as the “Godfatherof Cyberpunk,” and Bruce Sterling, known as the “Cyberpunk King.” Inspired byFranklin and Emerson, the novel also features Yukichi Fukuzawa, one of the foundersof modern Japan, who showed deep interest in the future of technocracy.

BOOKS
Nakajima, Hiroo, ed. International Society in the Early Twentieth Century AsiaPacific: Imperial Rivalries, International Organizations, and Experts (London:Routledge, 2021).
This book examines how regional relations were negotiated in Asia and the Paciﬁcduring the interwar years. Imperial rivalries, a range of international organizations,and internationally minded experts intersected with each other to form a type ofregional governance in the Asia-Paciﬁc. This system transformed itself as post-war
decolonization accelerated and the U.S. entered as a major power in the region. It was
further reinforced by large American foundations.

DISSERTATIONS
Otori, Yukako. “Disposable Subjects: Law and Child Migration to the UnitedStates, 1890s–1920s.” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2021.
This dissertation traces the creation of what I call the “guardianship principle”: to enterthe U.S. from the 1890s to 1920s, children required support from their parents or legal
guardians who were socio-economically capable of giving them post-entry protection.
During the progressive era, the policy coalesced into a broader scheme of immigration
restriction, in which having a credible guardian was a necessary but insuﬃcientcondition for children’s entry.