editor(No.15)(p1-4) 04.7.20 8:08 AM ページ 1

The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 15 (2004)

Editor’s Introduction

One of the most outstanding tendencies in American Studies in recent years
is the widespread interest in “internationalizing,” or, “denationalizing” the discipline. Scholars have made many efforts to place both the United States andAmerican Studies in a wider global context. Some are engaged in cooperative
projects seeking to reconstruct the ﬁeld, and others are developing approaches
which question the boundaries and classiﬁcations heretofore taken for granted,
expecting that such undertakings will enrich not only the study of the UnitedStates but also that of other disciplines. Although the current issue of our journal does not explicitly discuss such new tendencies, the articles contained areexpected to make a contribution to American Studies which is becoming increasingly international.
The ﬁrst essay by Stephen H. Sumida is based upon his speech at the annual meeting of the Japanese Association for American Studies held in Kobe lastJune. In “America at War Again: Issues of Ethnicity and Unity,” Sumida givesa nuanced reading of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” He suggeststhat the poem is not a praise of individualism, an afﬁrmation of choosing the“road less traveled,” but rather, an expression of ambivalence in choosing theparticular road that the traveler happened to take. Then he warns that in post9/11 America, there is growing pressure from the government and media toapplaud the United States for taking the “road less traveled” uncritically, inorder to unify the diverse public into supporting America at war.
The next four essays are devoted to the special theme of this volume, “Ideasof Time in America.” How has ideas of time been deﬁned throughout Americanhistory, across the vast space that America occupied, and across various disciplines of American Studies? How did ideas of time affect the lives of theAmerican people and the way in which they perceived their history and destiny? The essays under the special theme try to shed light on such questions ontime.
The ﬁrst two essays examine the concept of time in early America. In“American Conceptualization of Time and Jonathan Edwards’ Post-Millennialism Reconsidered,” Naoki Onishi explores the post-millennialism advocated1

editor(No.15)(p1-4) 04.7.20 8:08 AM ページ 22NISHIZAKI

by Edwards and argues that since his accumulated writings were of limited
availability, his idea was interpreted not as Edwards himself asserted it but as
his followers wanted him to have asserted. Critically examining the way inwhich Edwards’ idea of post-millenialism was accommodated so that it mightsuit American sentiments of various times, Onishi advocates the necessity toplace his works in the context of his own time. The next essay, “Conception ofTime in the History of Childhood: A Study of Intergenerational Perceptions ofLife in the Early New York Frontier” by Shigeo Fujimoto analyzes the perceptions of nature and society held by early settlers who inhabited the frontier ofNew York State and how those perceptions were handed down to the succeeding generation. After examining the generational ideas about nature and education, he concludes that since they were closely connected with frontier experience and thus transitory, the intergenerational perceptions were an inherently
vanishing historical phenomenon.
The next two essays explore the concept of time as represented in literature.
In “A Legacy of Female Imagination: Lydia Maria Child and the Tradition ofIndian Captivity Narrative,” Hisayo Ogushi demonstrates that Child’s ﬁrst
romance Hobomok as well as her other novels were direct descendants ofseventeenth-century Indian captive narratives written by Puritan women. Sheargues, however, that while using the traditional narrative, Child turns the white
woman from a helpless victim to an agent of change, thus transforming a conventional genre into an instrument with which a legacy of female imaginationin American literary history has been established. Hisao Tanaka, in “Modes of‘Different’ Time in American Literature,” tries to explore various epistemological modes of time in American literature, particularly in Herman Melville,William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison. They all were ‘rebels’ in their treatmentof time, he argues, since they departed from the dominant framework inAmerican society in which the idea of the linear progress of time was taken forgranted. In the end, he suggests, Morrison’s emergence on the American literary scene may activate the reexamination of the canonical genealogy ofAmerican history and literature.
The following eight essays, arranged more or less in a ‘chronological’ order,
deal with various topics in American Studies. In “Rural Enterprise and theNorthern Economy in the Early Republic: The New Jersey Charcoal Venture
as a Test Case,” Kenryu Hashikawa argues that rural capitalism which operated within the overall structures of rural work habits and culture was fairly common in the early republic and identiﬁes characteristics broadly applicable tosuch rural enterprise. In “Japanese Picture Marriage and the Image of Immigrant
Women in Early Twentieth-Century California,” Kei Tanaka examines the photography used for marriage arrangement and analyzes the process throughwhich the concept of the “vain women” became the dominant perception ofimmigrant Japanese women. “The Pursuit of Excellence: Abraham Flexner andeditor(No.15)(p1-4) 04.7.20 8:08 AM ページ 3

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

3His Views on Learning in Higher Education” by Sachiko Iwabuchi examines
the career and vision of Flexner, one of the most inﬂuential educational critics
in late nineteenth-century America and the founder of the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton, and argues that his commitment to an aristocracy of excellence may have relevance to the discussion of educational reform elsewhere.
“From Model to Menace: French Intellectuals and American Civilization”
by Reiji Matsumoto discusses the ambivalence with which French intellectuals
have perceived America from the eighteenth century to the present. He argues
that the current revival of anti-Americanism in France has much continuity fromthe past, but there are also some new elements: the ubiquity of American culture, the effect of globalization, the impact of information technology. The next
essay by Mikiko Tachi explores the relationship between commercialism andcounterculture in the 1950s and 60s. In an article entitled “Commercialism,Counterculture, and the Folk Music Revival: A Study of Sing Out! Magazine,1950–1967,” she demonstrates how the folk music revival, despite its strong
anti-commercial and anti-mass culture message, operated within mainstream
commercialism as demonstrated in various advertisements.
The next two essays focus on Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s. “Race, Classand Gender in America’s ‘War on Poverty’: The Case of Opal C. Jones in Los
Angeles, 1964–1968” by Kazuyo Tsuchiya analyzes how an African American
female activist struggled to recast “War on Poverty” programs at a local leveland fought against the tendency to subordinate women and ignore racial/classdifferences. In “Little Tokyo Reconsidered: Transformation of Japanese AmericanCommunity through the Early Redevelopment Projects,” Miya Shichinohe
Suga reveals the tension between Japanese Americans and Japanese businesspeople who took part in the redevelopment process, and discusses the impactof the projects upon Japanese American ethnic community.
The last paper in the volume, “Strategic Innovation or Strategic Nonsense?
Assessing the Bush Administration’s National Security Strategy” by YasuhiroIzumikawa analyzes the national security strategy of the administration ofGeorge W. Bush. He points out that although Bush’s strategies are far moreorganized and consistent compared with those of his predecessor, they containvarious contradictions which may not be overcome by the overwhelming material power that the United States possesses.
The publication of the Journal is supported in part by a grant-in-aid for thePublication of Scientiﬁc Research Results from the Japan Society for thePromotion of Science, for which we are deeply grateful. Most of the articles
published in the Journal, including the back issues, are available for reading on
the internet (http://www.jaas.gr.jp). We invite responses and criticisms fromour readers and hope that the Journal will continue to be an important medium
for American Studies across both disciplinary and national boundaries.

FUMIKO NISHIZAKI
Editoreditor(No.15)(p1-4) 04.7.20 8:08 AM ページ 44NISHIZAKI

For those who wish to submit a manuscript to the Japanese
Journal of American Studies:
1. Contributors must be dues-paying members of the JAAS.
2. Contributors are expected to observe our time schedule. Theymust ﬁrst submit the title and abstract (about 300 words) by
mid-January. We are unable to accept the manuscript without
this procedure.
3. The ﬁnal manuscript (maximum 7000 words including notes)
is due early May. The editorial committee will inform eachcontributor of the result of the selection process by the end ofJune. If accepted, the paper will be published in June the following year.
4. The fall issue of the JAAS Newsletter will carry “call forpapers” announcement with exact deadlines and special
theme for the forthcoming issue.
5. The JAAS will accept inquiries through email:ofﬁce@jaas.gr.jp