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Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers
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Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time (Princeton Paperbacks)
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Japan's Modern Myths
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Blossoms in the Wind : Human Legacies of the Kamikaze
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Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods
ASIN: 0226620913 |
Book Description
Why did almost one thousand highly educated "student soldiers" volunteer to serve in Japan's tokkotai (kamikaze) operations near the end of World War II, even though Japan was losing the war? In this fascinating study of the role of symbolism and aesthetics in totalitarian ideology, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney shows how the state manipulated the time-honored Japanese symbol of the cherry blossom to convince people that it was their honor to "die like beautiful falling cherry petals" for the emperor.
Drawing on diaries never before published in English, Ohnuki-Tierney describes these young men's agonies and even defiance against the imperial ideology. Passionately devoted to cosmopolitan intellectual traditions, the pilots saw the cherry blossom not in militaristic terms, but as a symbol of the painful beauty and unresolved ambiguities of their tragically brief lives. Using Japan as an example, the author breaks new ground in the understanding of symbolic communication, nationalism, and totalitarian ideologies and their execution.
Customer Reviews:
"Many people would sooner die than think -.......2006-06-24
- in fact, they do so"
--Bertrand Russell
So it turns out that these were good guys after all, were they?
Right on.
If only the (not so?) Yamato People had prevailed.
Peace and harmony, and rule by "fluency in Marxism
and Western Philosophy" might have reigned throughout
Asia, the Pacific, portions of Oregon, The Bay Area,
Southern California, and the Near West Side of Madison, WI.
I dare say that there might have been, and still even remain,
some benighted line of resistance from Tacoma to Anchorage.
College sophomores from D.C. and Oconomowoc might
have, in bashful but bold transgression, held hands
with Kamikaze pilots at coffee shops on State Street,
and rest assured, 'pro rege et patria NON mori' on the
part of Japanese Imperial Forces would have most certainly
been immediately, decisively, and finally demonstrated,
'Primus Post Laurus.'
I might be impressed if these nutters had been reading
The Federalist Papers, James Joyce, or Freud.
But Nietszche and Marx? Sounds like a more or less
predictable fixation with the concerns of The Third
Reich to me. At least the Nazis made a few good movies.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ev-ver learn.
La la.
Japan was and remains, in some ways, a catalog of caricatures --
this perhaps owing to its remarkably unique historical circumstances.
It can be sometimes mesmerizing and sometimes unsettling
in its general intensity and amplitude. Every imaginable
quality of human nature and creativity are brilliantly displayed.
Barring, that is, just those that are taken most for
granted in the West: unfettered individuality and the
casual exercise of personal judgment in the public realm.
One must keep this in mind in order to take in its
extraordinary tapestry without becoming overly
charmed by any of it in its details or particulars.
The contemporary wish, where sincere, to extend the
principles and values of democracy to the sphere of
international relations is to be encouraged.
The attempt to wish any such attributes onto a past
that simply was not so, is suspect.
Call it 'The Cosmopolitical Fallacy,'
or, maybe, 'Fantasy.'
Historical parallels to current events
must, as a rule, be made and taken with
all care and judiciousness.
Excellent Book.......2005-12-01
From my experiences in reading historical non-fiction, there are generally two types of books. One of these simply tells you what happend, while the others, while also accomplishing the recount, also provide an analysis of perhaps why soemthing happend.
This is a must-read and an incredible in depth look at the japanese culture and the pride they have for their country and history.
Excellent.......2005-04-27
I read this book this semester in Professor Ohnuki-Tierney's class on Political and Cultural Symbolism. A must for any undergraduate student of symbolic or political anthropology. The book traces the use of the cherry blossom as a symbol throughout history, eventually arriving at the tokkotai (kamikaze) pilots of WWII.
EOT does a great job dispelling the myth that tokkotai pilots died for the emperor and committed suicide. Instead, she shows the lives of five young men, all highly intelligent university students fluent in Marxism and Western philosophy. These young men joined the Navy to herald a new age for Japan, they did not believe in the pro rege et patria mori ideology American media has assumed.
Don't watch the History Channel specials on tokkotai pilots. Read this book and learn about the harsh reality of war, the cruelty of government manipulation of symbol, and the brilliance of the Japanese men who lost their lives in WWII.
Highly Recommended.......2005-03-08
Exceptional book, I took a class with this professor. The western conception of "suicide pilots" is completly wrong.
Book Description
Attentive observation of art provides an excellent opportunity for better thinking, for the cultivation of the "art of intelligence." The arts are important in an educational setting, therefore, because they can cultivate important thinking strategies in children and adults alike. With
carefully chosen illustrations, Perkins demonstrates how the reflective approach to art can develop broader, more adventurous, and clearer avenues of thought.
Customer Reviews:
excellent content in a brief package.......2006-10-09
Recently I bought at least 5 books regarding the modern art analysis. May be this one is the book that most cleverly resolved the question on how to approach the complex modern art. It presents a strategy to open up your mind and get the most of every piece of art that you confront in a museum or a gallery. It does not dwell upon art history but emphasize on what to look and how to look. Unfortunately, at the end of its barely 90 pages, you ended asking for more.
Intelligent Eye.......2006-03-14
This book is interesting for artists. It opens up your mind for different ways of thinking.
Learn to use Reflective Thinking while looking at art!.......2000-06-27
The Intelligent Eye is a great way to teach students (or anyone) how to think by looking at artwork! This book has an easy to read, conversational style to it as it shares some very basic truths about thinking.
Book Description
The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse - a fear of corruption or contamination through color - lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge color, either by making it the property of some "foreign body" - the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological - or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.
Chromophobia has been a cultural phenomenon since ancient Greek times; this book is concerned with forms of resistance to it. Writers have tended to look no further than the end of the nineteenth century. David Batchelor seeks to go beyond the limits of earlier studies, analyzing the motivations behind chromophobia and considering the work of writers and artists who have been prepared to look at color as a positive value. Exploring a wide range of imagery including Melville's "great white whale", Huxley's reflections on mescaline, and Le Corbusier's "journey to the East", Batchelor also discusses the use of color in Pop, Minimal, and more recent art.
Customer Reviews:
brilliant and brevitous.......2005-12-12
I picked up this book from a list of gotta-haves for a class on aesthetics and I gotta say this enormously eccentric work of journalism/philosophy/strange-spooky, kaleidoscopic-microscopic assorted collection (loosely connected?) on art and its psychological reception is worthy of many, many more clauses weighed down with much, much praise.
Anyone with a theoretical interest in aesthetics will find this book packed with gems begging to be peeked at.
A quirky and compelling read. And short too (+).
one of few worthwhile books on color, not just for its cover.......2003-01-29
Fascinating and readably well-written argument that western civilization has a long-held prejudice (though not one shared by the author) against color, especially bright color.
Batchelor is highly literate and informed, plus has an impressive knowledge of contemporary art. His suggestion that color tends to be seen as frivolous/minor/feminine/or even evil is backed up with wide-ranging references to culture (contemporary and earlier), art history, lit., and more. (Including an unexpectedly timely observation that historically, evidence of the decadence of Islam included its profusion of color and pattern.)
Just a few other examples:
--the white space as sign of seriousness and quality in the modern gallery or collector's home
--the art historical ranking of disegno as superior to colore
--in French lit, the symbolic association of rich hues and precious materials with decadence
And much more.
As for me, I almost had to buy this book for its hot pink cover alone
Color in all its problematic glory.......2002-03-05
Batchelor's own take on color theory is not only a well-researched overview of color in art, architecture, cinema, and literature; it is also a call to action of sorts for artists to reclaim color from its minimalist bastardization in art and its commercial bastardization within the market culture. Batchelor uses the terms "chromophobic" and "chromophilic" to characterize to what extent this bastardization takes place and cites examples from (mainly contemporary) art history as to where the shift from color-as-representation to color-as-color took place.
That discussions of color as secondary to drawing (or design) are neither prevelant in the industry nor in academia proves how engrained into art theory the secondary status of color is. Also of interest is the chapter on the role of semantics and color interpetation. How for example some colors in the abstract such as green-yellows are univerally more difficult to convey than others.
Every serious artist should read this book to reintroduce the importance of color to his/her concerns and to adress contemporary concerns over the loss of color by its oversaturation in less artistic settings.
Customer Reviews:
Inspiring.......2007-05-12
Some of Bennett Reimer's writings are very inspiring. I am so thankful that my college professor used this particular book for our required reading.
Words, words, and more words..........2003-02-08
The man has interesting viewpoints, but these are all overshadowed by the overwhelming verbage. He can explain these principles in fewer paragraphs without missing out on anything. Instead, he opts to confuse readers by using too many words and by beating around the bush. I'd rather read something else if this weren't a required text.
3rd Edition, Same old stuff.......2002-11-10
Reimer wants his readers to think he's done something important by putting his tired, old ideas into new words (here and there) and using a new cover. Only his rabid followers will agree. This is the same old stuff that Reimer has always tried to sell and it fails for the same basic reasons: Reimer does not have -- Reimer never had -- a plausible explanation of the nature and value of music. Reimer is obvioulsy desperate -- he's running very hard -- to save his legacy in this "third" book (the same book x 3!). But he cannot. He fails, again, because a new generation of music education philosophers -- Bowman, Jorgensen, Elliott, Regelski -- has already exposed Reimer's poor thinking, weak scholarship, and faulty logic in the past. This "third" edition is full of the same old problems.
A poor book.......2001-07-24
This book is poor. It 's not "philosophical" in any sense because it's not logical and it's not supported by the majority of music scholars today. Reimer contradicts himself at every turn; he doesn't understand what Langer is really saying; and. his absolutist notion of music is completely out of synch with what most scholars argue about music today. Reimer just mouths a lot of fluffy, feel-good nonsense.
Not convincing!.......1999-12-10
This book is selling old, modernist ideas about music which are totally unconvincing compared to the postmodern views of music (e.g., Lawrence Kramer, John Shepherd, George Lipsitz, Robert Walser, Richard Taruskin) I've been studying in musicology and ethnomusicology courses (where the profs just chuckle at Reimer's book). Why do my music education profs still believe this stuff?
Book Description
A classic of 18th-century thought, Schiller's treatise on the role of art in society ranks among German philosophy's most profound works. An important contribution to the history of ideas, it employs a political analysis of contemporary society — and of the French Revolution, in particular — to define the relationship between beauty and art.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent edition of an excellent work........2006-10-14
Writing in the 1790s, Schiller united the rigorous epistemology of Kant and Fichte with Plato's dynamic account of the development of the soul to produce one of the most beautiful works of philosophy in the European tradition. The Letters on Aesthetic Education offer an interpretation of the development of the individual and the parallel development of Western civilization. These interpretations focus on the conditions that allow for mental health in a human individual and society, and especially demonstrate (as the title indicates) the crucial role of artistic experience in healthy human development. This is a great work, and a great introduction to the other German philosophers of the 19th Century (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, et al). This edition is very good: the translation is good, and it has a facing German text. Highly recommended.
Average customer rating:
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The Arts and Human Development: A Psychological Study of the Artistic Process
Howard E. Gardner
Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0465004407 |
Book Description
The classic introduction to Howard Gardner's path-breaking ideas on the development of creativity, with a new introduction by the author.
Customer Reviews:
Dialectic of Freedom.......2005-09-07
This book arrived in only a few days. Even though it is a used book, it is in very good condition.
Inane ramblings.......2004-09-22
Greene just can't seem to get to the point. Any point. But she does take a long time not getting there. More than any author I have encountered, Greene seems to think that one should never use one or two words when a dozen or two will do the same job. I spent more time rereading Greene's sentences than any other book I can remember with little to show for it. Apparently, Greene feels that filling her book with long rambling quotes, endless lists of examples, arcane terminology, unnecessary adjectives, and run on sentences gives it some gravitas. While it does make it difficult to understand, that doesn't mean that the underlying ideas are deep, just that they are obscured by poor writing.
Oh the Agony!.......2002-02-27
She has valid things to say, but seems more intent on demonstrating her intellegence with grammatical gymnastics. I have to read this for class, and it has been an excruciating experience. Very disorganized thought, poorly edited.
Long winded and profoundly unfocused........1999-06-03
After reading and then re-reading this book, I am impressed only by Ms. Greenes ability to ramble on for 134 pages without making a point.
The best book that I have read for a class........1998-07-13
This book is easily the best and most important book that I have read since I started going to graduate school in 1996. It has truly changed my way of seeing certain things. Dr. Green's vision of freedom is presented by examples from books and other media, and makes the subject both understandable and affecting. If a teacher were to follow her vision and her suggestions, his or her classroom would be the most dynamic one in almost any school. If one is a teacher, or if one merely likes good writing, get this book. It is truly visionary.
Book Description
This book addresses some of the most important topics in medical skin care-not the technical side of the business but the relationship side. Readers will learn how to conduct a client consultation and the most important components of a client care plan. They will also gain valuable advice about developing and maintaining positive working relationships with physicians. From clinician ethics to patient rights, this book helps the reader advance professionally by educating them about these important components of the business.
Book Description
fNathalie Sinclair makes a compelling case for the inclusion of the aesthetic in the teaching and learning of mathematics, and illuminates how the materials and approaches we use in the mathematics classroom can be enriched for the benefit of all learners.
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