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University of California Press

Splendid Monarchy

Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan
by Takashi Fujitani (Author)
Paperback eBook
Price: $49.95 / £42.00
Publication Date: Apr 2023
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780520920989
Trim Size: 6.14 x 9.21
Illustrations: 25 figs., 2 maps
Series:
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About the Book

Using ceremonials such as imperial weddings and funerals as models, T. Fujitani illustrates what visual symbols and rituals reveal about monarchy, nationalism, city planning, discipline, gender, memory, and modernity. Focusing on the Meiji Period (1868-1912), Fujitani brings recent methods of cultural history to a study of modern Japanese nationalism for the first time.


Using ceremonials such as imperial weddings and funerals as models, T. Fujitani illustrates what visual symbols and rituals reveal about monarchy, nationalism, city planning, discipline, gender, memory, and modernity. Focusing on the Meiji Period (1868-19

About the Author

T. Fujitani is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.

Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES AND MAPS    
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS    

I
Introduction: Inventing, Forgetting, Remembering    
Nationalism and the Emperor in Tokugawa Japan    
Mnemonic Sites    
Toward a Historical Ethnography of the Nation-State    
Visual Domination    

PART I: NATIONAL MISE-EN-SCENE    
2
From Court in Motion to Imperial Capitals    
Tokyo as Temporary Court (anzetisho)    
Out from behind Jeweled Curtains    
The Weight of the Imperial Past    
From Temporary Court to Imperial Capital (teito)    
National Landscape and National Narrative    

PART 2: MODERN IMPERIAL PAGEANTRY    
Overview    
3
Fabricating Imperial Ceremonies    
Civilization, Prosperity, and Power    
Spectacles of Antiques    
4
The Monarchy in Japan's Modernity    
The Emperor's Two Bodies    
The Politics of Gendering and the Gendering of Politics    

PART 3: THE PEOPLE    
5
Crowds and Imperial Pageantry    
Imperial Pageants as National Communions    
Mobilizing the Masses    
Popular Folklore and the Folklore of the Regime    
6
Epilogue: Toward a History of the Present    
The Monarchy and Tradition The Imperial Gaze

NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Reviews

"A tremendous book. . . . Fujitani brings his skills and insights to bear on a subject crying out to be addressed: namely, the imperial institution and its formative role in the emergence of the modern Japanese nation state."
— Monumenta Nipponica