Tropics of Savagery

Tropics of Savagery is an incisive and provocative study of the figures and tropes of “savagery” in Japanese colonial culture. Through a rigorous analysis of literary works, ethnographic studies, and a variety of other discourses, Robert Thomas Tierney demonstrates how imperial Japan constructed its own identity in relation both to the West and to the people it colonized. By examining the representations of Taiwanese aborigines and indigenous Micronesians in the works of prominent writers, he shows that the trope of the savage underwent several metamorphoses over the course of Japan's colonial period--violent headhunter to be subjugated, ethnographic other to be studied, happy primitive to be exoticized, and hybrid colonial subject to be assimilated.

Robert Thomas Tierney is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. From Taming Savages to Going Native: Self and Other on the Taiwan Aboriginal Frontier
2. Ethnography and Literature: Sat Haruo’s Colonial Journey to Taiwan
3. The Adventures of Momotar in the South Seas: Folklore, Colonial Policy, Parody
4. The Colonial Eyeglasses of Nakajima Atsushi

Conclusion: Cannibalism in Postwar Literature

Notes
Glossary of Japanese Terms
Bibliography
Index