Conjuring Up Prehistory: Landscape and the Archaic in Japanese Nationalism [Paperback]

Walter Benjamin observed that it is precisely the modern which conjures up prehistory. From Yanagitas mountain people to Umeharas JMmon civilisation, Japan has been an especially resonant site of prehistories imagined in response to modernity. Conjuring Up Prehistory: Landscape and the Archaic in Japanese Nationalism looks at how archaeology and landscapes of the archaic have been used in Japanese nationalism since the early twentieth century, focusing on the writings of cultural historian TetsurM Watsuji, philosopher Takeshi Umehara and environmental archaeologist Yoshinori Yasuda. It is argued that the Japanese nationalist project has been mirrored by the continuing influence of broader Romantic ideas in Japanese archaeology, especially in JMmon studies.This study considers the ways in which archaeology and landscapes of the archaic have been appropriated in Japanese nationalism since the early twentieth century, focusing on the writings of cultural historian TetsurM Watsuji, philosopher Takeshi Umehara and environmental archaeologist Yoshinori Yasuda.Introduction: Modernity, the archaic and Japanese Nature ;

Chapter 1: Huddle together, warm bodies pressing: the community of Japanese eco-nationalism ;

Chapter 2: I had not seen this kind of mountain or forest before: fkdo as Gothic landscape ;

Chapter 3: Deep Japan: the spectre of strata ;

Chapter 4: Romantic nationalism and the new JMmonology ;

Chapter 5: Conclusions: the violence of Japanese world-shapingMark J. Hudson is a researcher in the Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany. He previously taught archaeology in Japan for more than 20 years and was Professor at the University of West Kyushu and the Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre. His previous publications include Ruins of Identity: Eló*