Japanimals
豆瓣
History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life
Gregory M. Pflugfelder / Brett L. Walker eds.
简介
From swift steeds to ritually slaughtered deer to symbolic serpents, nonhuman animals of every stripe have participated from the earliest of times in the construction of the cultural community that we know as Japan. Yet the historical accounts that have hitherto prevailed, claim the authors of this innovative volume, relegate our fellow animals to a silent and benign 'nature' that lies beyond the realm of narrative and agency. What happens when we restore nonhuman creatures to the field of historical vision? This book challenges many of the fundamental assumptions that have shaped contemporary scholarship on Japan, engaging from new perspectives questions of economic growth, isolation from and interaction with the outside world, the tools of conquest and empire, and the character of modernity. Essay by essay, this provocative collection compels readers to acknowledge the diversity of living beings who exist at the ragged edges of our human, as well as our historical, horizons.
contents
Preface ix
Confessions of a Flesh Eater: Looking below the Human Horizon
Gregory M. Pflugfelder
Introduction 1
JapaNimals: Entering into Dialogue with Japan's Nonhuman Majority
Brett L. Walker
Grateful Animal or Spiritual Being? Buddhist Gratitude Tales and Changing Conceptions of Deer in Early Japan 21
Hoyt Long
Eabled Liaisons: Serpentine Spouses in Japanese Folktales 61
Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn
The Swift Horses of Nukanobu: Bridging the Frontiers of Medieval Japan 91
Alexander Bay
Exotic-Bird Collecting in Early-Modern Japan 125
Martha Chaiklin
Commercial Growth and Environmental Change in Early-Modern Japan: Hachinohe's Wild-Boar Famine of 1749 163
Brett L. Walker
Can the Subaltern Bark? Imperialism, Civilization, and Canine Cultures in Nineteenth-Century Japan 195
Aaron Skabelund
Orientomology: The Insect Literature of Lafcadio Hearn (1850--1904) 245
David B. Lurie
Didactic Nature: Exhibiting Nation and Empire at the Ueno Zoological Gardens 273
Ian Miller
The Ambivalence of Whaling: Conflicting Cultures in Identity Formation 315(26)
Jessamyn R. Abel
Contributors 341
Index 343