Japanese history and the hegemony of chronological time

• Authors: Stefan Tanaka

Title variants

CS

Japonské dějiny a hegemonie chronologického času

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Through an overview of modern Japanese historiography this essay examines the dilemma faced by non-Western (East) and non-modern places when trying to write their own history. The formulation of modern history onto Newtonian time and space-chronological time (progress) and nation-states has been remarkably stable when viewed from the West, but troubling for non-Western places. Since 1868 (Meiji revolution) when a new government endeavored to turn the archipelago into a modern nation-state, Japanese intellectuals and historians accepted the necessity of writing a history of Japan and simultaneously struggled to overcome the stigma of being East or Oriental. They developed several now familiar strategies: more historical research, alternative modernity, and search for authenticity. None accomplished the goal of equivalence. This essay argues that the problems they encountered are in the structure of history itself, in particular, the way that chronological time locks the non-West into a recursive pattern, forever of the East.

Keywords

EN

East-West; Orient; historiography; history; chronological time; hierarchy; repetition

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Český časopis historický (The Czech Historical Review)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 121
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 407-424
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Stefan Tanaka

• Historický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i., Prosecká 809/76, 190 00 Praha 9, Czech Republic