Skip to main content

Precis: " An Ecological View of History: Japanese Civilisation in the World Context" (2003) by Tadao Umesao

In his work, “An Ecological View of History: Japanese Civilisation in the World Context” (2003), Tadao Umesao introduces the approach of theorising history through the use of the study of ecology– an examination of the underlying cause of historical developments, such as the way of life in these communities, to which he refers to as the functionalist design of culture. He employs methods that involve the use of comparisons to find parallel evolutions in the course of history, having divided the civilisations of the Old World between Zone One (Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, etc.) and Zone Two (China, Russia, Ottoman Empire, etc.) of which he theorises that the structure of their societies differ from the beginning, each having their own characteristic form of succession, and therefore must be examined beyond geographical markings. His goal in this paper is to prove an alternative to the Eurocentric approach of studying civilisation by the juxtaposing identities of the “West” and the “East” (Occident and Orient), and introduce a more substantial argument of differentiation as opposed to geographical structures, of which he could theorise Japan’s standing in the world stage. The tone and manner of writing that the Umesao uses is simple and easy to understand, that it reads like a creative non-fiction account or discourse essay, thus I believe it is intended for fellows of the same field of research and aspiring anthropologists and historians.

(October 18, 2016)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bibliography: " Game Design as Narrative Architecture" (2004) by Henry Jenkins

Jenkins, Henry. 2004. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game , edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, 118–30. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. In this article, Jenkins examines games less as stories than as spaces ripe with narrative possibility. He list downs the characteristics of games as defined by current Ludology versus Narratology debates such as: (1) not all games tell stories but they do have narrative aspirations, follows genre entertainment and previous narrative experiences; (2) narrative analysis need not be prescriptive; (3) games should not be reduced to the experience of a story; and (4) if games tell stories, they are unlikely to tell them in the same ways that other media tell stories for games as a medium, specifically, is what distinguishes them from other narrative traditions. He also lists down the problems and limitations within the current game study discourses, often pointing out how ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Precis + Critical Response Paper: " The Imaginary" (2006) Chapter 1 part 1 by Claudia Strauss

Reevaluating Scholarships (October 17, 2019) In Claudia Strauss’s article “The Imaginary” (2006), she gives a detailed discussion and analysis of the major scholarships in cultural studies regarding the matter of the Imaginaries, such as the works of Castoriadis, Lacan, Anderson, and Taylor, in order to map out the essential arguments that are more popularly being used/cited in cultural studies research, before she examines how Ivy uses these concepts with regard to the national-imaginaries with the Japanese socio-cultural sphere. In summary, Strauss explains that Castoriadis was concerned with "concepts of cultural abstraction, reification and homogenization, while Lacan used the concept of the imaginary to explain fantasies, and Anderson and Taylor used the concept for explaining cultural models as potentially valuable when used with person-centered ethnographic methods to study real rather than abstract cultural subjects” (323). Despite the summation of the the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Precis: "The Invention of the Martial Arts: Kano Jigoro and Kodokan Judo" (1998) by Inoue Shun

In Inoue Shun’s “The Invention of the Martial Arts: Kano Jigoro and Kodokan Judo” (1998), Inoue explores the modern invention, and subsequent reinvention, of the Japanese martial arts by an examination of Kodokan judo (163). This is done through a detailed discussion of Kano’s decision and active participation of creating the new martial arts such as: conception, process of modernization through scientification of the martial arts, promotions and competitions, institutionalizations and adoptions into various agencies (government institutions, universities, etc.), establishment of the Kodokan Cultural Association (promotion of the basic principles of Kodokan judo as well as serving as a legitimate infrastructure and governing body that actively promotes the new martial arts ideology), its inevitable re-invention post-Kano years by the Dai Nihon Butokukai (leading to an ultranationalistic role), and finally, a return to the sportification of budo post-WW2 in order to escape censorship wh...
Post a Comment
Read more