Wow! eBook
Kokugaku in Meiji-Period Japan: The Modern Transformation of 'National Learning' and the Formation of Scholarly Societies
Author(s): Michael Wachutka (Author)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: 19 Sept. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 330 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004235302
- ISBN-13: 9789004235304
Book Description
Kokugaku in Meiji-period Japan offers a new perspective on scholarly networks and the foundations of modern Japan. Utilizing never explored original sources and with a unique focus on the persons involved, Michael Wachutka elucidates how kokugaku as a cornucopia of traditional knowledge played an important role in raising a new generation of truly national citizens. Commonly perceived as a purely premodern Edo-period phenomenon, ‘national learning’ counterbalanced an overly Westernization of society in the process of nation building and identity formation.
In addition to kokugaku activities in religious administration and higher education, Wachutka provides a compelling account of the organization and endeavour of three successive academic societies whose most prominent members served as junction of kokugaku’s intellectual network in Meiji Japan.
In addition to kokugaku activities in religious administration and higher education, Wachutka provides a compelling account of the organization and endeavour of three successive academic societies whose most prominent members served as junction of kokugaku’s intellectual network in Meiji Japan.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Michael Wachutka, Dr. phil. (2007), University of Tübingen, Germany, is the Director of the Tübingen University Center for Japanese Language at Doshisha University in Kyoto. He has published several monographs and articles on Japanese intellectual history, national identity, and religion.
