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Book Cover
E-book
Author Fujitani, Takashi

Title Splendid monarchy : power and pageantry in modern Japan / T. Fujitani
Published Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1996

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Description 1 online resource (xiv, 305 pages) : illustrations
Series Twentieth-century Japan ; 6
Twentieth-century Japan ; 6.
Contents Preface and acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction : Inventing, forgetting, remembering -- Part One. National mise-en-sce︡ne : 2. From court in motion to imperial capitals -- Part Two. Modern imperial pageantry : 3. Fabricating imperial ceremonies -- 4. The monarchy in Japan's modernity -- Part Three. The people : 5. Crowds and imperial pagentry -- 6. Epilogue : Toward a history of the present
Summary In 1993, Masako Owada captured the world's attention when she agreed to marry Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan. She was widely portrayed as a progressive, Westernized woman about to enter one of the last bastions of traditional Japanese sexism. Crown Prince Naruhito's world was known to be steeped in ancient tradition, and the strictures placed on her were seen as tragic vestiges of the patriarchal past. But in this dramatic departure from accepted assumptions about Japan, T. Fujitani argues that just over a century ago, there was no such thing as an imperial family, imperial family, imperial wedding ceremonies were unheard of, and the image of the emperor as patriarch did not exist. Demonstrating how the trappings of the emperor were imported from nineteenth-century Western courts, he concludes that the Japanese monarchy as we know it is actually an invention of modern times
Fujitani focuses on public ceremonials and the construction of ritual spaces in the Meiji Period (1868-1912). His work is based on extensive research in Japanese archives and libraries, including the archives of the Imperial Household Agency. To explore the modern transformations of what is often portrayed as the longest continuously reigning monarchy in the world, he focuses on the monarchy's location within a modern regime of power, city planning, the media, and the gendering of politics. Throughout, he presents rare photographs and woodblock prints to trace the image of the emperor from a mysterious figure secluded inside a palanquin to a grand public personage riding in an open carriage in Western military regalia
Analysis Rulers
Japan
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-296) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Emperor worship -- Japan.
Monarchy -- Japan
Emperors -- Japan.
Kings, queens, rulers, etc. -- Japan
HISTORY.
HISTORY / Asia / General
Emperor worship
Emperors
Kings and rulers
Monarchy
Monarchie
Keizers.
Culte impérial -- Japon.
Rois et souverains -- Japon.
Empereurs -- Japon.
Monarchie -- Japon.
SUBJECT Japan -- History -- 1868- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85069494
Japan -- Kings and rulers. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85069537
Subject Japan
Japan
Japon -- Histoire -- 1868- ...
Japon -- Rois et souverains.
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780520920989
0520920988
0585104387
9780585104386
9780520202375
0520202376