平特五不中

Please join us for the next lecture in the EAS Speaker Series by Andrew Leong (UC Berkeley). Everyone is welcome!

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Meeting ID: 846 5906 9102

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The Spiritual Foundation for Settler Life: Japanese North American Literature, 1917-1925

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The recent digitization of early twentieth century Japanese-language newspapers has encouraged researchers to take more quantitative approaches toward tracing the emergence of key concepts like 鈥済eneration鈥� and 鈥減ermanent settlement鈥� in Japanese North American discourse. This recent quantitative turn has had the strange effect of casting new light on older turns to self-quantification within Japanese North American communities of the 1910s and 1920s. While generational terms such as 鈥淚ssei鈥� and 鈥淣isei鈥� (first and second generation) are now taken for granted by scholars and community members alike, closer study reveals that their initial propagation was strongly tied to reform campaigns initiated by the Japanese Association of America (JAA) in the late 1910s. The statistical methods employed by the JAA bore the strong imprint of the German Historical School, imparted to U.S.-trained Japanese students by American 鈥渘ew generation鈥� economists and historians. Accordingly, quantitative self-studies of Japanese North American populations readily converted demographic data into evidence of 鈥渆thnic鈥� or 鈥渘ational鈥� spirit (minzokuteki seishin). During a period in which literature was understood as a vehicle for expressing and cultivating ethno-national 鈥渟pirit,鈥� the JAA would join with sympathetic newspaper editors to sponsor literary contests which emphasized the use of generational terms to strengthen the spiritual foundation for permanent settlement.

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