Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms

by Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko

• ISBN13: 9780226620916
• ISBN10: 0226620913
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Why did almost one thousand highly educated "student soldiers" volunteer to serve in Japan'stokkotai(kamikaze) operations near the end of World War II, even though Japan was losing the war? In this fascinating study of the role of symbolism and aesthetics in totalitarian ideology, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney shows how the state manipulated the time-honored Japanese symbol of the cherry blossom to convince people that it was their honor to "die like beautiful falling cherry petals" for the emperor. Drawing on diaries never before published in English, Ohnuki-Tierney describes these young men's agonies and even defiance against the imperial ideology. Passionately devoted to cosmopolitan intellectual traditions, the pilots saw the cherry blossom not in militaristic terms, but as a symbol of the painful beauty and unresolved ambiguities of their tragically brief lives. Using Japan as an example, the author breaks new ground in the understanding of symbolic communication, nationalism, and totalitarian ideologies and their execution.

Author Biography

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney is the William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of a number of books in English and Japanese, most recently Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time; The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual; and Illness and Culture in Contemporary Japan.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Preface	xi
Chronology: Important Events and Publications	xv
Note on Names, Dates, and Titles of Works	xvii
Introduction	1	(26)
Part 1: THE SYMBOLISM OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN PRE-MEIJI JAPAN
The Field of Meaning, Images, and Aesthetics	27	(34)
Part 2: THE ROAD TO PRO REGE ET PATRIA MORI: NATURALIZATION OF IMPERIAL NATIONALISM
The Emperor's Two Bodies: Sovereignty, Theocracy, and Militarization	61	(41)
The Militarization of Cherry Blossoms: Cherry Blossoms as the Souls of Fallen Soldiers	102	(23)
The Militarization of the Masses	125	(32)
Part 3: THE MAKING OF THE TOKKOTIA PILOTS
The Tokkotai Operation	157	(29)
Five Tokkotai Pilots	186	(59)
Part 4: NATIONALISMS, PATRIOTISMS, AND THE ROLE OF AESTHETICS IN MECONNAISSANCE
State Nationalism and Naturalization Processes	245	(16)
Patriotism: Global Intellectual Currents as Its Source	261	(18)
The Crooked Timber of the Cherry	279	(20)
Summary	299	(8)
Appendix: List of Readings by Four Pilots	307	(34)
Notes	341	(32)
References	373	(28)
Index	401