Japan’s Empire in Asia

Catalog description

This seminar examines the rise and demise of the Japanese empire in the making of modern Asia. As the world’s territory was divided between the colonizers and colonized during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Japan’s case was unusual. The country started out as a victim of imperialism in the nineteenth century, but became an aggressor in the twentieth, ruling over other Asian people. We will situate the Japanese empire vis-à-vis the rest of Asia and pay particular attention to the circulation of goods, ideas, people and practices across imperial boundaries, which shaped both the empire and the countries that surrounded it. Topics will include: the formation of the modern imperialist global system; colonialism, “colonial modernity,” colonial identities, and colony-metropole relations; collaboration and the anti-colonial movements; regional migration; empire and total war; and decolonization.