The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory

Ancient Myths and Modern Empire

David Weiss (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

256 Seiten

2022
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-27118-0 (ISBN)

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This book discusses how ancient Japanese mythology was utilized during the colonial period to justify the annexation of Korea to Japan, with special focus on the god Susanoo. Described as an ambivalent figure and wanderer between the worlds, Susanoo served as a foil to set off the sun goddess, who played an important role in the modern construction of a Japanese national identity.

Susanoo inhabited a sinister otherworld, which came to be associated with colonial Korea. Imperialist ideologues were able to build on these interpretations of the Susanoo myth to depict Korea as a dreary realm at the margin of the Japanese empire that made the imperial metropole shine all the more brightly. At the same time, Susanoo was identified as the ancestor of the Korean people. Thus, the colonial subjects were ideologically incorporated into the homogeneous Japanese “family state.”

The book situates Susanoo in Japan’s cultural memory and shows how the deity, while being repeatedly transformed in order to meet the religious and ideological needs of the day, continued to symbolize the margin of Japan.

David Weiss is Assistant Professor of Japanese Premodern Literatures and Languages at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.

List of Tables
Conventions
Introduction
Part I. BLURRED BOUNDARIES AND LIMINAL IDENTITIES
1. A Foil to Set Off the Sun Goddess: Susanoo in the Ancient Sources
2. Passion for Transgression: Susanoo’s Liminal Character
3. At the Margin of the Divine Country: Korea in Japanese Cultural Imagination
Part II. POLITICAL MYTHOLOGY: A GENEALOGY OF SUSANOO’S CONNECTION TO KOREA
4. “I do not want to Stay in this Land”: Susanoo’s Sojourn to Korea in the Ancient Court Chronicles
5. The God with a Thousand Faces: Susanoo and His Alter Egos in Medieval Mythology
6. Korea as a Realm of Death: Susanoo and Korea in Modern Discourses
EPILOGUE: After the War: Susanoo in Scholarship, Tourism, and Popular Culture
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	14.01.2022
Reihe/Serie	Bloomsbury Shinto Studies
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	540 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
ISBN-10	1-350-27118-7 / 1350271187
ISBN-13	978-1-350-27118-0 / 9781350271180
Zustand	Neuware