Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame
Robert Tierney
Abstract
This is a study of the figures and tropes of “savagery” in Japanese colonial culture. Through an analysis of literary works, ethnographic studies, and a variety of other discourses, the book demonstrates how imperial Japan constructed its own identity in relation both to the West and to the people it colonized. By examining the representations of Taiwanese aborigines and indigenous Micronesians in the works of prominent writers, the book shows that the trope of the savage underwent several metamorphoses over the course of Japan's colonial period—violent headhunter to be subjugated, ethnographi ... More
Keywords: savagery, Japanese colonial culture, imperial Japan, Taiwanese aborigines, indigenous Micronesians, violent headhunter, ethnographic other, happy primitive, hybrid colonial subject, Japanese colonial period
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 | Print ISBN-13: 9780520265783 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: March 2012 | DOI:10.1525/california/9780520265783.001.0001 |
