Article ID: CBB783292989

Science across the Meiji divide: Vernacular literary genres as vectors of science in modern Japan (2024)

unapi

Histories of Japanese science have been integral in affirming the Meiji Restoration of 1868 as the starting point of modern Japan. Vernacular genres, characterized as “premodern,” have therefore largely been overlooked by historians of science, regardless of when they were published. Paradoxically, this has resulted in the marginalization of the very works through which most people encountered science. This article addresses this oversight and its historiographical ramifications by focusing on kyūri books – popular works of science – published in the years following the Restoration, when there was unprecedented public interest in science. It asks, what if we take these kyūri books on their own terms as science books, just as those of the time saw them? This article explores three genres of kyūri books, namely fictionalized formats, such as the epic tale (monogatari); epistolary guides; and genres, such as the sutra, that drew on religious textual practices. It argues that these literary genres provided interpretive frameworks that shaped readers’ encounters with “modern” science. This exploration underscores the importance of engaging with vernacular genres to understand the emergence of science as a global category in the nineteenth century.

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Authors & Contributors
Sugiyama, Shigeo
Wittner, David G.
Meade, Ruselle
Abiko, Seiya
Ackert, Lloyd T., Jr.
Akabane, Akira
Journals
科学史研究 Kagakusi Kenkyu (History of Science)
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Social History of Medicine
Publishers
Drexel University
Harvard University Asia Center
Routledge
University of California Press
University of Rochester Press
University of Toronto Press
Concepts
Modernization
Medicine
East Asia, civilization and culture
Popularization
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Vernacular literature
People
Ishihara, Jun
Kuwaki, Ayao
Nishida, Kitaro
Tanakadate, Aikitu
Nagayo Sensai
Fukuzawa Yukichi
Time Periods
Meiji period (Japan, 1868-1910)
19th century
20th century, early
Taisho period (Japan, 1912-1926)
Early modern
Edo period (Japan, 1603-1868)
Places
Japan
Taiwan
Italy
Institutions
University of Tokyo
Sanitary Society of Japan
Semet-Solvay Company
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