Reopening the Opening of Japan

Lewis Bremner (University of Cambridge) is a historian in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.Manimporok Dotulong (Brown University) studies transnational connections across and beyond Asia with a focus on intellectual and environmental history.Sho Konishi (University of Oxford) is a historian specialising in transnational formations of knowledge at Oxford University, where he is the Director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies.

• ContentsAcknowledgments and PermissionsList of IllustrationsNotes on ContributorsIntroductionLewis Bremner and Manimporok DotulongPart 1: Visions of Civilisation1 The 1860 Japanese Embassy and the Opening of American CivilisationSamurai, Interracial Romance, and Southern Print CultureNatalia Doan2 Laughing at CivilisationCharles Wirgman’s Japan Punch and the Reopening of Great BritainWarren A. Stanislaus3 Minakata Kumagusu and the Microbial Turn in Theories of Evolution and Civilisation, 1887–1892Eiko HondaPart 2: Life through the Opening4 Opening the West with Japanese Mermaid Mummies Ningyo in the Making of the Theory of EvolutionMateja Kovacic5 Hyakushō in the Arafura ZoneEcologising the Nineteenth-Century “Opening of Japan”Manimporok Dotulong6 The Transformation of Magic Lantern Technology in Nineteenth Century JapanLewis Bremner7 Squaring Experiences with the OpeningThe Case of Yokoyama MatsusaburōMaki FukuokaPart 3: From Particularity to Radical Universality8 The Modern Closing of a Tokugawa-Era “Opening”The Early Modern Origins of an International Humanitarian OrganisationSho Konishi9 A Defeated Samurai of the Boshin Civil War and the Search for a New UniversalismChinami Oka10 Meiji Civil War Losers in SiamMiyazaki Tōten’s Utopian Farming Community (1877–1896)Joel Littler11 The “Second Ishin” and Kunikida Doppo’s Misunderstood NatureYu SakaiPart 4: Epilogue: Postwar Reflections12 Something Like an AutobiographyAkira Kurosawa on Free Pedagogy and Restoration of Japan’s Democratic SelfOlga V. SolovievaIndex

"A pioneering critique of the historiography of 'the opening.' The book is a major contribution to the field, re-thinking approaches to global as well as national history." - M. William Steele, Professor Emeritus, International Christian University