Tom Havens

Flowers That Kill: Communicative Opacity in Political Spaces by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (review)

This clearly written, wide-ranging book explores communicative opacity— “an absence of communication or mutual understanding” by individuals who draw “different meanings from the same symbol, or, more often, due to an absence of articulation in their minds of the meaning they are drawing. This leads to an unawareness of the absence of communication among the social actors involved” (p. 2). The author analyzes examples from Japanese culture together with counterparts in European history, loosely organized under the metaphor “fl owers that kill.” In this view, the polysemous cherry blossom, often associated with agrarian productivity, romance, or the evanescence of life, was reconfi gured into a military imperative during World War II: Japanese suicide pilots “were to fall, like beautiful cherry petals, in order to protect the beautiful land of cherry blossoms” (p. 3). Yet, the author argues, the young soldiers failed “to notice that the meaning of the fl ower had changed under the military government” into fl owers that kill (p. 3). This instance of communicative opacity and many others throughout the book form a provocative and highly plausible thesis about the failure of symbols to communicate, as writers from Charles Baudelaire to Pierre Bourdieu have acknowledged, even though the absence of something can be diffi cult to verify empirically. In developing her argument, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney draws on deep readings in anthropological, historical, literary, and other materials, while also revisiting research topics pursued earlier in her career, such as Ainu communities, rice and monkeys in Japanese culture, and the aesthetics of tokkōtai (kamikaze) tactics during World War II (the book’s extensive bibliography includes references to 24 writings by the author, spanning 1964– 2006). The essence of Flowers That Kill is contained in the fi rst four chapters, where the twinned ideas of communicative opacity and fl owers that kill are best developed; the remaining three chapters, on collective identities, the Japanese emperor, and religious and political authority, stand somewhat apart. A chapter on Japanese cherry blossoms contends that “the beauty of falling petals represented the sublimity of patriotic sacrifi ce” in wartime and that “the sublimity of sacrifi ce was hardly recognized even by those who were to lose their lives” (p. 25), some of whom were pilots with cherry blossoms painted on the sides of their aircraft.

Empire of Dogs: Canines, Japan, and the Making of the Modern Imperial World (review)

tion in public rituals. But, on the other hand, at the time of the fi rst “modern” warfare, the government could not decide whether it was appropriate to introduce a specifi c religious ritual for commemorating the war dead. The government was seeking ways to combine tennō worship with a sense of civic duty that was embodied by the soldiers who died for the country. State Shintō was not established fi rmly enough to take a leading role at this point. The conclusion and afterword briefl y wrap up what is meant by saying the Sino-Japanese War gave birth to the kokumin. Saya points out that Japan became a model of the “modern nation” but at the same time became a threatening power to East Asian countries. To promote this idea of the “modern nation,” the media and the entertainment world played indispensable roles in creating the Nihonjin. This conclusion may slightly disappoint readers because it is so widely shared a notion about Japanese nationalism. Also, Saya does not clearly articulate how special or different the SinoJapanese War was compared to the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) or the RussoJapanese War. However, the strengths of this book are in offering introductory knowledge about how mass culture responded to the Sino-Japanese War. I would advise readers of this book to also read the book by S. C. M. Paine about the relationship between the policymaking process and the political leaders’ perception of the East Asian situation to obtain a complex picture of nationalism at the time of the Sino-Japanese War.

The Empty Museum: Western Cultures and the Artistic Field in Modern Japan (review)

the discussion is detailed and sympathetic. This excellent chapter points up most starkly the problem of recycling work from 2001, as it is precisely over this period that the fujoshi emerged as a self-conscious identity (not dependent on otaku identity). In all, the thread produced by these three chapters is so strong that it overshadows the organization of the volume by print fi ction and anime, and hints at what the volume could have been. Azuma Hiroki’s “SF as Hamlet” is interesting in that it is critical of the genre, in contrast to the generally celebratory tone of the volume, and claims that science fi ction stands in relation to failed totalizing philosophies of the nineteenth-century like Hamlet muttering about how best to continue the project of a slain father (that is to say, Hegelian philosophy). The piece rests on the intuitive appeal of that image, though, and contains a summary of the history of philosophy which is simply inexplicable. I have been an admirer of Azuma since his Critical Space days, but this is not the best introduction to his work. In conclusion, this volume is an interesting summary that hits a market niche for the University of Minnesota Press. Though unevenness in conception and quality limit its ability to defi ne and initiate a fi eld, the wealth of data stored in its footnotes will give enterprising graduate students the tools to accomplish that task.

Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s): Fujitani, T., Geoffrey M. White, and Lisa Yoneyama, eds.: Durham: Duke University Press, 468 pp., Publication Date: July 2001

to Zimbahwe, and the peoples of the South. African mcieties evolved in accordance with their received inheritance and the promptings of diverse environments. Merchants and caravan drivers, but also captives, pilgrims, students, and various skilled artificers engiiged in interzonal travel. In warfare, the most essential distinction between Africa’s northern and southern halves “was that between the horsed and the unhorsed” (7). From Darfur to Zimbabwe common rituals of centralized kingship shone. Many more African s h e s served within Africa than outside it. Africans made nearly all of their material goods. .And African spirituality, Islamic and traditional, still vibrated in 1800. I do have some quibbles. Several islandsCape VerJe Principe, Sao TomC, Comoros, Seychelle\-escape attention. Illustrations would be welcome. The authors label Melkites a h Monophysite Christians (30). Actually, Melkites, arrivals in Egypt from Syria, are aiiti-Monophysites, being affiliated with the Koman Catholic Church. The Ethiopian Ziimunu Musufent ended in 1855, not 1885 ( 132-33). And the first British administration of the Cape of Good Hope ended in 1803. not 1799 (226). Medic,i,trl Africa, 12.50-1800 will nicely serve university students of African history and the penrral adult public.