Bringing together the work of leading scholars of religion in imperial Japan and colonial Korea, this collection addresses the complex ways in which religion served as a site of contestation and negotiation among different groups, including the Korean Choson court, the Japanese colonial government, representatives of different religions, and Korean and Japanese societies. It considers the complex religious landscape as well as the intersection of historical and political contexts that shaped the religious beliefs and practices of imperial and colonial subjects, offering a constructive contribution to contemporary conflicts that are rooted in a contested understanding of a complex and painful past and the unresolved history of Japan’s colonial and imperial presence in Asia. Religion is a critical aspect of the current controversies and their historical contexts. Examining the complex and diverse ways that the state, and Japanese and colonial subjects negotiated religious policies, practices, and ministries in an attempt to delineate these “imperial relationships," this cutting edge text sheds considerable light on the precedents to current sources of tension.

From its creation in the early twentieth century, policymakers used the discourse of international law to legitimate Japan’s empire. Although the Japanese state aggrandizers’ reliance on this discourse did not create the imperial nation Japan would become, their fluent use of its terms inscribed Japan’s claims as legal practice within Japan and abroad. Focusing on Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910, Alexis Dudden gives long-needed attention to the intellectual history of the empire and brings to light presumptions of the twentieth century’s so-called international system by describing its most powerful—and most often overlooked—member’s engagement with that system. Early chapters describe the global atmosphere that declared Japan the legal ruler of Korea and frame the significance of the discourse of early twentieth-century international law and how its terms became Japanese. Dudden then brings together these discussions in her analysis of how Meiji leaders embedded this discourse into legal precedent for Japan, particularly in its relations with Korea. Remaining chapters explore the limits of these ‘universal’ ideas and consider how the international arena measured Japan’s use of its terms. Dudden squares her examination of the legality of Japan’s imperialist designs by discussing the place of colonial policy studies in Japan at the time, demonstrating how this new discipline further created a common sense that Japan’s empire accorded to knowledgeable practice. This landmark study greatly enhances our understanding of the intellectual underpinnings of Japan’s imperial aspirations. In this carefully researched and cogently argued work, Dudden makes clear that, even before Japan annexed Korea, it had embarked on a legal and often legislating mission to make its colonization legitimate in the eyes of the world.

Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan explores how Japanese Protestants engaged with the unsettling changes that resulted from Japan's emergence as a world power in the early 20th century. Through this analysis, the book offers a new perspective on the intersection of religion and imperialism in modern Japan. Emily Anderson reassesses religion as a critical site of negotiation between the state and its subjects as part of Japan's emergence as a modern nation-state and colonial empire. The book shows how religion, including its adherents and the state's attempts to determine acceptable belief, is a necessary subject of study for a nuanced understanding of modern Japanese history.

The twelve chapters in this volume seek to overcome the nationalist paradigm of Japanese repression and exploitation versus Korean resistance that has dominated the study of Korea’s colonial period (1910–1945) by adopting a more inclusive, pluralistic approach that stresses the complex relations among colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. By addressing such diverse subjects as the colonial legal system, radio, telecommunications, the rural economy, and industrialization and the formation of industrial labor, one group of essays analyzes how various aspects of modernity emerged in the colonial context and how they were mobilized by the Japanese for colonial domination, with often unexpected results. A second group examines the development of various forms of identity from nation to gender to class, particularly how aspects of colonial modernity facilitated their formation through negotiation, contestation, and redefinition.

Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration accompanies the Japanese American National Museum's 2022 "Sutra and Bible" exhibition. Together, the exhibit and catalogue explore the role that religious teachings, practices, and communities played while Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. From the confines of concentration camps and locales under martial law to the battlegrounds of Europe, Japanese Americans drew on their faith to survive forced removal, indefinite incarceration, unjust deportation, family separation, military service, and resettlement at a time when their race and religion were seen as threats to national security. Co-edited by Dr. Emily Anderson and Dr. Duncan Ry?ken Williams, this catalogue weaves visual storytelling with auxiliary essays from thirty-two prominent voices across academic, arts, and social justice communities.

Although a bit scholarly this book is a timely addition to current happenings in Asia.

From the late nineteenth century, Japan sought to incorporate the Korean Peninsula into its expanding empire. Japan took control of Korea in 1910 and ruled it until the end of World War II. During this colonial period, Japan advertised as a national goal the assimilation of Koreans into the Japanese state. It never achieved that goal. Mark Caprio here examines why Japan's assimilation efforts failed. Utilizing government documents, personal travel accounts, diaries, newspapers, and works of fiction, he uncovers plenty of evidence for the potential for assimilation but very few practical initiatives to implement the policy. Japan's early history of colonial rule included tactics used with peoples such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan that tended more toward obliterating those cultures than to incorporating the people as equal Japanese citizens. Following the annexation of Taiwan in 1895, Japanese policymakers turned to European imperialist models, especially those of France and England, in developing strengthening its plan for assimilation policies. But, although Japanese used rhetoric that embraced assimilation, Japanese people themselves, from the top levels of government down, considered Koreans inferior and gave them few political rights. Segregation was built into everyday life. Japanese maintained separate communities in Korea, children were schooled in two separate and unequal systems, there was relatively limited intermarriage, and prejudice was ingrained. Under these circumstances, many Koreans resisted assimilation. By not actively promoting Korean-Japanese integration on the ground, Japan's rhetoric of assimilation remained just that.