Hirata Kokugaku and the National Network

This chapter introduces Hirata Atsutane and his thought. Atsutane was a disciple of the late kokugaku scholar Motoori Norinaga, and was recognized as a “Great Man” of the same philosophical tradition. It discusses Atsutane contributions to kokugaku thought, which included new theories on spirits, the spirit realm, the afterlife, as well as the assertion of Japan's place of greatness in the world due to the favor and blessings of the gods of the Japanese pantheon. The chapter also examines the Ibukinoya academy, its succession by his descendants, and the national network of disciples. It highlights Hirata kokugaku through the lens of the Tsugaru disciples and their common interests, which included ethnographic research, attention to the north and spirits, and faith in the gods. Ultimately, it illustrates how Atsutane's concern for commoners in the “countries” as well as his religiosity drew a large following of disciples who formed a national network based around the academy. The chapter then describes the key figures and activities of disciple groups in Shimōsa, Shinano, and Akita to demonstrate social diversity within the academy.

Philology for an Enchanted World: Motoori Norinaga and the Study of Japanese Language and Literature in Early Modern Japan

This article focuses on a pioneering figure in the philological study of language and literature in early modern Japan, Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730–1801). In his studies of Japan’s “ancient Way,” Norinaga describes the correct understanding of the syntactical elements of the ancient Japanese language as a way to restore a lost sense of the world as enchanted, the abode of powerful presences known as kami. For Norinaga, the study of Japan’s ancient literature and language was thus situated within a broader interpretive framework. This article will show how philology contributed to the configuration of this framework as the method by which the disciplined individual was empowered to retrieve a lost sense of enchantment. As such, it takes the position that Norinaga’s philological restoration of enchantment is best understood as a re-enchantment, an attempt to transcend (early) modern disenchantment.

The Politics of Time in China and Japan

China’s past has been an important issue for both Chinese and Japanese political thought, and Japanese visions of the Chinese past changed as they slowly began to decenter China. This chapter traverses several conceptions of the past in both places: the Confucian ideal of the ancient past as ideal, the past as part of a genealogy of a divine Japanese emperor, and the past as part of an evolutionary process. Specifically, the chapter traces concepts of the past from classical Confucianism through early modern and modern thinkers, including Gu Yanwu, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Fukuzawa Yukichi, and Zhang Taiyan. These visions of the past are not merely temporal, but also spatial or geographical, and each vision engages with the present political situation by positing an alternative future.