Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)

In Waiting for the Cool Moon Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of colonial violence at the heart of Japanese nation-state formation. She critiques Japan studies’ role in this effacement and contends that the field must engage with anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity as the grounds on which to understand imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and other forces that shape national consciousness. Drawing on Black radical thinkers’ critique of the erasure of the Middle Passage in universalizing theories of modernity’s imbrication with fascism, Matsumura traces the consequences of the Japanese empire’s categorization of people as human and less-than-human as manifested in the 1920s and 1930s, and the struggles of racialized and colonized people against imperialist violence. She treats the archives safeguarded by racialized, colonized women throughout the empire as traces of these struggles, including the work they performed to keep certain stories out of view. Matsumura demonstrates that tracing colonial sensibility and struggle is central to grappling with their enduring consequences for the present. In Waiting for the Cool Moon Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of colonial violence at the heart of Japanese nation-state formation. She critiques Japan studies role in this effacement and contends that it must engage with anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity as the grounds upon which to understand imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and other forces that shape national consciousness. Drawing on Black radical thinkers critique of the erasure of the Middle Passage in universalizing theories of modernitys imbrication with fascism, Matsumura traces the consequences of the Japanese empires categorization of people into Human and less-than-human as they manifested in the 1920s and 1930s and the struggles of racialized and colonized people against imperialist violence. She treats the archives that racialized, colonized women throughout the empire safeguarded as traces of these struggles, including the work they performed to keep certain stories out of view. Matsumura demonstrates that tracing colonial sensibility and struggle is central to grappling with their enduring consequences to the present. Summary:"In Waiting for the Cool Moon, Wendy Matsumura employs works of critical Black theory, including theories of anti-Blackness, to understand the way that the Japanese empire similarly divided people into Human and less-than-human categories. The book brings into relief the forms of struggle and worlds of freedom endured by those excluded from the category of the Japanese-Human-as-Man following World War I. Even as Matsumura works to make the invisible visible, she works against reparative or redemptive desires that depend on colonial logics of recovery. Divided into four parts, the book charts the experiences and archival traces of buraku (a type of untouchable category in Japan), women, Korean workers, and imperial subjects in Okinawa and elsewhere, thinking through their lives amidst colonial violence"-- Provided by publisher Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One. Empire and Oikonomia Chapter Two. Enclosure and the Community of the Commons Chapter Three. Buraku Women against Tripled Sufferings Chapter Four. Housewifization, Invisibilization, and the Myth of the New Small Farm Household Chapter Five. Interimperial Korean Struggle in Fertilizer’s Global Circuit Chapter Six. Empire through the Prism of Phosphate Chapter Seven. Water Struggles in a Colonial City Conclusion. Waiting, Witnessing, Withholding Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z Untitled